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Social networking guidance notes

General Recommendations – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs

• All very useful for research once you have established a network
• If you do nothing else search and track – any unfavourable comment needs to be addressed, favourable needs to be encouraged
• Use to make friends/business contacts 
• Communicate news – must be of genuine interest to recipients, but not sales-sy; social networks are very sensitive to commercial exploitation. LinkedIn less so but still keep a friendly and informative tone rather than an advertising approach. It’s very personal
• You could have links to LinkedIn, Twitter etc, and vice versa on your website if appropriate
• Enlist your team, but be consistent – keep to your key messages
• Identify influential bloggers and tweeters – do searches on Twitter and blogging platforms like WordPress

Twitter

Particularly popular with younger audiences. High maintenance – you need to ‘tweet’ regularly and to build ‘followers’ and follow others. Only do this if you have something genuinely interesting to say. Good for news – personal or groundbreaking. Once you have built a good follower base, you can use for research/ask questions/get feedback etc,.

A guide to Twitter:

• It is essentially a social networking service that enables people to send messages to each other in real time
• The premise is similar to instant text messaging, MSN etc., and is a forum for sharing views and ideas
• Its prevalence has been squarely placed at the feet of Stephen Fry, a known digital technology enthusiast
• In an interview with Jonathan Ross his passing comment has resulted in Twitter becoming ‘everywhere’
• In 140 characters or less you can tell people what you are up to, or how you are feeling – conversely it is also a way for people interested in you to follow you
• The key for a Twitter entry to become compelling – and therefore capable of generating followers and hype – is to document something that is constantly changing
• It is therefore a great medium for news, celebrity, product launches etc, but less so for static brands
• Many people are using Twitter as their sole source of news and information gathering both socially and in terms of the wider world
• However this does spark an interesting debate about the extent to which people’s worlds are filtered by their social circle and networking tools and therefore, how messages need to be more robust if they are to stand up to the resulting ‘Chinese Whispers’ effect

Users

• By and large Twitter is being used by the public as a social networking and messaging tool
• But increasingly it is being used by commerce & industry for varying purposes
• For example Channel 4 News uses it to deliver up to the minute news updates to people
• PR and marketing companies seem to broadly sit in two camps – with those that have actively embraced the tool and those that are steering well clear
• This industry reaction is no different from when other social phenomena have appeared
• However it is seen as a resource tool, good for story mining and networking

Uses

• From a corporate perspective, the uses of Twitter are more difficult to quantify
• If a business was launching a particular campaign or cause, Twitter would work well as a viral means to build hype and excitement ahead of a media launch for example
• However, in terms of profile raising and brand awareness, Twitter would need to be reviewed against the nature of the business with suitability gauged from ther
• It is great for viral communications and lends itself well to consumer brands and product launches, events, etc
• But it may be more difficult to find a true fit for corporate brands without it looking contrived and false
• Consumer product based campaigns and brands however, would lend themselves more readily to Twitter
• It must be remembered that – as is the case with all social networking forums – there are advocates and opposers of Twitter within all audience groups
• For every person who will engage with the product, brand or service, there will be another who will become alienated – it is a calculated and strategic step

Rules – What can be published using Twitter

• Twitter does not actively manage or monitor users’ content and therefore does not censor user content
• However there are some limitations on the type of content that can be published with Twitter
• This is to ensure that it complies with legal requirements as well as helping to improve the overall experience for all
• There are limited circumstances when censorship may occur and on these occasions Twitter retains the right to terminate contracts without any notice

Limitations of use on Twitter

• *Impersonation: You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others
• *Privacy: You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission
• *Violence and Threats: You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.
• *Copyright: Twitter will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright infringement. Twitter’s copyright procedures are set forth in the Terms of Service
• *Unlawful Use: You may not use Twitter’s service for any unlawful purposes or for promotion of illegal activities.
• *Serial Accounts: You may not create serial accounts for disruptive or abusive purposes.
• Name Squatting: You may not engage in name squatting Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed without further notice. Some of the factors that Twitter takes into account when determining what conduct is considered to be name squatting are:
• the number of accounts created
• creating accounts for the purpose of preventing others from using those account names
• creating accounts for the purpose of selling those accounts
• using feeds of third-party content to update and maintain accounts under the names of those third parties
• *Malware/Phishing: You may not publish or link to malicious content intended to damage or disrupt another user’s browser or computer or to compromise a user’s privacy.   
• *Spam: You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone. What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as Twitter responds to new tricks and tactics by spammers. Some of the factors that they take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are:
  • If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time
  • If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following
  • If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates
  • If a large number of people are blocking you
  • The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you
  • If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts
  • If you repost other user’s content without attribution
• *Pornography: You may not use obscene or pornographic images in either your profile picture or user background

 Blogs

• Great for focus groups, retention strategies, as well as personal and corporate communications
• You have to have a theme or category
• Biggest participant group in blogging is 18-25 year olds
• Good women’s blog directory is blogher.org.
• Gizmodo is a good example of a well produced blog (deals with gadgets)
• To start a blog have ideally 10 ‘pillar’ articles. 500 to 750 words, insightful, adding value, educational. Tutorial style, interactive with long term appeal
• Must be written consistently – always by the same person, regularly reviewed and refreshed, every day to get it started. Once it’s up and running, once a week should suffice
• There are various evaluation services – Bain and Co is one  
• Seek out other bloggers relevant to your subject matter and respond to them on their blogs to encourage interaction. You can put links to your own blog/articles on their blog
• Del.icio.us and Digg are sites where your blog may get rated (social bookmarking)
• Enable the RSS button you can see when blogs are entered on your blog
• Check directories and make sure your blog is registered: Ice Pocket and technorati.com for example. ‘Blog Pulse’ can provide useful data
• You can blog from your company website, from your own site or from a hosted site – leading hosted sites are blogger.com by Google, wordpress.com and typepad.com which is more for corporates
• For tracking also use ‘sitemeter.com’ and ‘mybloglog.com’
• Recommendations: Unless you can commit the time probably best left BUT useful to identify any interested bloggers and approach as potential advocates. And keep searching for references to your sector and brands
• technorati.com/pop/blogs. This site lists the most popular blogs; handy for seeding. Lots of other information there too
• blogsearchengine.com. This does what is says on the tin, a search engine especially for blogs. There are a few out there technorati listed above being another. Also track with google.com/alerts and blogsearch.google.com
• All these links allow you to monitor blogs for negative feedback or comments

Facebook

Similar to Twitter in terms of users. Less high maintenance but still need to update and use to get the best of it. That said, you can put a profile up there, which can include pictures and video content. Good for talking about your offering, showing examples and notifying of dates, themes and locations. Very informal.

Recommendations: You can at least have a profile.

LinkedIn

Like Facebook for business people. Again, good for setting up a profile, can take presentations and video content. Good for building business contacts. Reasonable maintenance to get the best out but you can have a static profile. Good for communicating, showing examples of work, and notifying of news.  Also thought pieces etc.  A number of additional tools allow you to track trends, link to blog etc,. 

Recommendations: Directors and anyone dealing with corporate clients should have a profile. Use it to make business contacts, and track down existing ones. Keep audiences informed of what’s happening in your business.

About the Author

Written by Jane Herbert.
Jane has nearly 20 years experience in public relations and is managing director of PR agency Pilotmax

 

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