The $25 Social Media Presence

Facebook is the current king of the Social Network heap with over 300 million active users. What is a more important statistic for agency PIOs to consider is that more than 2 billion pieces of content are shared each week. This content includes links to websites, Facebook Notes, and blog posts.

So the big question is how do you introduce your agency’s message in the form of content into that sharing trend?

Profiles vs. Fan Pages

A presence on Facebook can come in one of three forms. The gateway for all users onto Facebook is the Facebook Personal Profile. Designed for individuals, this provides users with the full ability to add and distribute content to those who link their accounts as friends and it offers the widest range of application options. Unfortunately quite a few agencies make the mistake of trying to establish themselves with a Personal Profile.

Best practice indicates that agencies and organizations are better served by setting up a Facebook Fan Page. These Pages offer a unique feature set of analytics that PIOs will find valuable in their Social Media efforts and are designed for agencies and organizations as opposed to individuals.

If your agency is already on Facebook using a Personal Profile, then you’re doing it wrong.

How To Set-Up Your Fan Page

Setting up your Facebook Fan Page is actually really pretty easy to do.

• Go to an established Facebook Fan Page such as PIO Social Media Training
• Scroll down to Create A Page For My Business and click on it
• You will now need to classify your organization. Some categories you can classify it under the Local setting is Health Service, Professional Service, or Other Service. By using the Brand, Product, or Organization setting you can categorize it as Government, Non-Profit, and Professional Service
• Once you select your categorization it’s time to enter the name of your organization. I recommend entering the full corporate name of the organization and not use acronyms or abbreviations
• Finally, you need to affirm that you are in fact authorized to create this Facebook Fan Page. The Facebook TOS is very clear that only an “official representative of this brand, organization, or person” is allowed to create a fan page. Creating an unauthorized Facebook Fan Page can lead to the suspension of your entire Facebook account, including your Facebook Personal Profile

Once you click on the Create Page button, you’ll be taken to your now blank page that has not yet been made public. Click on Edit Page on the left column to make changes:

• Settings – Country Restrictions and Age Restrictions will stop anyone who is in a country you list or anyone under a certain age from viewing your page. There really is no reason to restrict other users based in other countries from viewing your page, so I wouldn’t change any of these defaults. The last setting is Published Status and should be listed as Unpublished until you have made all the changes you want before publishing your page



• Wall Settings – Your biggest appearance defining option is Default View For Wall. This can be switched from Only Posts By Page to Posts By Page And Fans, which allows whatever your fans post to your wall to be integrated with your posts. While it may be nice in theory to allow your Fans to have their posts on the front tab, I don’t recommend it and I’m sure the producers of NBC’s Trauma probably wish their Page Administrator hadn’t allowed it either. The option Default Landing Tab For Everyone Else is a useful feature if you want your non-fans to see a different Tab first, like a Welcome Page. If your not going to create something unique, leave it set on the familiarity of the Wall



• Application Settings – There are 6 default applications that are already loaded onto your Facebook Fan Page. While each application has it’s own settings available for the action it is to perform, they all have Application Settings that determine how the application is displayed on the page and what it is permitted to do when interacting with your Page’s News Feed. The two options under Profile are Box and Tab. Box will add a small box with the application content either under a Boxes tab or you can move it under the Wall tab. Tab will display the application on an individual tab and it’s content on it’s own page
• Upload Your Photo – Using the Photo Application, add a photo or a logo that you want to have representing your Agency on the page and in the News Feed
• Publish Your Page – Once you’ve made all your setting selections, filled in the blanks, and uploaded a photo it is time to Publish your Facebook Page
• Share Your Page – Be sure to share your page both through posting it to your profile as well as personal messages

3 Must Have Applications For Your Facebook Fan Page

Networked Blogs – While Facebook Notes is the default application to pull in your blog posts via RSS Feeds and works quite well, Networked Blogs does it better on three levels.

• First, when it pulls the feed it also will pull in a thumbnail of any images in the post. This visual addition will make your post stand out in the newsfeed of your subscribers
• Second, it will give you the ability to post it automatically or to post it manually to either your Fan Page News Feed or your Personal News Feed. Notes are automatically posted
• Finally, when your readers click on the post from Networked Blogs in their feed they will actually be taken to your blog. Clicking on a Note will take you to an imported version of your post on the Facebook platform

FBML – This is a really simple application that can pack alot of power. It allows you to place a box or a new tab on your Facebook Page that you can render either HTML or FBML for customized content. Some uses for this application include a custom splash landing page, using Feedburner’s headline animator, or providing a subscription form for e-mail subscribers.

Twitter – If you are setting up a presence on Facebook then chances are you are also setting one up on Twitter. The Twitter application will allow you to update your Twitter status simply by updating your Facebook status. One stop status updating is one of the benefits of using the same type of media across multiple networks.

Further information on the use of Facebook by government agencies you can check out and become a fan of Facebook Government

To get the most out of this series it is highly recommended that you sign up for our Free E-Mail Social Media Bootcamp if you haven’t done so already since we will be referencing techniques and terms introduced in that program

Having been adopted by such celebrities as Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, and Shaquille O’Neal has made Twitter into the current rockstar of the Social Media services. Even with all this exposure, there are still two questions that are constantly being asked regarding the service…

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a service that delivers text based messages 140 characters at a time. When it was originally founded and made public in 2006 (11 months before the 2007 release of the popular iPhone) the service bridged the gap of communication between the web and mobile cell users using the Short Message Service (SMS) feature of their phones. It was the 140 character limit that enabled this compatibility.

In a few short months, Twitter became the defacto watercooler for the Internet. It allowed users to update their “status” that their friends would subscribe to, and vice versa. It enables users to hold conversations utilizing the at symbol (@) before the Twitter Username indicating a reply, thread conversations using the pound symbol (#), and re-broadcast a message using RT @TwitterUsername (message).

One of the things that has endeared users to Twitter is it’s history of feature updates based on how the users actually utilize the service. Replying, re-tweeting, and threading by hashtag all began through user habits and were added into the feature set of the service later on.

How Can I Use Twitter Effectively?

Here are some initial actions for you to take in using Twitter:

• Sign up for a Twitter Account
• Add yourself to the WeFollow Directory using tags appropriate for your Agency:
  • EMS Tweeters
  • Firefighting Tweeters
  • Police Tweeters
  • Hospital Tweeters
  • Emergency Management Tweeters
  • Emergency Preparedness Tweeters
    
• Subscribe to the top 25 Tweeters in your categories and your location
• Import the RSS Feed from your Hub into Twitter using Twitter Feed to drive traffic back to your Hub
• Follow @smpiotraining and send us a message

After you have established your Twitter presence it is important to interact with the community by engaging in conversation and providing relevant content. If someone asks a question that you know the answer then go right ahead and answer it. Ask questions yourself to spark conversations and build content for your Hub from them.

@EveryDayEMSTips is constantly sparking conversation by asking questions and then delivering the answers in unique and valuable content to their readers not necessarily involved with Twitter

Twitter Resources

• The Twitter Blog – The official blog by the Twitter team
• Twitter Status – Status of the service features and availability
• TwiTip – Blog chock full of Twitter Tips
• Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets – A paperback guide to Twitter
• Facebook’s Twitter App – a Twitter application for your Facebook account

To get the most out of this series it is highly recommended that you sign up for our Free E-Mail Social Media Bootcamp if you haven’t done so already since we will be referencing techniques and terms introduced in that program

Your Agency’s Social Media Hub is far and away the most important aspect of your Social Media Presence since all of your other efforts will direct your audience back to this central location.

Blogger As A Hub

Blogger is the free platform for blogging owned by Google. It recently reached it’s 10 year anniversary, having launched in 1999, and it continues to be a relevant platform in the blogosphere through continued innovation and improvements.

Using Blogger as your Social Media Hub is as good an option as you can get for the price – free. It offers the required ability to provide dynamic content, and it does so right on the front page. The service has implemented a Label system, similar to what other blogging platforms refer to as Categories or Tags. Since it will reside on the reliable servers of Google, bandwidth is not an issue should you receive an inordinate amount of traffic in a short period of time.

Most importantly, it will allow you to use your own custom domain name. Allowing the use of your own domain name by Blogger is a huge win for you from both a marketability and search engine optimization standpoint.

Although the LAFD News & Information Blog that is hosted on Blogger isn’t the Agency’s Hub (LAFD.org is) it still is designed to function like one with links to all of the Agency Spokes

How Difficult Is Customization?

Blogger’s customization options have greatly improved over the years. There are a large number of basic templates to choose from and you no longer need to know advanced HTML to make changes to your template since they introduced widgetized themes:

Another huge improvement over the years is Blogger’s template color management system. Instead of having to hand edit and code a CSS file, Blogger offers a simple scrolling menu option with a live preview:

This makes changing the colors of your blog on Blogger quite literally the easiest of all the other platforms.

Award winning Cross Blog is hosted on Blogger and, as we’ve already pointed out, have customized their template extensively to connect with their audience on a personal level therefore enhancing the effectiveness of their communication

How Do I Start A Blogger Blog?

Starting a blog on Blogger is really easy:

You can either sign in with your Google Account or create an account to create a blog. Of course this is just the first step, because after you establish the blog now the real work comes in creating reliable media in the format of your choice.

Anyone can have a blog. What you do with the blog is really what matters most.

The San Bernardino City Fire Department uses Blogger to provide information formatted for the media about fire calls in the city using a standard template that also links out to their Social Media Spokes which makes them a trusted source of information across multiple media platforms

Blogger Platform Resources

Here are some resources for using the Blogger Platform:

• Blogger Buzz – The Official Blogger Blog
• Blogger Status – Service issues are announced here
• How To Back Up Your Blogger Blog – A headache saving tutorial
• K2 WordPress Theme For Blogger – A popular WordPress Theme cloned for use on the Blogger Platform
• Free Templates – If it’s free… it may just be for me

To get the most out of this series it is highly recommended that you sign up for our Free E-Mail Social Media Bootcamp if you haven’t done so already since we will be referencing techniques and terms introduced in that program

Let’s be honest, times are tough.

Unemployment is up, tax revenue down, there are more patients while fewer have insurance and budgets have had to be cut. With all of this going on your Chief, Director, or Administrator probably scoffs at the idea of establishing a Social Media Presence while being so financially strapped.

The truth is that if you have a computer with an internet connection, the cost to set up an effective Social Media Presence is $25 or less per year.

This series of blog posts will cover the following topics:

• Using Blogger As Your Social Media Hub
• Using WordPress As Your Social Media Hub
• Using Facebook Fan Pages To Tie Your Audience To Your Hub
• Using Twitter To Spark Discussion
• Using MySpace As A Spoke
• Becoming A Trusted Source Of Information
• What You Actually Spend The $25 On

Empower yourself and your Agency with Social Media using these no-frills and minimal cost methods that can fit into the budget of ANY agency.

To get the most out of this series it is highly recommended that you sign up for our Free E-Mail Social Media Bootcamp if you haven’t done so already since we will be referencing techniques and terms introduced in that program