Public Relations Strategery

You wouldn't hire Jonathan Ive and put him in a cubicle with an underpowered Lenovo laptop, would you? 

You wouldn't sign Peyton Manning to run the triple-option offense, would you? 

You wouldn't hire Tony Stark but tell him he's not allowed using your tools, would you?

Then why do organizations continue to hire social media specialists, managers, and coordinators, but then handcuff them with outdated policies, processes, and technology? 

I've seen it time and time again – an organization realizes they don't have the talent, resources, or bandwidth to manage their social media efforts so they go out and hire someone. These gurus, ninjas, strategists, and rockstars often come into this new organization with high expectations ("oh, you're the new social guy? Boy do we need your help!"), low resources ("you're all we could get approved for this year"), and an unclear place on the org chart ("well, you'll technically report to me, but you'll be working with Suzie down the hall most of the time as well as being a dotted line to Tom in Marketing").

Not only that, once they get to their desk, they realize that Twitter and Facebook are blocked, their company-issued Blackberry is prohibited from downloading any apps, and even when they do complete all the request forms to gain access, they're told that any and all social media content needs to be approved by legal and compliance. They've got the experience, the skills, and the knowledge to do the job, but they've been handcuffed by their own organization's legacy practices. 

Before going out and hiring that person to handle your social media, take some time to set them up for success.  

Provide a clear job description. Are you looking for someone to be a community manager for online communities that already exist or do you need someone to create those communities? Are you looking for someone to come in and join the marketing team or are you looking for someone to help you integrate social media across the entire enterprise? Do you need a social media manager to simply create and post content or do you need an experienced community manager who can build an integrated strategy that will increase sales, retention, etc.? Are you looking for a do-er or a change agent? As the hiring manager, you have to have to be able to articulate what exactly you need this person to do because the skillsets required to be the day-to-day community manager are substantially different from those needed to create an enterprise-wide social strategy. If you aren't sure what you need, you probably need someone with to help you figure that out, and that's going to require someone more experienced than you think.

Update your processes. If you're going to hire someone to manage your online communities, be a brand advocate, increase brand awareness and interact with customers, make sure they're actually, you know, allowed to do that. You can't expect someone to succeed in this role if your process requires every post, Tweet, and status update to be approved by the Legal team. If your newly hired social media manager is unable to respond to customer service inquiries because "those are handled by the folks over in customer service, not us," you're setting yourself up to fail. Using social media successfully is fundamentally different from every other approval process at most organizations. If you aren't sure what processes need to be updated or how to even do that, refer back to #1 and hire someone with the skills and experience to make those kinds of changes. 

Have an end goal. What does success look like? How will you determine if he/she is doing a good job? Will that be determined by the number of fans, followers, comments, members? Or by sales, lead generation, and traffic? Maybe it will be based on their ability to create and implement a strategy? Whatever it is, make sure that your new hire understands what is expected of him or her.  

Make technology an enabler, not a roadblock. This should go without saying, but make sure that your social media manager actually has access to social media. An easy way to start this new relationship off on the wrong foot is by forcing your new hire to complete request forms to access to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. 

Brush up on social media yourself. You're going to have to evaluate this person's performance and you can't do that effectively if you still think you don't need to understand Twitter because "you're too old." If you're going to be managing someone who's responsible for social media, you better know a little about it yourself. Look at similar organizations and see what they're doing. Keep up with industry trends. Ask your new hire to meet with you each week and help educate you if you need to. You can't effectively manage someone if you don't understand what they're working on. 

Be their advocate. Your social media manager is likely going to have to work with people from across the organization, many of whom will have more experience and tenure than they do. They're going to need to quickly establish respect with their colleagues and the easiest way for them to do that is when you make the introductions, highlight their work in leadership meetings, and give them the top cover to do their jobs. Don't hire them and walk away. Stay involved and keep them motivated. 

You can’t half-ass your social media efforts. If you’re going to make the investment in the time, people, and resources to use social media, make the investment in getting yourself and your organization ready to make the most out of this new talent. Spend a few more weeks now setting him/her up for success or spend a lot more time later trying to find another social media manager to replace the first one who quit after two months. 

Image Courtesy of Flickr User Alex Dunne

We’ve already had the Summer of Gov, but September 7-11 was the Week of Gov.  With the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase on Tuesday and the Gov 2.0 Summit on Wednesday and Thursday, plus a multitude of happy hours and networking receptions, I was immersed in all things Gov 2.0 last week.  There are already plenty of recaps, summaries, and other articles detailing the events of last week – if you’re interested in finding out what you missed, videos from all of the sessions are (or will soon be) posted here.  Watch those, and then read through all of the news coverage here for that.  Now, what I want to explore in this post is one particular topic that came up time and time again among the attendees I spoke with.

There were some very successful, very cool Gov 2.0 initiatives that were highlighted, but while I came away both impressed and inspired by the results that were discussed, I was left asking myself more and more questions about HOW the speakers got to these results.  This isn’t a criticism of these two events – I realize that I wasn’t the target audience for the Summit (that program was geared more toward C-level execs) and the Showcase was more of a teaser for the Gov 2.0 Expo coming up in May.  That’s exactly why I now have more questions than answers – I want to know about the challenges these people faced; I want to know the risks they took and why; I want to know what they’d do differently if they could go back in time – most of all, I want to know how they went from good idea to being highlighted at the Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase or Gov 2.0 Summit.

As my colleague Brian Drake discussed in this blog post, we both spoke with a number of people who would like to see a  Gov 2.0 Practitioner event that targets the people actually doing the work of Government 2.0.  While it’s great to hear from people like Vivek Kundra and Vint Cerf, it’s difficult for me to relate directly to their experiences or to turn that knowledge into something actionable in my day-to-day job.  A Gov 2.0 Practitioner conference that focuses on the real-life challenges, benefits, and concrete actions would help fill this gap, giving attendees a action plan for moving forward.  So while I left the Gov 2.0 Summit feeling excited about the prospects of OpenID and Government 2.0, I was also left asking myself things like, “that’s great that OpenID is coming to the government, but now what?  How do I help my client’s organization take advantage of this program?  How do I turn this great idea into something actionable for my client?”

I think there’s a very real need for an event that brings together Gov 2.0 practitioners and aspiring practitioners in one place to share war stories, to discuss what really works and what doesn’t, and to learn from each others’ mistakes and successes.  Maybe it’s another Gov 2.0 Barcamp or another event entirely, but I don’t need another event to discover the benefits of opening up my data or by communicating more transparently.  What I need is an event that tells me how I get my manager to sign off on dedicating the resources needed to make that data open and accessible. I need an event that answers these questions  (and more):

• How do I negotiate with my IT staff to get social media sites unblocked?
• How do I involve our Legal department when I’m terrified they’re going to shut me down?
• What’s the best way to get people to contribute to our organizational wiki?
• What am I missing in my social media policy?
• How do I best get senior leadership to actively participate in social media?  Should they?
• We still have Internet Explorer 6 – how am I supposed to get IT to support social media?
• We have a blog, Twitter account, podcasts, and other social media already, but no one is using them – what’s the best way to build more community?
• We have a TON of data that I want to open up to the public, but I don’t own any of it – how do I approach the owners of this data and convince them to open it up?

Would you be interested in an event dedicated to sharing these types of war stories and providing actionable next steps that you could use?  If you’ve ever left a Gov 2.0 conference and had any of these questions, then you’re the target audience!