How do you know you\’re doing a good job with social media. @benblack has some tips
What does successful social media look like? This is a question that communications staff in housing associations have been trying to find the perfect answer to for many years. But there is no right answer to something that it is simply about talking to people.
PR experts (read www.comms2point0.co.uk/comms2point0/2013/2/12/what-are-the-barcelona-principles.html) say: ‘Social media can and should be measured’
Social media isn’t about telling people what you are doing. Conversations, listening and talking to people are what it’s all about. Now that leads to a challenge for something as unpredictable as talking. How do you measure the effectiveness of the thousands of telephone calls that your organisation receives ever year? Social media adds even more challenges:
1. It happens in public.
2. People often don’t use their real names.
3. It can’t be controlled.
I love talking to communications colleagues about the challenges they come across with social media. Common problems are:
1. Finding content.
2. Persuading colleagues that you can’t ignore social media.
3. Measuring success.
I believe if you work hard at number 3 it will help with the day-to-day challenges of 1 and 2. If you can show how social media is helping your business it will raise awareness among your colleagues that is effective and hopefully lead to them wanting to provide content for their service.
Good websites
Here are two sites that have good information on evaluating social media: Comms2point0 – a great website for communications staff www.comms2point0.co.uk; Chartered institute of Public Relations – Lots of guides on evaluating PR www.cipr.co.uk.
Examples from Wales
I spoke to some communications colleagues about how they measure social media:
Llinos Iorwerth (@cartrefigwynedd) from Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd, said: ‘We do look at how many likes and followers we have. We have also started looking at how people click through from links on Twitter and Facebook using Bitly (a site that shortens website links and gives info on who clicks on them www.bitly.com). Social media has become an important part of how we communicate with our customers and learn about what’s new in the sector. Facebook is particularly useful for reaching our tenants and listening to what they think of our services. Many use it as another way of getting in touch with us and making enquires about repairs work, rents and WHQS improvements. It’s becoming as important as the telephone and email for getting in touch with us.’
Nia Boulton (@Nia_cadwynha) from Cadwyn Housing, said: ‘We do monitor Facebook likes and Twitter followers and we like to have lots of them, but these aren’t the only measures we are interested in. Interactions are much more important to us, whether it is in the form of a mention, share, comment or retweet and we use a variety of tools such as Facebook Insights, Hootsuite Reports and TweetReach to help us monitor our audience engagement.’
Hefina Rendle (@taicalon) from Tai Calon Community Housing, said: ‘Initially we wanted to build numbers, and in particular to attract tenants who we find are harder to engage, for example younger tenants. We are now achieving that aim, so from the beginning of the year we switched our focus.
‘Now we are more interested in building relationships by having conversations. We want people to tell us what they are doing and what they want us to do in their communities. We also want to know what they think about us, even if it’s a negative thought. It does take a bit of effort and commitment from us to get it right. It definitely is still a work in progress, however, it is making a difference and well worth us doing.’
Real stories
Stories are a brilliant way to show what worked, so don’t be shy if you have a good one to share on how social media use has been successful. In Bron Afon we often
get people posting photos on Facebook. This helps staff to see what to expect before they go out to a job. We had a deaf tenant contact us on Facebook to set up his annual gas safety check as he couldn’t use a phone. Success can’t always be counted in numbers or money. In that example we were able to visit him quicker than if he had to find a friend or some other way to contact us. You can’t put a price on that apart from a satisfied tenant and time saved for him and us.
Five tips
- Show off success by using stories in your staff and tenant magazines.
- If staff get complimented make sure you tell them.
- Success is also about making mistakes. There are no social media rules so you have to try out different things and see what happens.
- Nia mentioned various tools that help with evaluation. Make sure you try them out and find the ones that suit you and your organisation. Most are free but have extra features if you pay.
- Numbers are important but don’t get carried away with the number of ‘likes’ or ‘followers’. It is definitely about quality and not quantity.
Ben Black is communications and marketing manager at Bron Afon Community Housing @benblack