A few weeks back, new media marketer extraordinaire Chris Brogan shared ideas and suggestions for maintaining a personal presence online. (“19 Presence Management Chores You COULD Do Every Day“) The list is dense and ambitious, but the time you put into this kind of effort pays off.
If you’re charged with maintaining the social media presence of a company, the list still holds great value, but it might need a bit of translation. When you speak for your company or for a brand, you’re stepping outside your individual persona, and your actions should reflect that. This is also true if you maintain separate online presences for your personal self and your work self.
Here’s my take on key online presence management chores for a company or brand.
1. Find three things worth linking to concerning your industry and share — news articles, blog posts, tweets.
2. Respond to mentions of your company or brand. If you would prefer to take the discussion offline, explain that and give an easy, clear means of contacting.
3. Reply to all direct messages with DMs. Suggest another means of communicating (phone, email, tech or customer support) as appropriate.
4. Follow back according to your follow-back policy. (For example, follow everyone to demonstrate that you don’t discriminate, or make clear that you follow back select accounts and individuals according to a predefined policy, or whatever you’ve set. Whichever you choose, be consistent.)
5. Avoid engaging in extended conversation or debate, but celebrate the successes of team members, partners, associates, customers, and fans.
6. Respond to any comments on your page’s wall.
7. Respond to any comments or feedback on discussions, notes, or other content.
8. Review any photos, videos, links, and discussions posted by fans. Remove any that don’t fit your guidelines. (Guidelines should be posted clearly.) Send a note to the poster explaining why it was removed and referring to posted guidelines.
9. Start a discussion topic at least once a week, whether serious or light. Daily would be even better. (BONUS: Use responses as a starting point for a blog post or note. Or use to provide feedback to the higher-ups.)
10. If there’s an announcement of interest to your fans, send a message or create a related event.
LinkedIn Groups and Company Profiles
11. For groups you manage, accept any join requests that fit your stated policy.
12. For groups, start a new relevant discussion. Occasionally mix things up with a light or humorous question.
13. Monitor on-going discussions and chime in where possible or needed.
14. Add any relevant slide decks to the Slideshare app there, or books to the Amazon bookshelf.
Blogs
15. Write a new blog post or publish a podcast according to your schedule and content calendar.
16. Review your blog’s or podcast’s comments and comment back on at least 5 replies.
17. If any comments require offline response, comment back explaining that you’d like to address the issue offline. This allows others to see you’re addressing the issue while allowing you to communicate one-on-one with the individual concerned.
18. Visit blogs that have mentioned your company or brand. Comment if you can add information.
19. While on those sites, use a tool like StumbleUpon or Delicious to promote good work (and positive press!).
20. Write the occasional post promoting fans of your company or brand.
Most important: (stems from a comment by percussion on Chris’s original post) …
All sites
21. Weekly, review your measurement tools and create a report on status for the week across all these platforms (and resulting effects elsewhere if that’s on your metrics too).
It’s still not easy
A company needs to be vigilant in monitoring the conversations about it as well as those it’s involved in. You’ll also need to adjust to suit your company’s policies and procedures of course. But you can’t afford not to participate in the online world — it’s going to be there whether you’re engaged in it or not. Simple, steady involvement helps you act and react smartly and quickly when you need to.
Are there tasks you would add or change? What’s your take?
