Top 20 Social Media Blunders Social Media Best Practices Learned the Hard Way

Daren C. Brabham, Ph.D.

NCEMA Spring Conference, Sunset Beach, NC March 12, 2013

In This Presentation • 20 Best Practices (illustrated with failure, but

also with good examples)

– Social Media Governance

– Feeding the Beast

– Thinking Bigger

• Q&A

But First a Word of Caution… • Social media are moving

targets

• Beware hucksters, snake oil salesmen, gurus, ninjas, evangelists

• Good research is only just beginning!

Social Media Governance

(Zerfass, Fink & Linke, 2011, “Social media governance: Regulatory frameworks as drivers of success in online communications”)

1. You need guidelines/policies

2. Invest - money and labor

3. Social media managers are spokespeople

4. Likes ≠ success. Get KPIs.

5. Measurement is a must

Feeding the Beast

6. Don’t take the “social” out of SM

7. Use brand ambassadors

8. Do only a few tools well

9. Don’t be lazy. Or clueless.

10. Get a lot of owned content

11. Post regularly

12. Be an online thought leader

13. Use multimedia

Think Bigger

14. Monitor trends, do research

15. Know your legal and TOS

16. Know your ethics

17. Manage unexpected publics

18. Let go of control. Have fun.

19. Integrate offline, trad. media

20. Plan for crisis and opportunity

Thank You! • Questions?

darenbrabham.com

linkedin.com/in/darenbrabham

@dbrabham

darenbrabham