From left to right: Liz (@urbanhipster), Me (@jhsu), and Kevin (@brainiopera)
There were two great talks at the #PRSATalk Sunrise Seminar Session 3: Social Media Applications: Local Case Studies given by Heidi Ofinowicz (@RoswellPark), marketing communications manager at Roswell, and Mike Schuler (@schoebdoo), promotions manager at Darien Lake. It’s always good to see application of social media engagement strategies, especially locally. Since social media is relatively new in their organizations, they had to experiment and had some misses and some surprising hits. The following points are my takeaways that I interpreted from the two talks.
Some Key takeaways
Heidi Ofinowicz (@RoswellPark), Roswell Park
In use: Twitter, Facebook (along with Facebook Connect), Youtube and Ning (Ride Roswell). Some use cases include live twittering at the Ride for Roswell where people could tweet out their reason for riding at this event, many were cancer survivors or knew someone who has/had cancer which led to very touching stories that the community members could share with each other. They also video taped some of these people.
When Tweeting, Heidi uses a 25/25/40/10 rule (Roswell news / Roswell research news / engaging / retweeting).
- Multi-purpose content. The videos were not created specifically for Youtube, but were put together by the creative department for multiple uses and Youtube was a channel to share. This is a great way to share great stuff with content that is already being generated by the organization.
- Integrate. Add widgets to current site, link between sites, so that your current efforts aid each other and allow users to find where they’re comfortable.
- Set rules and policies. It’s social media, deleting commentary can have a negative impact, effecting a person’s freedom of speech, but also set rules (disclose them).
Mike Schuler (@schoebdoo), Darien Lake
Mike talked about his efforts using Facebook to promote and share news about Darien Lake. What he likes is the ability for people to ‘like’ a post and essentially share it with their network where it has potential to go viral (or atleast gain reach) and how people can leave comments and be notified of further comments thus sparking conversations.
Devotion. Mike takes an average about 1-1.5 hours throughout the day to mange various social media tools, while also wearing several different hats at Darien Lake.
- Research before diving in. Your brand may already be visible out there. Do a search, take some notes and see how users are interacting and using your brand. Mike found lots of interesting groups about Darien Lake.
- Develope a content schedule. This helps you be prepared and continuously broadcast content.
- Track and Analyze. Having a content schedule allows you to review analytics (in this case Facebook Insights) and compare with your schedule to see what may have led to increase in returns (whether it’s higher rebroadcasting/sharing, interacting or becoming a fan).
- Set rules and policies. Think of your organization (family business means family safe language). Dissenters are often quelled by devotees/supporters (once again, communities are self-regulated, given you have a developed & devoted community).
- Find what works. A early promotion for young teens at the start of their Facebook page creation which included Facebook Ads in the campaign tactics led to high number becoming fans, but would not have worked without a promotion or event.
- Be a person. Stay away from PR talk. Especially since Darien Lake’s audience (on Facebook) tends to be younger teen girls, he has to be down to Earth and talk like someone they can and should trust.
- Monitor, and take action. Being there in the conversation when it happens allows you to get your side in to prevent misinformation. This is the power of social media, everyone can be part of the conversation, even your organization.
Here are the tweets that were tweeted during the talks:
- @brainopera: Local social media stories: Heidi Ofinowicz at Roswell Park Cancer Institute + Mike Schuler (@schoebdoo) at Six Flags Darien Lake #PRSAtalk #
- @brainopera: Heidi responds to comments on their Roswell Park Cancer Institute Youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/rpcicreative #PRSAtalk #
- @jhsu: Checking how Roswell Park in #Buffalo is using social media in different platforms. A lot of integration. #PRSAtalk #
- @brainopera: Cancer survivors gather at http://myroswellpark.com. Powered by WordPressMU and BuddyPress, integrates Facebook, Youtube efforts. #PRSAtalk #
- @jhsu: #PRSAtalk set your own rules based on your organization’s efforts, Roswell uses 40/25/25/10 engage, cancer info, research + news, and events #
- @brainopera: How @RoswellPark tweets = 25% cancer news/retweets, 25% Roswell-specific news, 40% engagement/DMs, 10% tweetcasts/Roswell events #PRSAtalk #
- @k3v2: Good presentation by Heidi Ofinowicz @RoswellPark about their social media efforts - much integration and good strategy #prsatalk #
- @k3v2: Up next, @schoebdoo discusses social media strategy for Darien Lake theme park. #prsatalk #
- @brainopera: RT @k3v2: Up next, @schoebdoo discusses social media strategy for Darien Lake theme park. {Mike focuses on their Facebook effort} #prsatalk #
- @jhsu: #PRSAtalk Mike Schuler @schoebdoo from Darien lake: have a content schedule plan to be prepared, ie countdown to Darien Lake opening #
- @k3v2: RT @jhsu #PRSAtalk Mike Schuler @schoebdoo from Darien lake: have a content schedule plan to be prepared, ie countdown to opening day #
- @jhsu: #PRSAtalk having a content schedule really helps when looking back for analytics ( @schoebdoo uses facebook insight for thei page ) #
- @BNPartnership: Check out how local organizations in #Buffalo have been using social media. Search Term #PRSAtalk #
- @schoebdoo: Thanks for all who attended the #PRSATalk at Daemen College today! Good to talk to everyone. #
- @jhsu: Hello from #PRSAtalk RT @brainopera: Quick picture of @urbanhipster @jhsu and me at #PRSA http://yfrog.com/0jey5dj #
