With so many brands on Facebook, it is important to be aware of layout changes coming to Business Pages. Take a moment to review this deck from Facebook detailing the nature of these changes:
I mentioned earlier the vital importance of a governance model as brands become increasingly socialized (and ostensibly, all those things that “being social” really means– open, transparent, human, etc). But does said governance model need to be created by cloistered groups of agency strategists, “social media experts,” and internal brand stakeholders? Should it be? Or, should not your customers be involved in the process of determining how YOU interact with THEM? In all our talk of “listening to the customer”…this perhaps is one of the biggest “listens” being missed (#badpun).
Of course, you still need those digital experty folks to LISTEN to, and synthesize customer input into a would-be governance model…but by creating engagement policies that are informed directly by the customer, you start the whole “we’re now being open and social” thing off on a genuine foot–an open, social one that utlimately reflects loyalty between you and your customers. There’s a saying I like– brand loyatly is not about a customer being loyal to a brand, it is a brand being loyal to a customer. Developing a co-created, brand + customer-informed governance model, or engagement policy, demonstrates this mentality in a most actionable way.
Via my genius colleague, Elias Bizannes, over at the DataPortability Project. Read Elias’ theory on the Information Value Chain & Its Network, the economic rationale for data portability, (here).
Often in my role as Social Media Evangelist at iCrossing, my team and I are tasked with creating robust Govnerance Models or Engagement Charters for clients across a wide varity of industries. This is not a quick and easy “one size” fits-all task. And while there are wonderful “standard” social media rules of engagement that we are all familiar with (listen, be transparent, speak human, be useful), the intricacies of becoming a social brand are not fully summed up in any one Top Ten list.
The considerations for a social media governance model are numerous: brand identity/voice/tone, internal resources, staffing and stakeholders, work-flow adjustments, escalation policies, appropriate topics of conversation and language, identity/social equity “ownership” (who does brand social equity belong to? The employee Tweeting on behalf of a brand or the brand?), legal issues and rammifciations, industry regulations, content posting policies….well you get the point. While this may seem a bit of an arduous task, creating these governance models lay a crucial foundation, and are vital to any social media–ahem, digital– strategy and long term success (and they’re actually fun to create too, believe it or not).
This Rules of Engagement visual for the US Air Force is an excellent example of extracting the heavy, often quasi-legalese rhetoric of what might be a governance policy and distilling it into a “user friendly” guide for internal stakeholders and participants in social media. Just the sort of thing that hangs nicely in your Tweeter’s cubicle 
Brilliant visual. Clear and concise. #Military
Once in a while I post something a bit off-topic because I find it interesting, important and worthy of notice. Below is just one such worthy, off-topic post. Its a video from The Girl Effect, a non-profit whose mission is to “unlock the powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society”
It has been one month since the DataPortability Project responded to a public call for comment from the FCC on data portability and its relationship and impact on broadband services. If you haven’t read it, you can find our response here.
Please support the DataPortability Project in our mission to empower users to control and access their own personal data across any site or service across the web as we envision the expansion of an ever more open, interoperable and remixable web. To support the DPP, please visit our site, sign up for the mailing lists and get involved! We are always in need of volunteers– from research analysts to communications evangelists and a whole lot of opportunities in between!
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