Social media will continue to be a field where technology, communities, and humans interact with each other. People assume the most popular and current channels that are being used the most by users is social media.

Rising Areas Of Focus

• Voice search
  • The power in which devices are interconnected not just to our platforms or devices, but every facet of our lives and how we can access information directly through these devices by just using our voice.
• Advocacy marketing

• • Influencer marketing is one piece of the puzzle for social media, but there are audience members who are not only part of the community for a brand on social media, but advocates are different, but they are willing to put forth their name and own reputation to endorse the brands without the necessary financial investment an influencer may present.

• Ephemeral content on the rise

• • While social video is becoming more and more prevalent, the content in which is being used that is short lived, mobile first, and only able to be accessible for 24 hr is what drives the high engagement and audiences to these platforms (Hutchinson, 2017).
  • Once they know a video is only going to be available on Snapchat, Instagram, or other similar apps for a certain amount of time, audiences will come. However, the content and experience still needs to be there.

• Social media brand protection

• • It’s not only going to be important to have an offensive strategy when it comes to social media but also build up protocols to protect the reputation and community for a brand on social media.
  • The rise of rumors, false information, and negative actions taken by threatening parties are all aspects that have to be acknowledged and planned for in a social media strategy.
  • The threats and risks associated with these actions online can have a direct impact on the attitudes, behaviors, and communities online.

The Future

1. It’s not only going to be important to have an offensive strategy when it comes to social media but also build up protocols to protect the reputation and community for a brand on social media.
2. The rise of rumors, false information, and negative actions taken by threatening parties are all aspects that have to be acknowledged and planned for in a social media strategy.
3. The threats and risks associated with these actions online can have a direct impact on the attitudes, behaviors, and communities online.

Virtual reality can be defined as “the term used to describe a three-dimensional, computer-generated environment that can be explored and interacted with by a person. Augmented reality (otherwise known as AR) sometimes gets confused with virtual reality, but it is slightly different. VR: Experiential storytelling, education, and impact of cause related marketing. AR: Virtual tours: Allowing people to learn about certain locations (e.g., traveling) and seeing historical virtual notations for significant landmarks. Future of paid advertisements: The rise of virtual ads through AR will continue to skyrocket as more people are using the technologies.

Stay relevant by following  people as well as media accounts. Remain active and participate.

Words of wisdom:

• Be ambitious and embrace what you are passionate about .
• Be persistent.
• Have balance.
• Being a student will always be with you.
• Learn from failures and embrace Plan B.
• Never settle.

 

Cheers! To the most strange semester I have ever had. Grateful to have had it with Buck!! Thanks for everything! I am going to miss you!!

 

Social care tips 

1. Is about providing creative executions of campaigns  
2. Fostering and maintaining the existing relationships among the members of the online community
3. You do not have to be in EVERY conversation. 
4. Listen and understand the situation and context people are in
5. Be present and engaged on the channels your audiences are on.

Steps to set up a proactive social care program for businesses and social media professionals, such as:

• Establish a team of professionals who are trained 
• Create designated responsibilities and training protocols
• Assign specific tasks for individual employees
• Have established key performance indicators to determine success or failure

Perks of social care 

• Making it easy for the customer to get on with their business
• Understanding it’s not only the products people are concerned about but the experience. 
• A negative experience will not only create unhappiness, which can give you a bad reputation 
• Having a vast experience will motivate people to come back and do business or engage with your content more

Social media and nonprofits are a vast topic. Social media helps several nonprofits to become known and stay in business. My personal experience from helping nonprofits with social media is that it made a huge difference and helped the nonprofit to become well known. Many of the successful nonprofits have become some of the most follows on social media. Ways to use social media: Community engagement and education, brand building and reputation, program recruitment, management, and fundraising. An example of a successful campaign was the John Wayne Foundation #ShowYourGrit Campaign. The best practices are to have responsibilities, duties, and a team in place for social media and to spend the time to focus and target your messages, channels, and audiences.

Social media and health care:

Social media is an avenue where patients, customers, and other community members come together. There are some opportunities for health-care professionals to be aware of related to social media. The industry has to follow strict guidelines outlined by government agencies 

Health-care professionals must be able to demonstrate they are supervising the activities of all parties. Some good practices are: Invest in education into legal and public health sectors and listening and timing of protocol response is crucial. Finally, be aware of what you can and can’t say on social media.

How is social media applied? Professionals must understand how to use social media on the brand, agency, and celebrity side, as well as the consumer side.

• Keep these practices in mind:
• Identify the platforms that can best serve your brand
• Have a strategy for all aspects
• Get loyal fans and ambassadors behind your brand
• Be aware of trolls

If you are in the entertainment businesses, social media is a key part of engaging with fans and audiences while using the platform to showcase reach and influence. Be sure to respond to your fans, even if it’s a nasty argument.

Crisis communication

Crises come in all shapes and sizes in the media world. It is essential to have a full understanding of the crisis before posting or commenting on anything. Try not to avoid the situation. Things to know:

• Not doing your research on the situation can lead to it blowing up even more
• Coming across as defensive is never a good look
• Not expressing concern is big no, no
• No response is a bad response
• Set up a crisis management plan and KNOW IT
• Set up a response team
• Go back to the beginning. How did we get to this?
• Write relevant content that is easy to understand
• Please take a minute to breathe and think it over
• Correct fake news

Social media and journalism

• Be responsible, fair, and impartial in stories
• Be confidential and refrain from disclosure of insider information
• Be careful because everything stated on social media is for public viewing
• Share breaking news
• Report stories in real-time
• Offer exclusives
• Find stories
• Be entertaining
• Confirm and validate all information

Social media and sports

Social media has completely changed the way we can view sports. Athletes can thank social media for helping them to increase fans through their social media platforms. They can get attention from just one post. Athletes who teach workout classes can use the social media platform to get more brand awareness. They can also post when classes are held.

Social media is a great place to spread news, brands, and advertise events. If you do not use it properly, it can damage your reputation forever. Be sure to know the correct way to handle a crisis. It is the wild, wild west online.

 

Measurement and evaluation travel hand in hand in many marketing strategic communications and public relations campaigns. Key areas to cover:

• Objectives- what do you want to accomplish
• Inputs: who is your target audience
• Activities- your PR plan
• Outputs- how did people respond
• Outtakes- what reaction is your audience giving you
• Outcomes- how well did the audience like your message
• Impact- any changed results from your content

Game plans will help you to:

• Be better informed about key audiences
• Be able to execute and create useful content
• Align content, stories, and other social media updates to be completed at the right time, place, and platform
• Make each post count

Evaluating social media activities is recommended for these reasons:

• A better understanding of how your social media channels benefit your brand client
• See the overall performances of the content with and without paid support
• Note the place of social media channels within the community
• Discover what worked and what didn’t work
• Determine any missed opportunities, gaps, or lessons to note for the future

Questions to ask yourself:

• How do these metrics align with my set objectives?
• How easy will it be to calculate, collect, and analyze the data?
• Are these metrics universally used across different departments or not?
• Will these metrics be able to help in the decision-making process for future recommendations?
• Which metrics align with the outcomes set forth for the initiative and campaign?

Specific outcomes should be measured and reported as part of your analysis of social media. The strategic communication literature identifies three areas of results to measure: cognitive, attitudinal, and conative. Cognitive outcomes are whether or not people were able to comprehend what you were trying to say in your message. Attitudinal outcomes focus on measuring the response to the content and audiences’ feelings, perceptions, and attitudes. Conative issues focus on behaviors exhibited by audience members who are seeing a post on social media. These three outcomes can be grouped together to formulate a comprehensive social media strategy, a key component to add at planning stages for a social media campaign.

Hubspot can show you:

• Which platform generated the most sign-ups
• What time and day was most effective in reaching audiences
• What action audience members took after they signed up
• The number of sign-ups and additional information on each person
• The average response time to inquiries across channels

Aera to invest in your budget

• Tools- content creation, content monitoring, social media measurements, staff time, etc
• People- you have to have a killer social media team to the best
• Consulting fees- experts that can help you on specific projects
• Research- know the data to become the best
• Education- books or certification
• Promotion and sponsored content- pay to play! If you want to get your name out there, you may have to pay for people to see your content

• • Invest wisely- do not choose poorly when it comes to your budget. Really evaluate the areas you need to invest in. it is better to have to the right tools for the job than not be able to implement your ideas in social media effectively
  • Spend the money in areas that will take the most time or with which you need assistance. There are only so many hours in the day.

Further considerations for measurement, evaluation, and budget

• Use plain language this is not full of jargon
• Don’t be afraid of number with the budget
• Articulate your limitations and note differences in data
• Check your metrics and methods regularly and do a routine audit of the processes for social media
• Invest in measurement training and educations
• Set forth checklist for measurements strategy and evaluation
• Learn from your insights and adjust when needed

 

 

Strategies and tactics are essential. Questions to ask yourself:

• What communication and business objectives are the most important to consider for this social media initiative? Mainly this is asking what your goal or what overall activities and behaviors do you want your content to accomplish is.
• What types of content really resonated with your audience? Audiences want to be entertained. Therefore, you need to make sure the content you share is eye-catching and makes them continue to look for your content.
• Which channels have been our most influential in the past? Use your data from the past and make sure to stick to something similar if it was a hit.
• How much in terms of resources do we have to spend on this content execution? This is about predicting the amount of planning, strategizing, brainstorming needed to make sure everything is aligned.

The approach used to promote content to the masses is referred to as content marketing. This kind of marketing is a strategic marketing approach to a target audience and is used to drive customer action. Some reasons to use content marketing are because you have to have brand awareness. You can gain respect and a reputation in the industry through content marketing. It also helps to provide assets to a social media campaign. Everyone wants to have evergreen content; this is content that stays relevant for a long time and doesn’t have to be regularly updated.

Content idealization is all about the strong idea:

• Look at what is outside of the social media industry
• See what the research is saying
• Categorize ideas in terms of whether they accomplish content goals
• Set up regular brainstorming sessions
• Find the spark
• Note the reasons people like it or do not like it

Content strategy is the strategy component for content is simple: what your overall goals as a brand or company, and how do you want to execute them.

Content promotion is making sure people are seeing and sharing your content. Use tools such as:

• Klear
• Meltwater
• Hootsuite
• Talkwalker
• Zoomph

The content calendar is a vital template for keeping the content you share online, organized, and consistent.

• Helps plan out content around key dates
• Keeps everything in a single place for everyone to be on board with
• Sets up expectations for when certain content and assets need to be scheduled and/ or sent out ahead of schedule
• See where you need to add or take out content for your campaign

Types of content media

Paid- is where you pay for social media advertising

• Sponsored ads, post, or tweets
• Paid influencers

Earned- not controlled by brands but the media you get through PR

• Media relations
• Influencer relations
• Ambassador endorsements
• interactive medium where conversations begin
• Facebook group shares
• Twitter retweets
• Instagram pod discussions
• Advocates and ambassadors sharing content with communities
• Influencer promotions

Owned- the content platform you control as a brand

• Testimonials
• Blog post
• White pages
• Podcast
• E-books

Best practices:

• Create content worth sharing
• Look at the data and see what the numbers are telling you
• Invest in the time to interact with audiences
• Make the extra effort and provide more than the audiences expects
• Edit
• Find time to write when you think you don’t have any time

Social media communities are more niche, which means focused explicitly on a particular interest, location, or characteristic than ever before. Audience segmentation refers to the process of categorizing people into certain groups based on specific criteria. Reasons for being particular in your messages:

• Being more effective in your paid advertisement on social media
• Having a clear idea of who you are reaching and what is important to them
• Understanding the range of different touch-points for each user

Key terms

The primary audience is made of the individuals you want to target first

The secondary is made of the individuals you wish to target second

 

Emerging audiences are those you want to note as individuals based on their monitoring and listening they do on social media. They could transform into key primary audience.

Opponents are also, known as critics, are self-explanatory these audiences are not the biggest fans of the brand you represent

Creators are a subset of influencesr who focus on creating original content in their own voice for brands rather than just sharing brand-generated content.

Ambassadors are advocates for the brand. Another type of audience to consider for social media are those who advocate for and promote you’re based on their own personal interest. Hootsuite has an ambassador program that focuses on engaging professionals who not only use Hootsuite products in their work but are actively supportive of and loyal to the company.

Influencers

An influencer is someone who has built an audience and is viewed as an authority figure. Influencer marketing is becoming one of the more prominent and fast-paced areas of specialization in social media. Brands and influencers have to disclose their relationship and follow Federal Trade Commission guidelines.

Influencers should be creating relevant content, not just ads. Social media influencers represent an online persona or an identity constructed by an individual online that may or may not represent who he or she truly is in real life. Influencers have to rely on their audience and fans to continue to stay on top. If you want to engage with influencers may give them a shout-out on twitter. Make yourself stand out from all the other comments they receive. Know what you want to get out of following an influencer. Finally, stay away from fake or false influencers. A key thing to look at is are they promoting a brand or just themselves.

Best practices:

• Be prepared to compensate the creator or influencer
• Allow creative freedom so that there is a mutually beneficial relationship
• Do your research
• Set out your expectations and guidelines for brand voice and community

6 C’s of effective writing

1. Content
2. Community
3. Culture
4. Conversation
5. Creativity
6. Connection

Know the difference between brand voice and tone. When creating your brand voice make sure it does not reflect your own perspective, but rather that you embody the personality characteristics that are unique, memorable, and authentic to your brand. Tone is the overall voice of characistics you want to interject within the content you are writing. This would be if you are witty, professional, or funny. Brand voice and tone are interconnected; just know the difference.

Types of writing styles for social media

• Professional (general motors)
• Snarky (Wendys)

• Prodct brand focused (Under Armour)

• Inspirational (adidas)
• Audience focused (Budweiser)
• Conversational (dunkin’ donuts)
• Witty (Taco Bell)

• Educational (Sephora)
• Personality focused (Charmin)

 

Strategic plan is a systematic, thorough, and aligned document that outlines from start to finish what a brand, individual, or organization wants to accomplish to address a problem, take advantage of an opportunity or explore potential new possibilities through experimentation. Components of a strategic plan:

• Background information
• Brand voice
• Vision and mission
• Environmental Scan Analysis
• Client or company focus
• Social media communication audit
• Situational analysis
• SWOT
• Goals
• Objectives
• Key audience members
• Strategies and tactics
• Evaluation
• Budget
• Calendar

Brand voice is the overall tone, personality, and entity that you want to present online; it is probably one of the essential elements to consider. Vision is the guiding principle that describes the overall goals and dreams. Mission describes the key aspects of the whole purpose of an organization, brand, or person.

Mission statement questions to ask yourself:

• Who are we?
• Who are our customers?
• What are our goals presently?
• What is our voice as a brand, and what is the voice of our community?
• What is our leadership style like?

Conducting a social media communication audit is one of the most important things to do before implementing a strategic plan on social media. Analyze all communication elements, content, channels, and personnel within the client organization. You need to be aware of the internal culture and perhaps politics emerging within the company or brand. The plan should outline present use and attitudes regarding social media as well as reaction from internal and external audiences.

S- strengths

W- weakness

O- opportunities

T- Threats

Key audience members

• Primary are those you want to target directly and that have a meaningful relationship and connection with the client
• Secondary is supportive and potentially viewed as influences by the primary audience members
• Demographics are a fundamental way to categorize a group of individual and involve the basic population data that are easily collected, such as age, education level, ethnicity, and location

Strategy is the heart of a strategic plan. Tactics are the tools and applications within social media that you will use to accomplish your objectives and fulfill your strategies.

 

Chapter 5

Useful data inform, educate, and validate the work social media professionals do on their respective platforms. Metrics, which is data collected by a social media professional systematically, allow the business or brand in question to know what worked, what didn’t, and what to do differently next time. Social media professionals do not want to assume with this data; they need to accurate to be successful. Research can be extremely challenging in social media, but it is worth it in the long run. Social media managers have to listen to what the data are saying before providing commentary on what the data meant. Research, especially analytics, provides us with evidence of the impact and potential return these “waves” deliver us. Data drives the “pay to play for social media. Click through rates is how many time people clicked on a link to navigate to another website, and behavioral metrics are what actions people are taking on social media. Finally, vanity metrics are metrics that make all of us feel good but do not tell us anything about the process, I would call them useless, but people always need a good boast in life. Research is frustrating in social media, honestly, just frustrating in general, but critical in life.

Monitoring is the systematic process of understanding, analyzing, and reporting insights and conversations on reputation, brand positions, community health, and opinion of crucial audience members virtually. Listening, on the other hand, is about learning, exploring, and uncovering emerging trends, opportunities, activities, and issues that could impact the company either positively or negatively. Benefits of monitoring and listening:

1. Calculating the overall growth of your community audience and behavior measurements
2. Analyzing and measuring key trends surrounding an event, person, or brand compared to competitors and other significant parties in the community
3. Determining the overall tone and sentiment of the community discussing a key player in a social media plan
4. Understanding our audiences and what they are responding to the most
5. Turning unhappy customers through proactive monitoring and interactions into loyal customers through relationship management practices

Types of metrics

Basic- followers, sentiment, and engagement

Advanced- dive into the actions and psychographics

Advocates- loyal and invested audiences who support the brand

Channel- unique to specific channels

Behavioral- explore download and lead generation

Conversion rate- how many clicks and actions resulted in sales divided by the number of clicks and actions are taken

Amplification rate- how much the content has been shared

Questions to ask yourself about your platform

• What metrics is the platform using?
• What is the payment model?
• Are the tools free?
• How does the platform measure each metric?
• How does it calculate the results in its reports
• Do that platform offer training and educational opportunities?
• How long has the platform been established in the field
• How much does a service cost?

Chapter 4

Who hires social media professionals?

• Social media specific agencies operate somewhat differently than traditional corporations. Corporate settings are more structured, formal, and tied to regulations.
• Experience is the first thing employers want to see

• • Portfolio of work
  • Colleagues and what they have done. Some people just fell into social media jobs by helping the company with a social media platform. Social media jobs can be created in a day.
  • Culture is one of the most important things to have
  • Organizational structure for social media

 

Where to work in social media?

• Large social media agencies
• Large social media companies
• Boutique social media agencies
• Small businesses
• Self-employment
• Corporations
• Nonprofits
• Government
• Sports
• Media
• The opportunities are endless

 

Key social media roles

• Social media community manager- focus on advocating for the brand on social media
• Social media coordinator- focus on the strategic planning and execution of the social media content for a brand or organization
• Social media strategist- ties in the goals and objectives for the company or clients in question and focuses on how to get these measures accomplished
• Content creator- create work that resonates with audiences
• Freelancer- is one of the more popular routes to take due to the flexibility and independence that come with choosing your own clients and projects
• Consultants- specialize in what they offer clients

 

The $$

• Average social media manager

• • 31,057 – 74,770
• Average social media specialist
  • 30, 035 – 57,631
• Average social media director salary
  • 34,862 – 127,394