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- How to Introduce Social Media to Your Business: when to and when not to expand your channels to Social Media
- Develop a Social Media Strategy in 7 Steps: how not to loose focus when deploying Social Media
- Understanding the Experience of Social Network Sites: don't just follow others. Understand what you are doing in WHY you are doing it.
2. Decide which social media you are going to adapt
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Government expects civil servants to adhere to the Civil Service Code online as well as offline.
If you need a more elaborate Social Media policy Social media policy examples Wiki page offers you a few NREN and a lot of extensive corporate examples.
5. Start deploying your social media
When deploying various Social Media applications there are some general guidelines you can follow:
Do check this additional "light" examples of policy and guidelines:
- NPR's guidelines for using social netowrks will show you how journalists should use the Social Media
- The USA AirForce - Armed with social media will prove there are more strict organizations than your NREN with much "slimmer" Social Media policy.
But if you need a more elaborate Social Media policy Social media policy examples Wiki page offers you a few NREN and a lot of corporate extensive examples.
5. Start deploying your social media
When deploying various Social Media applications there are some general guidelines you can follow:
- Learn from others. Be active and see for yourself what's working and what's not. Check NREN Social Media presence Wiki page for ideas.
- You won't be able to monitor entire Social Media space. Plan deploying various tools like netwibes to save you time once your applications will be in production.
- Technology and applications are changing all the time. Instead of training employees for specific applications think it more general terms and give them "How to communicate on Social Media" like courses that
- Learn from others. Be active and see for yourself what's working and what's not. Check NREN Social Media presence Wiki page for ideas.
- You won't be able to monitor entire Social Media space. Plan deploying various tools like netwibes to save you time once your applications will be in production.
- Technology and applications are changing all the time. Instead of training employees for specific applications think it more general terms and give them "How to communicate on Social Media" like courses that will keep value even when you are migrating from e. g. Facebook to Pinterest.
- With very limited resources for Social Media you won't likely have a chance to be innovative with social media. Learn from others if the knowledge is available - e. g. Do's and Don'ts of Social Media.
Facebook has the Facebook has the highest number of users so it's probably the best "usual suspect" to start with.
- Create you NREN page profile (don’t use groups since they will be depreciated and don’t create a personal profile for your company since it’s against the FB rules).
- Add company data, try to “talk to people” don’t just use facts.
- Use new layout mode with cover photo. We are visual beings and also Social Media is a lot about visual things.
- Publish as much photos as you can - people will most likely check them out and engage on them.
- Use the new Timeline feature and create your NREN history a bit more fun.
- Notify your colleagues about the new page and hopefully they will like it (and others will follow them)and hopefully they will like it (and others will follow them).
If you plan on spending further efforts on Facebook consider reading
- 13 Hot Facebook Marketing Tips From the Top Pros is a mock-up of advices from Social Media experts
- Involver will help you with advices on how to integrate various applications in Facebook
- And you can always rely on All Facebook, unofficial and Facebook pages - official Facebook cookbook.
Twitter is often called Social Network for intellectuals, so it's quite likely you will be able to reach important journalists and decision makers there. You can set up your profile in minutes and in terms of customization adding a logo and a simple background picture resembling your common design should be no brainer:
- Once you create your corporate profile do take time to customize it. It will make all the difference if someone lands on your profile.
- Make sure you state who stands behind company Twitter profile - name the person(s), so users know who they are talking to.
- Twitter users produce a lot of post so make sure you install the desktop or mobile tools. They will help you navigate through the information noise and manage multiple accounts and hash-tags. There are many solutions though for Windows and iOS desktops we would suggest Tweetdeck, and for Android "Tweetdeck" or "Twitter" application.
- Don't forget to set automatic notifications for various events - for instance when somebody mentions you or reposts one of your tweets.
- Since twitting is so dynamic make sure you stay connected to emerging trends on Twitter: Twitip.
LinkedIn could also be called the Facebook for professionals. Especially professionals from technical fields are present and try to "connect" on LinkedIn. In my experience a vast number of NREN employees is already present on LinkedIn though the activity rarely exceeds the linking with others. Company LinkedIn profile is also good for raising brand awareness.
- When creating a company profile try to search for and "link" existing company (your company could be already listed among companies and linked to your employees).
- Add the company "professional" data. Think of the profile as a billboard for job seekers.
- In this case think about incorporating company news RSS. LinkedIn is not (jet) as live as other Social Networks so it could save you some time and the damage is not sa big as using RSS on Facebook or twitter.
- Add a few most important services you offer and are important to you.
- If you are looking for new employees all the time, fill in the Job section.
- Check the LinkedIn official guidelines for additional possibilities you can apply on your LinkedIn profile.
Youtube
People rarely browse through custom Youtube channels though creating one brings credibility and raises brand awareness. In contrary to majority of NREN custom solutions it offers additional customization and subscriptions.
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