social media Archives Page 5 of 15

Your union’s website must be the core of your social media plan

May 9, 2012 by Alex

Your union’s website should be at the centre of your digital strategy. A good website will help bring together the many disparate elements of your online campaigning and provides the bridge between the various social media networks your union may be active on.

There’s no doubt unions should be active on social media. Over eighty percent of Internet users have a social media account. Facebook has over 3.5 billion visitors per month and over 800 million users. LinkedIn has over 50 million visitors per month. YouTube has over 1 billion visitors per month. Twitter has over 100 million visitors per month. Over 40,000 new blogs are created every day. New social media sites are being created every day. Australia is one of the largest per capita users of social media in the world.

People want to connect online with other like-minded people on these popular social media websites. Why wouldn’t your union want to put its website in the middle of these popular online communities?

Just imagine if you could capture the smallest fraction of the web traffic generated by Facebook. What would that do for your union and its campaigns?

Diversify your traffic

I regularly advise that your union’s website should be the hub for your online campaigning and social media efforts. This doesn’t mean however that all of your efforts should be aimed at getting people to leave their social media accounts to visit your site. It is a big deal for someone to leave the “frictionless” environment of Facebook or Twitter to go to another website, so it needs to be worth it. If your union’s website isn’t going to give them a relevant, useful experience, then it can be a mistake.

Remember, the point of social media is engagement with your union. If you can continue to engage potential supporters or members elsewhere, driving them to your website isn’t always a priority. Also remember that your website should contain different elements, such as a blog, to generate interesting content.

For example, you could use your union’s Facebook page to send people to a blog post; your tweet could link to a Facebook event; your email newsletter may direct people to like your Facebook page, and so on.

By diversifying your traffic you’re introducing people to your different social media properties so you can engage them in different ways. Some people like to engage on Facebook while others like to engage on LinkedIn. Other people love to Tweet and engage with people on Twitter. There is no right or wrong answer so you have to test to see where your target audience resides. Engage them where they like to hang out and they’ll be more willing to engage with you.

Remember, go where your members are.

Once you engage with a potential supporter or member on a social media site, you converse and build a relationship. As the trust builds over time, you can introduce your new supporters to your other social media properties and to your website. You should also introduce people to other useful websites and blogs that aren’t necessarily related to your union (e.g. news articles, other union and non-profits’ blogs, etc). This extends your friendship and they trust you more. If you only share your own websites and social media communities then they’ll trust you less.

The key to being successful in social media is to be authentic and honest.

Approach it from the perspective of creating a long-term relationship and trust. Never try to “sell” your union on social media.

[box border=”full”]For a fantastic example of an online campaign that successfully inter-linked its social media properties with its website, see the Iceland Wants To Be Your Friend campaign.[/box]

Six tips on how to implement the new Facebook Timeline

April 22, 2012 by Alex

If you manage your union’s Facebook page, you’ve no doubt noticed that Facebook pages have looked a bit different from 30 March. This is because there’s now a new type of Facebook page layout, called “Timeline”. It’s a major change to how Facebook works for organisations, and if you’re not making the best use of this new layout, then you’re missing out on some important opportunities.

Broadly speaking, the Timeline means that unions can’t use the “landing tabs” any more to funnel visitors to like the page or sign up to email lists. However, the new design also helps non-profits like unions to create a coherent story and narrative by adding major events and milestones for the union (e.g. founding, mergers, and major victories and campaigns), as well as photos and videos.

One of the best non-profit implementations of the new Facebook Timeline is Lance Armstrong’s cancer charity, Livestrong. Livestrong was an early adopter of the Timeline, and they’ve really made amazing use of the layout, benefiting from a strong visual brand to engage and draw in visitors.

Go and visit the Livestrong page to see how they use Facebook to engage supporters with strong calls to action and powerful, consistent design.

The Humane Society of the United States demonstrates how non-profits are using the timeline to mark momentous and significant historical events — and unions could do this kind of thing very easily. Major victories like the Eight Hour Day, OHS Laws, the Rights at Work campaign or successful bargaining campaigns like CleanStart could all feature in the new Facebook Timeline.

Because the new Facebook Timeline is now active, your union communications team should be looking at the new features and starting to make changes.

Recommendations on getting the most out of your new Timeline

Here are a few of my suggestions on how to get the most for your union out of the new Timeline:

1. Sit down and plan it out

There are some very useful resources available for non-profits that unions should read carefully before jumping in to the Timeline. You should understand how the changes impact on your social media plan, and how the person (or people) who administers the page will work. I’ve written before that your union’s social media plan should be an actual plan, so take the time to revise it and figure out the workflow for updating your page.

2. Read the guides

Facebook has a lot of useful advice: their Timeline ‘about’ page and their FAQ/Help page. While there’s a temptation to just dive in, the advice from Facebook is genuinely useful, and there’s a lot more examples of well designed and planned Facebook Timelines for you to get inspiration from (mainly corporate ones).

Visit your existing page — and if you haven’t created a proper Timeline “cover”, you should ask whether the page as it is works in the new format, and if not, what needs to change.

In addition to the Facebook provided resources, social media site Mashable has a good post on preparing your new Timeline, including links to advice on creating covers.

3. Drop your default landing tabs

One of the major features of the old Facebook pages, which I promoted in my e-book and elsewhere, is now gone. This is a shame, because it was a great tool. In most cases, without this tab being made a default, you should just scrap it.

Replacing the default tab is a new feature called “pinned posts”, which are updates that remain at the top of your Timeline. You can consider these your new landing tabs — but they only stay pinned for seven days. This means you can still prominently display a call to action, but it also means you’ll need to think about what it will change to every week. A good part of this is that it makes you think about how you are going to engage visitors and get new likes.

4. Profiles and covers

If you have a graphic designer on hand, get them to do you up a fantastic cover image. If you don’t have one, your do-it-yourself approach should focus on using an amazing, inspiring photo. Check out the SEIU’s Facebook Timeline (by clicking on “photos”, you can see all their old cover photos).

Here’s a good list of 30 creative Facebook covers and a Google search will reveal many more. Bear in mind that there are rules about what can appear on a cover — e.g. no buttons, calls to action or arrows pointing to the “like” button.

5. The new Admin dashboard

There’s a brand new administrative dashboard for Facebook page admins to get a snapshot of your fan activity and other data.

This dashboard is designed to help you make your page more engaging for fans and visitors — and if you need some more advice on how to use the new Timeline to resonate with your fans, check out this good guide. A neat feature is the user activity log, which shows all of your posts, posts on your wall by others and when your page has been tagged in a post.

6. Administrator communication

Many unions will have multiple people operating their Facebook account — whether you’re a national or federated union or have offices around Australia (or whatever country you’re in). There’s now some useful tools available to page admins to help you communicate as a team with your fans, using the Page identity. This means that rather than responding to your fans as “Joe Bloggs”, you can now leave replies or messages as “Union X”.

[box border=”full”]Have you updated your union’s page to the new Timeline? Do you have any good examples of union Facebook Timelines? Leave a comment.[/box]

Nine ways to promote your union’s website

April 12, 2012 by Alex

So, you’ve taken the steps to create your union’s website… but what do you do now to get people, your members, supporters and potential members, to visit it?

This is the challenge that many unions face: bringing in new traffic for a purpose. After all, that’s how you will recruit more members, encourage more supporters to your union’s cause, and win campaigns.

Here are nine proven ways to get some public illumination for your union’s website, whether it is your main homepage or a campaign site.

1. Search engine optimisation

SEO is the process of increasing your union’s website’s visibility in search engine’s (like Google, Yahoo or Bing) organic results through optimising certain parts of your webpages with the “keyword” phrases you think people are likely to search for.

Think about it: when you search for something in Google, do you typically go beyond the first couple pages of results? Probably not, and neither will your potential customers. In fact, the vast majority of Google users never go past the first page. That’s why getting to the first page of search results for your specific “keywords” is important.

Some popular ways to improve organic search results are through editing existing content, removing barriers to indexing activities of search engines (some types of content management systems allow you to “block” search engine indexation, so be sure to check), increasing the number of backlinks or inbound links (links your website receives from other webpages — which indicates the popularity or importance of your website).

Search engine optimisation at a basic level is very easy to do, but can be a very technical enterprise in some cases. Most “out of the box” content management systems (like Drupal or WordPress) have good built in SEO or high quality free plugins. You want to get at least this level of SEO on your site. Custom built or proprietary CMSs should also have SEO settings — and the consultants or design agency that sets up your site should be able to demonstrate to you that your site’s SEO has been set up.

If you’ve never optimised your site for SEO, it can be worth getting specialist consultants to do it for you. If you have a very competitive “SEO” market (for example, during elections or for keywords that are highly prized by multiple organisations), investing in SEO assistance can be worth it. Make sure the consultants you hire can demonstrate past success, and avoid any that talk about “black hat” options.

2. Blogging and guest blogging

Blogs or regularly updated news sections are excellent ways to bring new visitors to your union’s site. A union blog creates content for visitors to share, is attractive to Google (which prioritises new content over old), and demonstrates your expertise to potential members. For example, blogging about current industrial issues, or your union’s position on controversial news items (like the mining tax or internships) can help draw new visitors. Getting delegates or members to blog about issues they face, or other guests (for example, former officials who may now be members of parliament, or leaders of other organisations) can encourage those guests to promote your site through their own networks.

3. Pay per click (PPC)

Most affordable online advertising (such as through Google) is “pay per click”. It can be an inexpensive way to target a specific group of people to draw them to visit your site, whether its your main site’s join page or your campaign site. Here’s how pay per click works.

You pay a fixed price for every click your ad gets in the search engine, and your ultimate goal of the click is to “convert” that person to do something on your site (e.g. join, sign a petition, join your email list, etc). With Google AdWords, there’s no spending requirement — you can set a budget of as little as five or ten dollars a day (you could have a monthly budget of $140 for ads, which would equate to $5 per day) or a maximum cost of ten cents for each click, for example.

You get to write the words of the ad, and choose the website the person is sent to when they click the link on your ad. Your objective is to make sure the person who clicks the ad actually does the thing you want them to (i.e. converts), so choosing the right “keywords” is important, as is having a good landing page.

4. Facebook ads

Facebook ads are a kind of pay per click. With over 75% of all Australians possessing a Facebook account (the highest users in the world), and over 800 million world-wide, advertising on Facebook can be an effective way to promote your union’s website, especially campaign sites.

Facebook ads help you create context, and target social activities, not just searches. They can target specific demographics, friends of people who are already fans of your union’s Facebook page or specific locations. And they work just like other pay per clicks, where you set a daily budget and overall campaign budget.

To give a quick example, when I worked at the NTEU, I organised Facebook ads targeting current students of RMIT, where the staff were on strike. The ads promoted the strike to students, linking to a special page written for students explaining the strike. I also did another Facebook ad targeting international students considering attending RMIT, promoting the RMIT staff’s grievances. I was able to target only these people because Facebook taps into the wealth of social information that Facebook users enter into their profiles.

5. YouTube

You’ve probably heard of Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 video. With over 68 million views, it shot Invisible Children into the mainstream spotlight and drove millions of people to visit their website. All from a You Tube video.

While Invisible Children spent over $2 million on their video, a well made YouTube video can help encourage people to visit your website. Not only does Google index your YouTube content, but it allows people to share it on their own sites, or through social media.

Most union videos are unlikely to reach the “viral” status of Kony 2012, but even without millions of views, videos are still an important way to get people to your union’s website.

For your union’s YouTube video, it’s important to invest in a good camera and good sound equipment. Ideally get a professional to film and edit it for you. If you can’t afford that, try contacting film schools and asking students to help you out. Make sure your video includes a strong call to action, that tells viewers exactly what to do once they’ve finished watching. Should they visit your website? Join? Sign a petition? Non-profit YouTube videos can include interactive buttons inside the videos.

You can also advertise inside YouTube by buying ads — so that’s another way to promote your own videos and your union’s website.

6. Email campaigning

I’m a firm believer that email is an essential tool for online campaigning. I’ve even written a free e-book about it.

Email is a fantastic tool because it ubiquitous and action oriented. You can use email to encourage people to repeatedly return to your site to interact with new content, for example: new campaigns, new blogs, new updates, new brochures or newsletters, and so on.

Websites can also be easily set up to obtain peoples’ email addresses, including sign up forms. Unions are lucky in this regard because most unions will have their members’ email addresses. Make sure you use a good email marketing service, like MailChimp, so it can connect to your analytics, social media and Ad words.

7. Word of mouth

Word of mouth ranks high on what influences people choosing to buy a service. For unions, it’s very important to build a “buzz” in a workplace — to generate word of mouth — about the union and its campaigns. People are likely to trust the views of friends, family and colleagues.

Encouraging your existing members and supporters to promote your union’s website is a great way to increase site traffic. The easiest way to encourage your members to do this is to ask them — using email or social media, or through traditional methods like stickers, posters or leaflets.

8. Social media

Similar to email marketing, social media helps you communicate with your members and potential members. The key to successful social media is ensuring it has a purpose: recruiting new members or supporters, getting donations or selling union t-shirts (etc). Check my Social Media for Unions e-book here.

Social media also lets you see what members or people in a workplace are talking about, the things they’re concerned about. Because social media operates in real-time, it is also useful for responding to crises, whether internal, or a crisis taking place within one of your employers or campaign opponents.

9. Public relations

Public relations encompasses the traditional tool kit: media releases and media kits, special events (a public launch of your site), press conferences, lobbying, and so on. The goal being to get your website in the press. The mass media is still relevant and will help drive the “virality” of other elements of your website (your YouTube video for example). Journalists may also refer to your website for their articles.

New media and online campaigning is all well and good, but don’t neglect the tried and true traditional PR methods as well.

Social media etiquette

March 1, 2012 by Alex

With more and more progressive organisations, candidates and unions getting into social media, the concept of etiquette is increasingly important. Most social media networks have unwritten rules of etiquette, particularly the smaller social networks (like new kid on the block Pinterest).

I’ve written before about email etiquette, and how it is important that you treat the recipients of your emails (or tweets, or Facebook messages, etc) with respect.

With more and more people using social media to provide feedback, make a complaint or follow up on an inquiry, guidelines for social media etiquette are increasingly relevant. It’s also worth noting that “social media” encompasses the big two — Facebook and Twitter — but also includes traditional blogs and email as well. The essence of “Web 2.0” is interactivity and having a dialogue.

Over at Knowledge Wharton, there’s a useful list of three things that organisations can do to “master” social media etiquette:

Saying ‘thank you’: Staff from online eyeglasses retailer Warby Parker send thank you notes to bloggers who write about the company, said Tim Riley, director of online experience for the firm. “It doesn’t matter if they have one or one million followers. We try to treat each blogger exactly the same,” he noted. “That helps us establish a relationship from the start. Hopefully people will then be more inclined to write about us on an ongoing basis.”

Getting personal: Panel moderator Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton operations and information management professor, told a story about the personalized service that Zappos offered a customer who was going through a rough patch. A member of Zappos’ social media team read a blog post in which a consumer wrote about the recent death of her mother and mentioned that she didn’t have time to return a pair of shoes to the retailer. “Zappos had a truck sent to her place to pick up the shoes,” Hosanagar said. In addition, the company sent the woman a bouquet of flowers. “Customer interaction with retailers is ultimately transactional on the one hand, but with social media,you can create a one-on-one relationship.” Hosanagar noted, however, that the situation can also become challenging for retailers because they must extend the intimate relationship offline, when shoppers come to their bricks-and-mortar locations.

Targeted training: Dennis McEniry, president of Estee Lauder’s online business, said that the company provides targeted training and advice for employees interacting with consumers via social media. “Rather than trying to train our customer service people to speak online, we took makeup artists and beauty advisors and taught them” to give followers on Twitter, for example, suggestions and tips for using various products, McEniry said. The second group of people who speak online on behalf of Estee Lauder includes community managers who are in charge of social media for particular brands. “The third group is general employees. While we encourage them to speak on behalf of the brand they work for, we train them about what to say and what not to say,” and other do’s and don’ts during a two-day course, he adds. “We are more worried about what they say, or how they say it, than their active participation [in social media.] We also have a rule that any employees using these tools have to reveal that they work for a particular brand.”

These are all good pieces of advice, and although they are principally focused on the private sector and small business, there are many parallels to progressive organisations, non-profits, political candidates and unions.

For example, you should acknowledge donors and members (or delegates) who contribute significantly to your cause. With more and more journalists and amateur journalists using social media or blogging, a thank-you when your story is picked up can contribute to your good relationship.

All of your communications, whether to union members, or constituents (for politicians) should be personalised — and your organisation should have a member database (customer relationship management, CRM tool) that allows you to make notes on important milestones or events (birthdays, existence of children, and so on) so you can be aware and sensitive to personal circumstances.

Finally, the training advice is essential — you should train your front-line people — organisers, campaigners, service officers — in how to use social media effectively.

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