RSPB Social Media Training Session at RSPB Sandwell by Mike Gracia

Introductions
Who am I?
• Digital marketing consultant for 9yrs
• Director & head of strategy at Thinkable Digital
• Also work on a freelance basis
• Both a digital evangelist and a cynic!

IntroductionsIntroductions
Who Are You?
• Name
• Function within the RSPB
• What experience have you had with social media? (work or personal)

What we will cover this afternoon
• What social media is & what it isn’t
• Why social media offers a good platform for charities
• Good examples of social media use
• Why Strategy is important for social media
• What’s involved with in a social media strategy
• Several ‘Break Out’ sessions
• Questions at the end

How do you feel about social media?
• How do you feel about using social media to support the work you do
for the RSPB?
• Do you feel there are obstacles stopping you from using social media
more? (time constraints etc)

What is social media useful for?
Group Discussion:
In general terms what do you feel social media is useful for?

What is social media useful for?
In basic terms; social media gives us a platform that allows us to:
• Engage with a wider audience – New and existing
• Listen to relevant conversations
• Get feedback from the public
• Tell ‘your story’
• Promote events and gain backing for campaigns
• Something that understanding well, will open doors to other
positions

• A platform to shout about yourself or your organisation in a monologue
style
• A purely promotional tool
• A good place to get into an argument!
What social media Isn’t For

Why social media can be great for
charities
• In comparison to most businesses, charities will find it much easier to create an
emotional connection with social media users
• When people become emotionally engaged, they are likely to re-share
• Messages shared to people by their
friends are more likely to be engaged
with & re-shared in turn
• Snowball effect can follow, spreading
reach

Example of Good Social Media Use
Beat Bullying Campaign
"Last year we found out that individual fundraising grew
by just under 200 per cent as a result of young people
getting involved with Beatbullying on social networking
sites. First they interacted, then they went out and made
money for us."
Sarah Dyer, director of new media at Beatbullying
• Use social media to engage with young
audience to create awareness and social
change
• Train staff in social media use so they can
amplify the message
• Engage with journalists & authority sites

A Look at a Social Media #FAIL
VW asked Facebook users what they would
like them to do more of in the new year
• Greenpeace asked their Facebook
following to comment on the VW page
• Negative comments ensued
• VW completely failed to respond
• The story went viral with thousands of
negative comments and national press
coverage
Lack of complaints policy made
things much worse

Why Strategy is Key
• A strategy can help you handle complaints properly & turn negatives into positives,
or at least reduce harm done by engaging with the issues.
• Working to a plan & using tools increases efficiency & saves time
• Makes managing multiple channels possible
• Easier to measure success when you know your goals!

Key Components to Social Media
Strategy
1. Devise a strategy to deal with complaints
2. Build engagement to amplify reach
3. Plan big pushes for key events & campaigns
4. Make it easier – Lightening the load

Strategy - Dealing With Complaints
Can be as simple as a short document covering:
• How to deal with complaints
• List of common complaints
• When to escalate a complaint
• Who to escalate a complaint to
Group Chat: How could you deal with the following complaints:
• Report of a broken fence in the Sandwell reserve
• Report of dog mess in the reserve
• Give special focus on how to turn potentially negative mentions into
positive engagements
*

Strategy - Building Engagement
Facebook
– Facebook Edgerank algorithm uses ‘Affinity,
Weight & Time-Decay’ to decide if users
should see your updates
– The more a user engages with you, the more
they get your updates
– Not all ‘Edges’ are equal
Engagement isn’t about ‘likes’ or ‘followers’
Twitter
– Faster flowing than Facebook
– Less time to engage (fast stream)
– Vital to @mention people to engage
– No ‘Edgerank’ but people are
notified when @mentioned

Strategy - Tips to Build Engagement 1
Types of Social Share
• Post frequent updates, but intersperse self-serving posts with replies,
questions and shares of other interesting stories
• 4-to-1 or 7-to-1 rule
• Vary types of content shared
• Share RSPB blog posts & Campaigns
• Share other content your followers may be interested in
• Reply to mentions and comments
• Use multimedia, especially on Facebook

Strategy - Breakout Brainstorm - Build
Engagement
• Break into groups of 2 or 3
• Spend 5 to 10 minutes thinking and listing as many types of content that
RSPB Sandwell can publish on Facebook & Twitter with the specific aim
of increasing engagement with social media users.
• This could include types of social post (video/photo/reply), or
subject matter such as content specific to the RSPB reserve,
seasonal events, news, contests etc.
• List each type of content and how it could be used to encourage
engagement such as comments, replies, re-shares etc).
• 1 Person from each group read out your ideas

Connecting With Centres of Influence
What is a centre of influence?
In this context, a centre of influence is person or social account who can
influence your target audience. This could be a blogger, journalist, major/minor
celeb, wildlife photographer or community group such as a youth club or local
association.
Why Identify Influencers?
• Can massively amplify the reach of your social shares & blog posts
• ‘Baiting’ influencers encourages them to share your content with their
network
• Benefit from their ‘social klout’ – Much easier to reach 2 people with 2k
followers each than reach 4k people on your own

Connecting With Centres of Influence
How to Engage With Influencers
• Once identified, influencers should be engaged with whenever possible to
keep them ‘warm’ for strategic campaigns. This saves time later on.
• Create a stream of their social shares in Hootsuite to save time
• Re-tweet & re-share their shares, being sure to @mention them
• Ask them a question when the chance arrives & check for their answer
• Answer their questions when possible
• When sending out key messages, don’t be afraid to ask them to re-share – If
you’ve engaged over time already, they will usually help

Strategy - Breakout Brainstorm – List
Influencers
• Spend 5 to 10 minutes creating a ‘hit list’ of as many influencers as
possible.
• Either specific people or more general (by group or job role)
• As a guide, these people should be likely to be followed by your
target audience
• It’s fine to include industry-based people AND local organisations
for us with Sandwell events.

Tips to Build Engagement 3
Spread The Reach of RSPB Sandwell Blog Posts
Getting More Eyes on RSPB Sandwell’s Blog Posts

• Blogging can be tied to social media, the two are very closely related

• In general people love images & video, but hate walls of text – Liven up posts
& use interesting titles – Titles form default the social share title!

• Share posts via your social channels and @mention anyone quoted in the post

• Share at the right time for each platform (stats provided in checklist)

• Where possible, ask a blogger or influencer from your ‘hit list’ if they’d like to
either comment on a story or event, this can encourage them to share the
post

• Where possible, ask a blogger or influencer from your ‘hit list’ if they’d like to
either comment on a story or event, this can encourage them to share the
post
• Consider interviewing an influencer – They may love the exposure and share
the post to their networks.
**

Example of Good Posts - 1
SLIDE REDACTED ON PUBLIC
VERSION
FOR REASONS OF CONFIDENTIALITY

Example of Good Posts - 2
VERSION

Facebook page looks great!
But let’s make it work for the blog.
VERSION

When You Share Matters
The chart above shows the times of day that, on average, RSPB’s Twitter followers are
most active on the platform.
VERSION

Big Pushes - Before
Planning in Advance For Key Events & Campaigns
With a little planning, social media can be used to amplify the reach of key events
and campaigns.

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
• Identify influencers (industry & local if local event) well in advance and
brainstorm how to get them on-board (bloggers, photographers etc)

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
• Using a #tag for the event can pull shares together

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
• Create a blog & social calendar ahead of time to engage & re-engage
audiences

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
audiences
• Build up the post & social share frequency as the event gets closer

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
audiences
• Hold themed contests on Facebook in the run-up to the event

Big Pushes - Before
and campaigns.
audiences
• Hold themed contests on Facebook in the run-up to the event
• Widen the net with a service like ‘Thunderclap’ which allows you to crowd-
source social media support

Big Pushes - During
Keeping Social Momentum During Events & Campaigns
The social media campaign shouldn’t stop when the event starts. Keep those
attending involved to spread the campaign’s reach to their followers too!

Big Pushes - During
• Encourage attendees at the event to tweet and share on Facebook with #tags
***

Big Pushes - During
• Hold a contest for the cutest/funniest ‘anythingest’ photo or video of the
event

Big Pushes - During
event
• Record YouTube videos of the event if possible

Big Pushes - During
event
• Record YouTube videos of the event if possible
• Consider planting ‘Easter egg’s in photos for later promotional use

Big Pushes - After
Re-engaging After The Event
Once the event is over, be sure to re-engage with attendees!

Big Pushes - After
• Thank those that took part

Big Pushes - After
• Check for #tag mentions after the event or those missed during

Big Pushes - After
• Thank press that attended (@mentioning them of course!)

Big Pushes - After
• Re-share any press mentions

Big Pushes - After
• Re-share any press mentions
• Encourage any bloggers that attended to blog, any photographers to publish &
tweet their images

Big Pushes – Example Event Planning
Scarecrow Day
• Plan a social media campaign devised to compliment a ‘Scarecrow Day’ event at
RSPB Sandwell. Spend 15 to 20mins on this topic
• Consider:
– Key influencers (both in terms of topic & local community)
• Break the ideas into:
– Raising awareness before the campaign & developing momentum
– Maintaining the momentum during the event
– Re-engaging after the event

Making it Easier
Tips to Lighten Your Social Media Workflow
Some of these tips will already have been mentioned, however it helps to have an
overview.
• Use Hootsuite or similar to manage social media sharing
– Create saved searches of influencers posts
– Create saved searches of common complaints
– Create saved searches of “RSPB Sandwell” and “Sandwell Valley” brand
mentions

Making it Easier
Tips to Lighten Your Social Media Workflow
Some of these tips will already have been mentioned, however it helps to have an
overview.
• Use Hootsuite or similar to manage social media sharing
– Create saved searches of influencers posts
– Create saved searches of common complaints
– Create saved searches of “RSPB Sandwell” and “Sandwell Valley” brand
mentions
• Produce a content calendar for blog posts
– Include a brief of the post idea
– Detail key influencers (using your ‘Hit List’ for speed)
– Shedule shares of your blog posts to go live via Hootsuite

Full Circle - How do you feel about
social media?
• How do you feel about using social media to support the work you do
for the RSPB?

Thank you
&
Any Questions
For questions After Today:
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mikegracia
https://plus.google.com/+MikeGracia/
http://www.thinkabledigital.com/
http://www.mikegracia.com/

RSPB Social Media Training Session at RSPB Sandwell by Mike Gracia

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RSPB Social Media Training Session at RSPB Sandwell by Mike Gracia