What Do You Really Want? Honing in on Goals for a Social Media Plan

Do you really know what you want to get out of a campaign? A project? A conversation? While there's merit to letting things happen naturally and with fluidity, having a set of goals in the back of your head is key to accomplishing any given task. It's important to zoom out and look at the big picture and decide how to tackle issues at hand before diving into a project.

Start from the finish line. When creating a social media plan, or any communications plan for that matter, start from the end and work backwards. What date would you like to complete everything by? It can take some fanning of the fire to get a social media buzz going with only free communications tools at your disposal, so allow yourself at least a few months to accomplish your goal.

Decide on what you specifically want to accomplish. You'll have to build your social media plan differently, depending on whether you want more Twitters followers and Facebook fans, more interactions between fans, more comments, more stories, more donations or more traffic to your website? If you want more of all of the above, you may want to focus on a couple of areas to start with. Think about which areas would make the biggest impact both externally and internally. In other words, focus on what seems like the most effective way to reach out to your audiences, whether than entails attracting new ones or strengthening relationships with the audiences you have, and also think about a way to measure and increase ROI, which you can report back to your organizations' leaders to validate your efforts.

Break it down, count backwards. Teachers make unit plans, or big, overarching plans, for 2- to 3-month periods and then break the steps into manageable goals to shoot for on a week-by-week basis, then a day-by-day basis, then a task-by-task basis. Treat you plan the same way. For example, if you ultimately want to deepen your relationship with Facebook fans, every week, you might want to plot out several stories with photos or videos to share, a question, an interesting fact and a call to action to include.

Evaluate as you go. Remember that your plan is just that, a plan. Make assessments and adjustments along the way to optimize your messaging. Let your decisions be guided by your goals and audiences. The old adage that the customer is always right essentially remains true in online communications. Don't abandon your plans to appease the masses, but if a message isn't resonating, you'd better get some audience feedback. A few ways to evaluate include looking through bit.ly hits to see how many clicks your links are getting, asking a friend or outside source if they understand what is being shared with and asked of him or her and encouraging feedback and responses as often as possible. Survey Monkey is a great free tool that can help you evaluate your progress mid-way through the campaign. Offering the chance to win something small for completing a survey can offer some incentive for helping you find your footing.

Don't turn around. Keep moving forward with your plan, even if you're not getting the results you had hope for. A few minor tweaks may completely turn your campaign around and know that some folks might just take awhile to get invested in what you're doing. Halting a plan before it has been completed won't get you anywhere. Instead, try to power through and evaluate and make adjustments for the next time around. There will be plenty of opportunities to try out ideas and get the hang of what you're doing, so try to stay optimistic and see your plans through.

On Inspiration - Am I Really All the Things that are Outside of Me?

With the arrival of the Internet, we've all more or less learned that no idea comes out of thin air. Trying to come up with an "original" thought to contribute to the world in which we are constantly exposed to information, ideas an conversations, can be, well, terrifying. Instead of trying to uproot a new idea from the chaotic cacophony of noise that surrounds us, why not immerse yourself in it all?

As the Animal Collective, "Taste," asks, "Am I really all the things that are outside of me?" 

Everyone is trying to impose their interpretation the world and gather a gaggle of followers to buy into their vision. Forget the constructs that others are building and seek out your own. Congratulate the accomplished in the field and listen when something sticks out that makes sense to incorporate into the vision you are creating. As Seth Godin advises, seek out innovation and will it to appear instead of waiting for it to come to you. "[T]rain it to arrive on time and on command," he says.

Remember that you are in the driver's seat. We live in an era that lends an incredible amount of power to the individual. Instead of trying to build from the blocks others have laid and mimicking progress, work on creating something of your own. Be humble and recognize that your creation was influenced by others, but don't quiver with intimidation if someone else builds a stronger idea. Take pride in what you have built and make revisions in areas that need work. Be patient and open as your ideas evolve and good things will come.

Don't Forget the Value of the Traditional

It's easy to be swept away with the glamor and fame that social media promises those with the potential to do it well. Don't neglect the traditional forms of communication. Rather, try to find ways to weave traditional practices into the new territory of social media and vice versa. Here are some ways to add some polish to some of the old PR practices to make them shine:

Make your press releases compelling.  Don't wait for reporters to share your stories. Let some of the emotion and feeling infuse into your press release. These days, press releases live in multiple platforms and they're often online as well as in the reporter's hands, which means they need to be interesting to the everyday person. Copyblogger provided some excellent additional advice for creating a social media press release, which is absolutely worth checking out to start thinking outside the traditional box.

When you're writing for non-profits, there is always a story behind the story. Figure out what forces and experiences were at work in driving a fundraiser, get-together or program. If you're writing about a company's efforts, does one of the employees have a personal story that fueled the project? Grab a quote from that individual or even a quick video to embed in the press release. Don’t be afraid to link to social media content either, like an interesting thread of comments on a Facebook event page. Reporters want as many opportunities as possible to feel an event out, so photos, faces and a strong fan base all make great cases for why an event should be covered. If you're looking for the press release basics, check out Kivi Leroux Miller's "Five 'Musts' for a Great Press Release."

Reporters and bloggers are your friends. Develop relationships with reporters and bloggers through Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Remain professional but personable. That way, by the time your group is ready to make their pitch, media may already have the bulk of the information they need to decide on whether to do a story or not. Make it as easy as possible for reporters to find content, acting more like a helping hand than a pushy salesperson. Give the events its own legs to stand on by posting a multitude of resources to back up your position so you’re not doing all the heavy lifting. If you'd like to hear what one reporter has to say, read about Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim experience working with PR contacts via social media here.

Help your advocates help your organization. Empower, empower, empower. Work with advocates who want their story shared. Instead of relaying their story for them, talk through what makes the event compelling and talk about what might be interesting from a reporter’s perspective. Act as a liaison, not a spokesperson. You might uncover great news hooks you never knew even existed. Help the group craft a pitch and give them appropriate contact information and follow-up protocol. Be sure to keep the lines of communication open in case they have questions or concerns about proper etiquette. Being there for your advocates shows them that you care and will help them in future endeavors.

Make media alerts meaningful. Without getting too flowery, make the descriptions of what media will see interesting, relevant and visual. Painting a picture is the best ticket in to get good press. Hopefully, by the time you’ve issued a media alert, you’ve already publicized your event through various communications tools, including newsletters, websites, community websites and social media. Gather and include a few key URLs, which I recommend shortening and customizing through bit.ly, to point to examples of what reporters will see, who they’ll get to talk to and why it is important. The more voices you can incorporate in your supplemental materials, the better. Show media that the event is bigger than you and your attempts to woo them with images, testimonials and conversations people have had in anticipation for the event.

Be your own reporter. Just in case media doesn’t show up, and even if they do, have plans to cover the event for your audiences. Live twitter feeds, impromptu video interviews and fun photos will keep participants thinking about the event well after it’s over and may give those who weren’t involved a reason to get on board for the next opportunity. You don’t need to be the only person out there either. Recruit some advocates to help you cover the event with photos, videos, tweets and more to give depth and breadth to the event. Kodak Chief Blogger Jenny Cisney covered the Oscars herself a few times before deciding to recruit some help from bloggers, which extended the reach of event coverage exponentially.

Be sure to provide calls to action, which can include more literature about the cause, links to donation forms and invitations to share stories and experiences. If your supporters want to help the cause, let them! It’s also a great idea to gather contact information from participants and to get a feel for what kind of relationship and experience they hope to have with your cause.

Say thank you. Never underestimate the power of saying thank you. Share news clips or links, videos or photos you gathered and positive feedback with you fan base and event organizers. Key players love seeing traditional media and even though who aren’t especially keen on social media will be pleased to see positive messaging that went on in unfamiliar platforms. Report everything from bit.ly views to Facebook comments, in addition to media hits. If you’ve gathered contact information from participants, touch base with participants to thank them and introduce them supplemental information and communications that they might be interested in.

Pat yourself on the back, then reassess. There are always lessons to be learned and opportunities to improve, even in the best situations. Make note of what worked among the different platforms and audiences you reached out to. Asking for feedback and advice from audiences and key organizers lets them know when all is said and done, their opinion still matters to them. Plus, you’ll learn a lot from what they have to say. Remember, everything is a work in progress and improvement comes with time, so don't be afraid to try out new ideas.

Establishing the Right Voice

Every day, with every interaction, we have the opportunity to offer subtle, thought-provoking, enlightening responses. Do you keep that in mind every time you connect with your audience? With writing, we have a unique chance to step back and re-assess before sending a message to the world, which is essentially what we're doing when we send out a tweet, post to a Facebook wall or update a website or blog. Are you taking that breath?

To get started on writing thoughtfully, take a deep breath. Try to clear your head and imagine you're turning the page on all the notes of scribble on plans that may have gotten muddled or too complicated to render themselves useful. Find a blog or two that consistently offers calming or inspirational advice. There are a lot of great ones out there, including Seth's Blog (get a taste with a recent post, "Subtlety, Deconstructed") and Zen Habits, which offers thoughtful tips about increasing productivity and quality of work.

Then, take a moment to review what social media is and what you'd like to use it for. Do you want to rally people for a singular cause, or build an interactive community? For a fun take on the definition and purposes of social media, I recommend checking out a video with the Case Foundation's muppet character Click Daly. The foundation created this video to empower audiences to use social media to create their own messaging, set their own goals and perhaps most importantly, use their own voices.

Take another deep breath. Start thinking about who you're going to be talking to, then what you'd like them to learn and do and finally, think about the ideal relationship you'd like to have with them. Navigating the line between sharing personal vs. professional voice sounds tricky, but keep in mind that everything comes with time. Kivi Leroux Miller and Geoff Livingston discussed walking that line in a video interview available here.

Remember that once you get your audience on board, you want to empower them with enough information that they can take the reigns and begin calling on others to act. That being said, you need to be their spotter too, offering guidance, support and encouragement. Rob Howard wrote a very interesting post on Mashable, called "HOW TO: Manage a Sustainable Online Community." with a break-down of the steps to mitosis, the ideal point to reach with your audience when they break out and begin to form their own niche groups to support your larger cause.

Keep watering your seeds of thought with ideas you get from other writers, your experience and your surroundings and you'll inevitably begin to improve your communication skills and increase your ability to effectively empower others to take charge and embrace the cause. Have faith in your ability, and don't forget to breathe.

Empowering Teams: Everybody Has the Tools to Grow their Cause

Developing an effective structure for social media communications just takes a little bit of planning. Working with fundraisers on their goals and helping them develop their voice is critical to attracting the right kind of people. The goal should always be to find and seek out as intimate and devoted an audience to a cause as possible. Attracting seat-fillers is a short-term solution and just leaves the group starting from scratch the next time around.

Want to get a group of supporters on the right track? First, ask them a few simple questions, like: What do you hope to accomplish? Who would enjoy this type of event? What kind of experience do you want people to walk away with? What kind of call-to-action are you giving them? Do you have a way to keep your event-goers in the loop and bring them on board after the event has ended? What kinds of communication tools do you already have at your disposal?

Listen intently to what the group’s needs and goals are. Then work through the logistics with them. The goal is to keep them in the driver’s seat and to let them know you’ll be right by their side just in case. Make sure the goals and plans you come up with together are feasible. Many think of social media as a static page to throw up just to have a presence on a different platform. A Facebook page is NOT a website. It needs to remain up-to-date and groups need to understand the consequences of deleting a post with a complaint, for example.

Before developing anything, have the group’s point person or event organizer look through some great examples of what social media presence has been able to accomplish. Give them some no-no examples to check out as well, so they know what to avoid. Again, encourage them to create as much as possible.

Ask the group to gather several things: a list of supporters, any photos or videos that relate to the cause or event and any letters or personal stories. After going over communications materials (photos, videos, letters, etc.) together, begin to plot out how to introduce them and when. Go backwards from the event. Try to start and end with powerful pieces like personal stories and videos that pull at the heart strings. Supplement introductory pieces with basic information about the event and how to get involved. Then develop questions, calls-to-action and other feedback-inducing tactics. Emphasize the importance of being as conversational as possible.

The list of supporters is the key to growing the event and pulling people in as fellow ambassadors. As the group to identify potential thought leaders in the group and close liaisons. Extend an invitation to them to jump on board as event advocates. Try to get an idea about the other players. Kivi Leroux Miller (@kivilm) recommends breaking the supporters into several general characters, like the retired grandmother, the soccer mom, the college student and the business man, for example. Figure out what each group is interested in hearing about and try to segment this information to them if possible. If the group of supporters is relatively small, start with more general communications and break it down as you find out about each group’s interests and goals. Ideally, each person will arrive at the event knowing exactly what it is they’re going to get out of it, whether it’s friends, satisfaction in giving back or a unique experience.

Send your group out into the world to create and interact and attract and learn and grow. Establish regular meetings, in which they can come to you with questions about the process, work out the kinks, remap a route if things aren’t working and re-assess goals. As your group moves forward, remind them to think about follow-up communications and encourage developing a plan to keep event-goers on the team after the event has ended. Whether it’s an occasional email blast or a Twitter account to follow, there should be at least one way to pass along important and interesting news updates, links and calls-to-action for your group.

At the end, assess assess assess. Work with the group through what works, what didn’t work and what needs tweaking. Even if the group is very pleased with their efforts, encourage them to look back. After all, if we don’t look back, how will we know how to move forward? Keep in contact with everyone you work with on a regular basis, providing tips and relevant, personalized information. Happy customers make great allies and only in continuing to help them feel empowered can your combined efforts come to fruition.