Look after social media accounts? There are a series of questions you need to ask and depending on the answers you may need to delete the account.
Over the past few year we’ve run a series of comms reviews on organisations. Social media has formed part of that. We’ll look at how well they are performing and give advice. Often people know they need to but don’t always have the time or the expertise.
Just recently we ran a survey over on comms2point0 with Musterpoint about the number of accounts operated by different organisations. If you missed the study you can find it here.
What stuck out was the number of social media accounts operated by different sectors. You can see the findings here:
The optimum number of social media accounts for an organisation
It got me to thinking about what the optimum number of accounts for an organisation was. Really that depends on the organisation. It depends on its staff and it depends upon who is the audience.
In the comms2point0 survey, the stats for fire, police and ambulance really stuck out. On average each service has almost 50 social media accounts. Very often they are frontline staff, teams or stations. A local face for the service can work well.
That’s fine.
But once a year at least I think every organisation needs to take a long hard look at itself just to check if they are on the right path. If you are responsible for an organisation’s social media footprint that means asking some tough questions and yes, it’ll mean going through the accounts forensically.
Some questions to ask during a social media review
What are the channels? Make a list of all the accounts attributed to an organisation.
Who has access? It sounds straight forward but so many organisations don’t keep a list of those with access or their email address. Let alone store that in one place where it can be easily accessed.
When was the last time they were updated? Look to see how active they’ve been. An account gathering dust probably isn’t much use.
How many times did they post content in the last seven days? It’s a simpole metric but it gives a snapshot.
How many replies did they get? Again, a simple metric but the more activity there is shows how engaged poeople feel with it. Engagement is good.
How many replies did they respond with? But once people engage with it you need to take a look at how they are responding. An account that blanks all people’s questions isn’t a good one.
What’s the balance of content? I’ve argued for a long time that an 80 – 20 split is desirable. The 80 is the human content that’s the bright picture or the meme. The 20 is the call to action. Mess this up at your peril.
Are they embeded on the right webpage? It’s fine having an account that speaks on behalf of a team. Or even an individual from that team. But is that account embeded in the relevant page on the organisation’s website?
Do they help tackle the organisation’s aims? In other words, do they make a difference and help important people sleep at night? Can this be quantified?
When you carry out your social media review, you’ll find some surprises. Very often, you’ll find a third of the accounts in an organisation are prospering, a third need a helping hand and a third probably need closing down. Don’t shirk at closing down accounts if they need to be closed.
So, don’t go for big numbers. Go for the right numbers.
Shout if I can help. I’m dan@comms2point0.co.uk or @danslee.
Picture credit: Johnny Silvercloud / Flickr.
.