Social Media Basics for Catholic Publishers
by Mary Elizabeth Sperry and Amanda Williams
Everywhere we turn Catholic publishers are exhorted to start using social media (also called web 2.0). Social media include the more interactive elements of the internet, including blogs, community forums, micro-blogging sites such as Twitter, video sharing sites like YouTube, and networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.
The characteristic that distinguishes social media from traditional methods of publicity and marketing is that, with social media, the communication goes two ways. Instead of sending out a press release or a direct mailer and waiting for orders to roll in, social media is about engaging your authors, customers, and potential customers in a community that shares information and ideas.
Of course, when people are sharing, things can get a bit messy. Managing social media and leveraging it to accomplish your house’s mission can be a challenge. We’ve identified the following tips based on our experience (both professional and personal) with the various social media sites:
1. You have to be a friend to make a friend
Imagine what might happen if a person walked into a cocktail party donning earplugs and a blindfold, and then proceeded to shout messages into a megaphone. However nice or interesting those messages might be, this tack would be considered a social disaster, and the person an awful bore. One learns quickly (and often the hard way!) that one-way, top-down communication is a no-no in social media, as counter-intuitive as it feels for marketing and sales professionals trained in the tradition of: show product/describe product/create felt need/offer easy route to purchase/move on to next customer.
But it's also very hard to believe that If We Tweet it, They Will Come. It's helpful to have a few ideas for creating a place of hospitality and community, especially when maintaining a social media presence on behalf of a corporate entity. Thanking people for adding/following your company's profiles, responding individually to their comments and questions, and re-posting their posts can all build rapport and add a personable, friendly spirit to your social media presence.
2. Good fences make good neighbors.
No matter what forms of social media you decide to use, it’s important to have clear rules and to post those rules in an obvious place. The rules might be a comment policy or a poster code of conduct. These rules are in addition to the basic posting guidelines maintained by the social media site and should not repeat those guidelines.
The rules could include restrictions on posting by minors and on the posting of copyrighted materials, as well as basic reminders about good behavior. For example, the USCCB Media Relations blog has the following comment policy: All posts and comments should be marked by Christian charity and respect for the truth. They should be on topic and presume the good will of other posters. Discussion should take place primarily from a faith perspective, and while opinions are fine, statements of fact should be supported. Posts that do not meet these standards will be removed.
3. Moderation should be moderate.
The organizing principle behind Web 2.0 and social media is to encourage interaction and comment. It’s no surprise that not every comment will be positive. People will disagree with each other and with you. That’s a normal and expected part of interaction via social media.
The purpose of moderation isn’t to stop all disagreement. A moderator that posts frequently to argue against other comments will shut down discussion very quickly. Allowing posts with widely diverging viewpoints will foster good discussion, allow people to learn and come to agreement on their own, and may help you learn more about how people view your products. The moderator should keep people within the site rules, respond to requests for information, and clarify misunderstandings or inaccurate information.
Some social media sites allow limits to the amount of interaction. Most blogs allow you to turn comments off for a specific post or to approve all comments before posting. YouTube allows the poster to turn off comments. On Facebook, discussion boards are an optional feature. Some forum software allows the administrator to control membership and levels of participation (posting, reading, etc.). Set limits when establishing your social media presence and evaluate them periodically.
4. God (and your social media community) loves a cheerful giver
Social media gurus differ on how best to keep one's presence from being entirely self-focused. Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt suggests a 20-to-1 ratio, meaning for every one post you make about your company or your company's products, make twenty posts about things and people unrelated to your bottom line. As Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs, suggests in a recent Publishers Weekly article, "Start finding and following the kinds of people your books would be best suited to. And here’s the trick: talk to them about their stuff and not yours for your first several conversations. Something like this: 30 minutes listening / 60 minutes connecting / 30 minutes publishing (blog posts and video interviews and whatever other content you’re going to create)."
Such generous outreach can feel odd at first, even invasive, but identifying yourself as a person with a name and connecting individually with followers/friends generally yields a warm, swift response. Linking a Facebook profile to (by "like"-ing), and re-posting the content of publications and broadcast media with a similar mission and vision has a double positive effect: 1. It promotes the media, which can help build their readership/listening audience, and 2. Your community is offered useful information for which they're likely already searching.
Sometimes a person will post an interesting opinion question, a request for the source of a quote, or a request for where one can read more about a particular topic. Re-posting such items can generate lively debate and help spread the flow of useful information.
5. No bricks without straw
Very few publishers have the time or staff resources to maintain a social media presence for their authors, making the active role of the author very important. When an author has a specific topic around which a warm, vociferous community is already gathered, it's more effective--and probably seems more authentic--for a publisher to underline, re-post, and reinforce the efforts of that author. If an author creates an event in Facebook, a publisher can go through its own friend list and invite all friends living within driving distance of the event. If an author puts out a survey, offers a webinar, does a live call-in radio show, or posts an email she received from a fan requesting advice, a publisher can very quickly publicize these items online without having to create the content itself. Plus, the author is likely to have already earned the trust of her audience through previous demonstrations of expertise and genuineness. Why not build on that firm foundation and add to it with your efforts?
6. Two ears, one mouth.
Mothers of preschoolers know it better than anyone, but the mantra, "listen twice as much as you talk" also holds true for online communities. In addition to learning about the likes/dislikes/interests of your troop of followers/friends, many web-based tools enable you to find out what others are saying about your company and your products. Google Alerts sends you an e-mail with links as soon as the phrase/name/key words that you've given it pop up online and are caught by the Google spiders. Running searches on Twitter for key phrases, company names, author names, book titles/series, and hot topics can help you get a quick read of what folks are thinking and feeling on a given day. Using HootSuite as a dashboard for Facebook and Twitter enables you to gauge interest by tracking statistics on how many (and in which countries) people click on the links you post.
7. And they will know they are your disciples by your love (and free stuff)
Who doesn’t like to be asked their opinion or offered prototypes/publishing ideas to review? Social media communities are no different, and your own friends and followers might have gravitated to your profiles in hopes of special perks and insider information. Why not invite 10-15 people to participate in a pre-publication book cover survey in exchange for a free copy of the book when it releases? Perhaps offer a dollars-off coupon exclusively for Facebook friends?
Within your social media community there are likely bloggers, podcasters, and freelance writers who would happily post reviews of your books--both on their blog and on Amazon--in exchange for a free copy. Thanking these writers publicly by posting a link to their review and tagging them in Facebook and Twitter posts offers them the added benefit of visibility among your own followers.
8. The fairy tales had it right: Beware of bigfoot and trolls.
In the world of social media, a bigfoot is someone who comments on everything and whose comments threaten to overwhelm discussion on a topic. A troll is someone who makes posts just to stir up trouble rather than to advance the conversation.
When a bigfoot appears on your site, you can send a private message asking the poster to limit posts to one or two per topic or to allow other posters to comment between posts. In some cases, a poster just comments in stream of consciousness without realizing the effect on the community. If the behavior continues, you can make a public post asking the community members to refrain from commandeering the conversation. Continued bigfoot behavior (after two warnings) should draw a ban.
If a regular member who has behaved well in the past starts behaving like a troll, picking fights or engaging in ad hominem attacks, a private warning to the individual accompanied by a public warning about proper behavior may suffice. If the member ignores the warning, then he or she should be banned from posting. Any member who posts threats, attacks on other posters, or the like should be banned immediately. (On sites like Facebook, you should also alert the site administrators to threats and language that violates the site code of conduct.) “Members” who post advertisements should be banned right away.
9. The lion may sleep tonight, but the Internet won't.
Social media sites, like the rest of the Internet, are open around the clock and they don’t take vacation. They require constant monitoring to make sure that ads, spam, and trollish behavior don’t hijack legitimate conversation.
One staff person should not bear the burden of monitoring the social media sites. At least two or three people should have access to the site account and should share the moderating duties (based on mutually agreed standards). No one person should be responsible for checking on the site every evening and weekend. At the same time, when one person goes on vacation, the site will not languish for lack of posts or become clogged with spam and ads.
The social media team should make it a habit to check in on the site early each morning and late each night, with regular visits during the day – even on weekends and holidays. These visits can be quite brief – deleting ads, making sure that posters are on topic, and addressing questions of fact. In most cases, unless controversy has arisen about a recent post, these visits will take less than 5 minutes each.
10. If it's worth doing once, it's worth doing many times.
Keep a broad perspective when planning your social media presence. Focusing on only one outlet (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) will limit your reach.
For example, if you are hosting an event with an author, you might be able to offer live streaming of the event on your website. A comprehensive social media plan would include Twitter updates from the event and longer updates on the Facebook page. After the event, the complete video would be posted on YouTube and linked on Facebook. People with slower Internet connections (or with corporate restrictions on viewing video at the office) might avoid the video links but could follow the Facebook and Twitter updates.
Using multiple platforms for a single event can help you maximize access to your resources with very little extra work.
Above all, don't be afraid to stick a toe in the water of social media. It's good fun, it engages the imagination, and the rewards of hearing directly from your constituents/customer base are great. Like anything, it takes a bit of practice, but you’ll see the benefits sooner than you think.
Mary Elizabeth Sperry (msperry@usccb.org) is Associate Director for Permissions and NAB Utilization with the USCCB. Amanda Williams (Amanda.Williams.444@nd.edu) works as publicist for Ave Maria Press. They both spend way too much time on the Internet.
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