Getting the Most Out of Facebook - September 12, 2018

Getting the Most
                     Out of Facebook

                                  @brianlambie
                                  @jacquelinedmrs
September 12, 2018                @redbrickcomms
                                  @AMOPolicy

Tweeting Today?

   It’s copyright, so
   please reference:
   @brianlambie
   @jacquelinedmrs
   @RedbrickComms
   @AMOPolicy

Source: Redbrick
Communications, 2017
Municipal Social Media
Survey

What is it?
• An online network
• Connect with neighbourhoods,
  communities
• Promote events / make event pages
• Share content (photos, video, links)
• Post live video, using Facebook Live
• Tends to be friendlier than Twitter

Risks
•   Negative comments
•   Mistakes
•   Bad employee behaviour
•   Privacy breaches
•   Hacked accounts
•   Internet “trolls”

Rewards
• Cement your brand
• Build relationships
• Listen to audience – and get to know
  them better.
• Basic public education
• Event promotion
• Issue identification
• Pay to reach target audience through
  advertising

Today We Will
Learn more about:
• Creating an account
• Best practices
• Creating compelling content
• Facebook advertising
• Managing issues
• Measuring success

Creating Accounts

Account Creation
• It’s easy to set up
• Two kinds of accounts:
    1. Personal
    2. Organization (or cause, celebrity, campaign, etc.)
• Build a business case first

Personal Accounts
• For PERSONAL use.
• 5,000 person limits on your number of
  “Friends.”
• You have full access to personal
  information about all your “Friends.”

Celebrity, Brand, Business Page
• Unlimited “Likes” / followers.
• People don’t share personal information
  with you.
• Better for building a large following.

Making a Plan
• Audience
• Objectives
• Subject matter and types of content
• How (roles, responsibilities, protocols
  and staffing)
• Terms of use
• Measurement
• Budget

Terms of Use

We want you to have an open dialogue on our page but if your post
breaks any of the following rules, we reserve the right to delete that
post:

- Anything political in nature
- Violent, obscene, profane, hateful, or racist posts, links or images
- Comments that are unrelated to the topic of the page or posts
- Solicitations, advertisements, or endorsements of any financial,
commercial or not-for-profit organizations
- Comments that are illegal in nature or that violate copyrights or
trademarks
- Repetitive posts, or copied and pasted or duplicated by single or
multiple users

If these rules are not adhered to and multiple offences committed by
the individual, we retain the right to block that person.

Supreme Court of Canada

Comments and Interaction (Rules of Engagement)
We will read comments and we ask that your comments be relevant and respectful. We reserve
the right to delete comments that violate this notice, and the user may be blocked and reported to
prevent further inappropriate conduct.
We cannot engage in issues of party politics or answer questions that break the rules of this
notice.
We reserve the right to edit or delete comments that:
• Contain personal information;
• Are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
• Express racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, insulting or life-threatening messages;
• Could be in violation of Canadian law;
• Put forward serious, unproven or inaccurate accusations against individuals or organizations;
• Are aggressive, coarse, violent, obscene or pornographic;
• Are offensive, rude or abusive to an individual or an organization;
• Are not sent by the author or are put forward for advertising purposes;
• Encourage illegal activity;
• Contain announcements from labour or political organizations;
• Are written in a language other than English or French;
• Are unintelligible or irrelevant; and
• Are repetitive or spam.
In short, please be respectful and make sure that your comments are relevant to where they are
posted. You are fully responsible for all content submitted in your comments, and all posted
comments are in the public domain.

One Facebook Page or Many?
• It depends.
• Most municipalities have one main page
  (see York Region, City of London).
• Mississauga has 9 Facebook pages
  (used to have 23).
• Both models work, if management
  processes capture the different
  management needs of each model.

Creating Content

Plain Language
•   Complete sentences.
•   Simple, everyday words.
•   Avoid acronyms and jargon.
•   Follow media Twitter feeds for
    examples.

A picture is
worth 1,000
words.

Small towns deliver
 adorable images.

Engagement

Advertising

Facebook Ads
• Highly targeted.
• Geographic targeting especially useful for
  municipal governments.
• Set your own budget.
• Take advantage of Facebook’s resources
  to learn more.

Set Goals
• Create multiple advertisements within one
  campaign to gauge performance.
• Set goals:
   • Website traffic.
   • Video views.
   • Engagement.
   • App installs.

Issue Management

Something for
  Your Toolkit

                 58

Negative Comments?
• Resolve, if warranted.
• Come out ahead, if possible.
• Promote the culture you want
  your community to have.
• Display your values.
• Tend to the concerns of
  stakeholders and staff.
• Stay focused on your
  core priorities.

Fixing Genuine Problems
•   Deliver factual, non-debatable information.
•   Focus on the right mess.
•   Goals should be realistic and practical.
•   Make promises you can keep.
•   Set expectations that will be met.
•   Elected officials should not engage
    municipal staff using social media.

Bleeding Issues & Opposition
• Don’t panic. It’s the new
  normal.
• Time responses patiently.
• The high-road takes discipline,
  but takes you further.
• Solve it operationally first,
  and in writing, second.
• Savvy, 3rd party comments
  that create a ‘safe space’
  for others to show support.

Find a way to be
  inspirational.

  Avoid being
    critical.

Management
 Processes

Management Processes
• It’s 24/7. Are you?
• Who has access, or administrative
  responsibility?
• What do we post and when?
• How we do it?
• Internal coordination and approvals?
• Clear policies:
  o For designated staff.
  o For elected officials (i.e. election use).

Plan Ahead
    Date                Tweet / Post            Category       Approval   Status
April 1, 2018   LED fireworks coming to      Twitter, Public   Approved   Sent
                Canada. Brighter, louder and     Safety
                SAFER!
                www.bit.ly/LEDfireworks
April 15,       Easter Egg hunt tomorrow!       Facebook,      Approved   Sent
2018            Bring the kids. It’s free!      Community
                www.bit.ly/newform                Event
April 22,       Note to self: I should be       Facebook,      Pending
2018            training for next month’s fun   Instagram,     Approval
                run. www.bit.ly/FunRun          Community
                                                  Event

Department Plans
• Account “business case” including:
  •   Goals & objectives
  •   Return on investment
  •   Audience
  •   Resource allocation
  •   Strategy
• Protocols and coordination.
• Teamwork across departments.

Clear Boundaries

This post shares information from our
website. Bit.ly/HereYouGo

A report says that American waterparks have
poor lifeguarding: Bit.ly/OhNo

Attend tonight’s budget meeting! Council
wants to gut our budget! #CareerLimiting

http://bit.ly/Post-ElectionMediaTraining

www.redbrick.ca/join-our-network
  Or email us ruby@redbrick.ca to join

Brian Lambie            Jacqueline Demers
            President               Senior Consultant

            @brianlambie @jacquelinedmrs
            @RedbrickComms
            lambie@redbrick.ca      demers@redbrick.ca
            905-271-1669 Ext. 151   905-271-1669 Ext. 153
            www.redbrick.ca         www.redbrick.ca

© Redbrick Communications Inc.
September 2018