Facebook & Social Media Tips for Feds
Good tips from Federal Communicators Network newsletter
Sarah Scruggs from GPO attended the L2 Social Graph Clinic. Here are her key take-aways.
- Figure out what you want your Facebook followers to do. They can do multiple things. View old pictures? Become contractors? Learn about your program? Come work for you?
- Go big or go home. Social media is more forgiving, you’ll make mistakes and it’s okay.
- www.facebook.com/government lists all agencies using Facebook.
- www.facebook.com/insights is a way to get metrics about Facebook fans.
- Facebook will drive people to your website, not the other way around.
- “like” and “tweet” buttons on all electronic products is a must.
- Put photos on Facebook and have a Flickr account.
- Use a consistent voice and have a style guide.
- Have a guide for how to handle comments and complaints and any type of “sit in” on your accounts.
- Use a publishing calendar.
- Share something multiple times if you want people to know about it.
- Send out a monthly social media report. Low numbers are okay at the beginning. Number of followers or likes or comment counts.
- If people leave comments/complaints that will affect your business, make sure they get passed along to the right person so they get answered.
- Ask users what they want to see/know about on your page or tweets or blog.
- All social media should be coordinated and involve other people than the PR or Communications Office.
- People have an appetite for information, especially when something is happening.
- Ask yourself what happens if you don’t use the tool. Facebook has 500 Million users. Half access it on a given day.
- If you don’t use a particular tool, you still need to look at it to see what other people are saying about you.
- Have clear and obvious rules and guidelines for employees about using social media.
- http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ Twitter to Facebook app- automatically updates your Facebook page with your twitter feed.
- For twitter, the importance of re-tweets.
- Promoting other people will in turn get you promoted. Nature Conservancy uses a 7:1 ratio. (7 things about other topics for every 1 about themselves).
- Recognize your users – fan of the month, someone with tons of followers should be treated as if in a relationship.
- Use 2-3 sentences on postings and tweets that tell people everything they want to know. The click-thru is the bonus part.