Copyright

© 2015 by Astrid Haug

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition, 2015.

Reviews in Danish Media

Astrid Haug lovingly explores social media in her thought-provoking book. The
book provides the formula for creating a content strategy in social cyberspace.
Berlingske Business 5 stars

Astrid Haug has written a powerful book on using social media with lots of
examples on what others have done. The structure is clear and logical. Børsen 5
stars

Once you have read Astrid Haug’s new book, you will understand what
constitutes good content. The book is remarkably well written and easy to read.
It has a large variety of good cases from different companies. Jyllandsposten 5
stars

The book was originally published in Danish by Gyldendal Publishing House in
October 2014. This is an updated and adapted edition.















About the author

Astrid Haug is a consultant in social media and digital strategy. For the last ten
years, she has studied how social media transforms politics, media and how we
do business. She is an experienced keynote speaker and is among the leading
social media experts in Denmark.
Astrid has ten years experience within communication and social media.
She started out as a fundraising volunteer in John Kerry’s presidential campaign
in 2004 and has since worked at the Danish Parliament, at Copenhagen City
Hall, for the government and as Community Manager at the world’s oldest
newspaper, Berlingske. She has a Masters in Media Studies.
Today she advises companies, media organizations, NGOs and public
institutions in strategic use of social media. Furthermore, she is the Chairman of
the Danish Association of Communication Professionals and has a TV program
on Danish TV2 News about political use of social media. Astrid was born in
1978 and lives in Copenhagen with her husband and three children.

Learn more:
Twitter: astridhaug
Linkedin: https://dk.linkedin.com/in/astridhaug
Website: astridhaug.com

Contact:
mail@astridhaug.dk
+45 30258035


 Contents

Introduction
About this Book
1
Strategy and Purpose
What is a Content Strategy?
Discover the Purpose
Three Strategy Models
2
Be Relevant to the Users
Get to Know Your Users
This is How Social Media Work
Listen in on the Conversations
Where are you Relevant?
Find Your Niche
3
Create Good Content
Criteria for Good Content
The Three Undercurrents: Storytelling, Emotional Communication and
Visual Communication
My, Your, and New Content
Set the Agenda
Give Your Content a Long and Happy Life
When User Engagement Becomes a Shitstorm
 4
Planning and Measurement
Content Plan and Annual Cycle of Work
Choice of Social Media
This is How Companies Should Blog – Or Not
When Not to Use Social Media
From Engagement to Results – How to Measure Your Efforts
5
Include the Organization and the Employees
Better Collaboration in the Organization
The Personal Brand – Management and Employees
Your Personal Brand
Summary
Thanks To
Litterature

 Introduction

In High Noon, the famous western from 1952, Gary Cooper plays the role of
Will Kane. He marries Amy Fowler, the pacifist Quaker played by Grace Kelly,
and gives up his duties as sheriff to become a shopkeeper. When rumors begin to
circulate that the villain Frank Miller has arrived on the noon train, the couple
flees the town by carriage. Some distance outside town, Will Kane stops the
horses in order to return and fight the criminals. “I don’t understand any of this,”
says Amy. Will Kane replies, “I haven’t got time to tell you.”
I feel the same way about social media. If you still doubt that it can be used
for more than just small talk, then I will not try to convince you to get started.
Because, as the good sheriff said, if you don’t get it now, there’s no time to
explain it.
Instead, you get a book that presents reality in an organization after social
media has become part of everyday life. During the last ten years we have not
only developed our digital proficiency, we have also fundamentally changed our
way of thinking about customers, communities and colleagues. We know more
about customers than we used to, because we can monitor their digital behavior.
At the same time, users have higher expectations of companies, organizations
and public institutions to tailor communication to their specific needs.
We are past catchy buzzwords and quick fixes, because every example
shows that the best results are obtained through persistent long-term effort and
hard work. So from this perspective, there is nothing new here. There are no
quick tricks that will take care of everything. You have to buckle down. And it
helps if you make the work fun.
You can use this book when the consultants have left the building with their
PowerPoint presentations and when work really needs to get done. My ambition
with this book is to give you the tools to integrate social media into the
organization’s communication with its customers, stakeholders, employees and
community members. To get there you need a content strategy for social media.
A content strategy is the answer to the challenge that many small and medium-
sized companies face. The usual way a company approaches social media is to
choose a few platforms – e.g. Facebook and Twitter – and get started. But little
thought is given to the type of content that will fuel this effort. How will you be
relevant to your target group? And how should your content benefit your
business? Typically, there is no budget set aside to produce great content. So you
post what you can find here and there – and you wonder why using social media
has no effect. You could also ask yourself what people are supposed to share,
link to or comment on if there is no relevant content. What are you supposed to
advertise with or perform SEO on if not good content? A typical scenario for the
way companies use social media is, therefore, as follows: The company has been
on Facebook for six months. There are 815 likes, of which 200 are friends,
employees, and family. Updates and engagement have ground to a halt.
This book focuses on how to create content that will fuel the company’s
presence on social media and on how companies can keep the conversation
going on these networks. In my view, good content is the secret to succeeding on
social media. If you find the formula for making good content that engages
people, you will also know how to create value for the company. This requires
that you dare to look at the content you currently produce through new eyes and
from a user perspective. This book will help you find the answers to these
questions: How do we communicate, what do we communicate, and whom do
we want to communicate with on social media?

Many of the people I interviewed for this book have landed their jobs as social
media managers in non-traditional ways. And they also have different job titles –
from Marketing Manager and Social Media Manager to Project Manager and
Director. This is an indication that this is still a developing field, characterized
by people who create their own jobs and who are, thus, pioneers. Their job titles
are of lesser importance – it is their accomplishments that make them interesting.
Most of the cases in this book involve Danish companies, many of which operate
internationally.
My goal for writing this book is to turn social media into something that we
work with strategically, rather than reactively. The point of the book is that good,
user-centered content can be used to build a strong network around your projects
or brands, thus consolidating your efforts.
In this book I present a large number of models which will, hopefully, help
you develop your strategy. I use different companies and organizations that have
willingly shared their experiences. I have omitted large companies like Coca-
Cola, Red Bull and LEGO, because their use of social media is described
extensively elsewhere and because it might be harder for smaller organizations
to relate to them. I began by finding someone who had an inspiring or surprising
approach and who is achieving something through great content. The idea is that
you can use one or more of these cases in your work with social media. “If they
can do it, so can we.”

About this Book

This book is organized into five general chapters: 1) Strategy and Purpose, 2)
Create Relevance for Users, 3) Create Good Content, 4) Planning and
Measurement, and 5) Involve the Organization and Your Employees. At the
same time, the five chapters serve as a model for structuring your work with
social media. You can download a selection of the book’s models and check lists
at astridhaug.com, which you can print out or use for educational purposes. If
you refer to this book on social media, please use #DIYstrategy.
When you have read this book, I hope that you will prioritize the following
in your work with social media: 1) determine a clear purpose, 2) understand your
users’ needs, 3) spend time creating good content, 4) plan and measure the effect,
and 5) involve the organization and employees. In this way, you will spend your
time most efficiently, achieve a measurable effect, and strengthen your market
position.

 1
Strategy and Purpose

Back in 1996, Bill Gates wrote an article titled “Content is King”. It was true
then and it is true now. Sales and marketing people are beginning to realize that
you need good content to market yourself on social media. Without a good story
and good communication, you cannot sell products or messages. For a long time,
journalists and communications professionals have been working based on the
premise that good content wins out in the long run. A bright future is expected
for the content marketing industry. But do not get bogged down by new
terminology. It simply means that without good content you will have no social
media presence. People do not want empty sales pitches. They want to be
informed, entertained and fulfilled. They want something they can use,
something they can tell their friends about and something they can talk about
online.
In this chapter, I will take a closer look at what actually constitutes a content
strategy and how to establish your purpose. I will introduce some simple models
which can help you determine your purpose. This is a necessity for working
strategically with content.

What is a Content Strategy?

A content strategy for social media is a strategy that focuses on the content that
you will share on social media. It has a clear purpose which acts as a guide
throughout the process. The content strategy is rooted in the life of the users and
aims to provide them with relevant knowledge and content. It can be anything
from a short text update to an update containing graphics, images and links.
There may be links to blog posts, articles, reports, infographics, picture galleries
or videos. This book focuses on content that serves a strategic purpose, so you
know what the intention is and what goal it should fulfill to post this particular
content. It could be 140 characters on Twitter or a long article which you link to
on social media. With a content strategy you avoid a shotgun approach on social
media; instead, you will be able to focus your efforts to achieve better results
with the available resources. This approach to content strategy leads to a specific
plan for how you want to achieve your goals.
Instead of looking at your content strategy as a long document you write one
time only, you can look at it as a series of processes occurring continuously,
where each phase affects the others. Since the strategy will be developed along
the way, as you learn more about the users and determine the most effective
content, it is important to define the purpose and the strategic metrics so as not to
lose focus.
There are many possible strategic considerations regarding social media, but
you will only be able to see what works once you start to publish content and
you can measure the effect. This is the key to social media. It is a bit like having
many nice cookbooks on your bookshelf, but only once you start mixing
ingredients will it actually taste like anything.
This book is organized according to a five-phase content strategy process.
The five phases correspond to the book’s five chapters. The model can be used
as a guide for structuring your work. If you adhere to this model, you will avoid
the common pitfall of choosing a platform prematurely in the process before you
consider purpose, relevance, content, a plan and goals, as well as the
organization.


Model 1. Process for content strategy, which corresponds to the five chapters of this book

The model starts by looking at the purpose, which will be examined later in this
chapter. In the second phase you will learn more about your users, so that you
can create relevant content for them. If you match your purpose with your
knowledge of the users, you can determine how you can be relevant. The
relevance depends on the needs that you are able to fulfill for the users that the
company attracts or seeks out. In the third phase we explore in depth how to
create good content. Perhaps you already have a lot of content suitable for your
social media users, which only requires better organization. In most cases,
however, the conclusion is that the existing content needs to be revised and new
content formats need to be conceptualized. When the content is in order, it needs
to be distributed. The model’s fourth phase deals with how to plan and measure
your work so that you will know what effect it has. The model’s fifth and last
phase is about how to embed the strategy in the organization and about how you,
as an employee, entrepreneur or manager, can contribute with your personal
brand on social media.
The model’s phases are inspired by the numerous companies that are
featured in this book. Yet very few of the companies I have encountered have
succeeded in all aspects of their content strategy, or have followed the model
from one end to the other. Some lack planning, some need to involve the
organization, and others need to strengthen their content. No one is perfect and
this is part of the charm of working with social media. It is a profession that is
still in its infancy. It is also a field that develops so rapidly that it is impossible to
formulate a strategy extending several years into the future. So be prepared to
work on it continuously. This makes establishing a sound foundation even more
critical. It requires that you understand your users, your reason for being on
social media, and the dynamics of your organization.
 You are, naturally, the one who must determine whether your company
needs a content strategy. Some of the elements will overlap with other strategies,
so you should not perceive the different strategies as things that limit one other,
but rather as different paths towards the same goal, i.e. to strengthen your
business.
A content strategy is more than just a list of the content you intend to
publish. Kristina Halvorsen, renowned content strategist and author of the book
“Content Strategy for the Web”, compares a content strategy to managing a
bakery. There are many things to take into account. You have some employees,
the equipment is expensive and can break down, there are different products on
the shelves, and you need to manage the finances and hopefully turn a profit. In
the next chapter, we will look at how to establish your purpose and set your
course.

You can benefit from a content strategy if:

You want to work strategically with social media, i.e. get results that
strengthen your business in the long run.
Your efforts on social media are not currently working. This is usually
because of an inadequate focus on content.
You believe that it can benefit your business to communicate, share
knowledge, and collect knowledge on user behavior.
You have a goal with your communication, which extends beyond selling a
product, i.e. set an agenda on a specific topic or change the perception of a
specific matter.
You want a framework for your social media initiatives, which is
independent of the individual network – if Facebook were to shut down
tomorrow you would still have a social media goal.
You are tired of competitions and campaigns that have a yo-yo effect on your
users’ engagement on social media. With a content strategy you can create a
better flow for your updates.
You want to improve the connection between social media and your other
communication initiatives. In this instance, coherent initiatives will depend
on your purpose and content.

 Discover the Purpose

“We don’t need a strategy - this is the Wild West, we will just get started and see
what happens.” This is the approach many companies have to social media and it
may work well for some at the beginning. However, after half a year or a year,
people will often realize that something is missing. A direction, some goals, and
perhaps a slightly smarter way of getting the work done than trying to come up
with a new post every day.
When you use the word strategy, many people become uncertain – why do
we need yet another strategy and what exactly did the last one deal with? Many
of us have been through strategic planning that spanned years and was too
unspecific. The world does not need any more useless strategies. But when it
comes to social media, there are many things that people regard as complicated –
which of the numerous platforms to choose, how can we be available 24/7, and
how should we respond to users? This is why a strategy for social media should
not add additional complexity. Instead, the strategy must provide a common
focus and establish a direction. This way, when you get lost in the social media
jungle, you can turn back to the strategy and say, “OK, this is the way we need to
go.”
In our eagerness to please the boss or our customers, we often skip the
strategy and go straight to execution. This makes us unable to answer to our
actions, to determine whether we use our energy optimally, and to measure our
progress – after all, what was our goal again?
When working with social media, picking a few networks is not, in itself, a
strategy. Instead, you have to begin with a strategic aim and then go in depth
with the content and process. Together, that describes what you intend to do -
and now you have the outline for your strategy.
The strategy is based on a vision or a purpose which sets the course for the
future. The vision and purpose are both terms for what we want to achieve.
Some companies have a vision, mission and a purpose, but it is simpler to
understand and use this concept if you can sum up your activities in one basic
sentence. Some employ a principle of limiting their strategic purpose to 15
words; you could also use Twitter’s 140-character limit and formulate your
vision like a tweet. By having a clear vision, you have the opportunity to
prioritize your content. Will this content help us reach our goal?
A good vision can be compared to a good story. It is easy to remember and
you can easily pass it along to others. It helps if it is interesting, eye-opening or
life affirming. But under no circumstance should it be incomprehensible,
unnecessarily long or meaningless.
In the book “Switch”, Chip and Dan Heath recommend that you look at
your goals as a destination postcard. It is a lively image that shows what you can
achieve in the near future. The word postcard makes me think of sunny white
beaches and palm trees, so the image works well as something I would want to
strive for. Kristina Halvorsen writes that you can think of your goals as a
lighthouse, which helps you stay the course no matter how stormy it gets.
When you work with social media you are working with a new business
area. Therefore, we can find inspiration in the way entrepreneurs work. In his
book “The Lean Startup”, the entrepreneur Eric Ries explains that many startups
fail because the founders think that the process should be chaotic and turbulent.
It can be difficult to plan a startup, so people adopt a “just do it” mindset. But
chaos is not the answer. According to Ries, entrepreneurship is a form of
management. He claims, “It’s the boring stuff that matters the most.” This means
setting goals, prioritizing work, and implementing budgetary controls. Many
people fear that working with social media is chaotic and unmanageable. Yet by
organizing, planning, and using Excel spreadsheets, you can minimize the
chaotic elements that may arise. The key to success for the entrepreneur is to
determine the vision – what Ries calls the startup’s answer to the navigational
term “true north”. The vision controls the strategy, and the same applies to social
media.
How do we formulate a strategy when we do not know what the future
holds? Not knowing exactly what tomorrow brings is not the same as being
unable to make sensible considerations. I do not regard setting a goal as being
the same as an ultimate goal – like reaching your destination. It is more a state of
being, where many things are under constant change, but there is a core – you
could call it a vision – which does not change from one day to the next. So if
you are into a happy ending, it is necessary to set up some intermediary targets.
When Anders Lunde was hired as Social Media Manager at JYSK, a
warehouse selling household goods like mattresses and furniture, he was tasked
with establishing the group’s presence on social media and with creating results
that were visible at the bottom line. He wanted to create a grand strategy, since
he thought, “This is how it’s done. Especially in a company like JYSK where
there are rules and procedures for pretty much everything.” But there was no
support for this approach. Instead, he received a direction, “We need to show on
social media that JYSK is an expert in sleep.”
 This gave him a focused message that was easy to remember and which
conformed to JYSK’s history. It made it easier for Anders Lunde to create
content, since this could be done within a well-defined framework, and the users
felt that it was relevant to them. JYSK is not among the digital first movers, so
Anders Lunde was met with a healthy dose of skepticism from some managers
when he was hired. But they wanted to be on Facebook because everyone else
was. Therefore, he had to create the strategy backwards, by choosing the
platform first and then determining a purpose.
He defined three intermediary targets for JYSK’s presence on Facebook.
First, they want to be closer to the customer and let the customer be closer to
JYSK, by showing them that JYSK is not just a behemoth when it comes to good
offers. They do this by being in continuous dialogue with the users and by
converting dissatisfied customers into satisfied customers. Second, they want to
attract a younger target group, instead of the usual group consisting of women in
or past their forties. Third, social media should contribute to the bottom line.
JYSK is an example of how to launch a content strategy for social media in an
existing company with a business strategy and organization that it must fit into.

Three Strategy Models

I will now present three models that can help you determine the purpose which
can guide your social media content. The first is the SWOT, which for many of
us is an old acquaintance, but which remains useful. The next is the Golden
Circle, which can be used to sort out the company’s purpose and motivation. The
third model is the Value Ladder, which can be used to establish the general
framework for the content you want to communicate.

SWOT
I would like to strike a blow for the simple SWOT model. A SWOT can be
one way of establishing an overview, which can be used to develop a strategy.
The advantage of using the SWOT is that it is well-known and can provide a
sense of safety when working with a known model in unknown digital terrain.
The SWOT was created by Albert Humphrey, who headed the Stanford
Research Institute in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, the model has been used
by many companies and decision makers as a tool for strategic planning.


Model 2. SWOT

It is easy to apply to the digital arena due to its simplicity, so it is possible to
build a SWOT describing your situation in relation to social media. The model
consists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It can be used as a
springboard for determining your purpose by outlining the playing field. What
challenges do we face? What problems must be solved? What are our strengths
and opportunities? Where are our greatest weaknesses? What threats might we
encounter and how do we prepare for them?

Strengths and weaknesses refer to the organization - in other words, the internal
conditions. Opportunities and threats are the external factors, i.e. conditions that
the organization does not directly influence. For example, a strength may refer to
specific knowledge within a field, being a market leader with a certain product,
or having a very visual product which is, therefore, ideal for social media.
Weaknesses could include a lack of competence within digital media or not
having a customer database with emails. Opportunities could refer to having
customers who are digital first-movers, new opportunities resulting from
technological development, or that your product correlates with current trends in
society. Threats could include technological development, your competitors’
products, or weather conditions. By outlining your threats in black and white
next to your opportunities, you have a good foundation for assessing them both
constructively. You can also envision factors that may be both a strength and a
weakness. For example, if you have a decentralized organization with many
autonomous departments. If that is the case, list the factors in both boxes for the
reasons that make it both a strength and weakness.
The objective is to use the company’s strengths and opportunities while
minimizing weaknesses and the effect of identified threads. If, for example, you
noted that the employees’ lack of digital competences is a weakness, you may
implement internal education or make sure to hire someone with digital
competence next time. If you noted an opportunity because your business area
will be subject to political focus next year, you can strive to make yourself
visible in political discussions online. You should then prioritize the strategic
opportunities that the SWOT uncovers. However, it is critical that you do not
dwell too much on threats and weaknesses, but rather, work constructively
within all four areas.
The SWOT can be used on many levels. It can be used very generally in
relation to your overall business. It can be used for a specific area, e.g. in
relation to social media. It can also be used in relation to crisis communication
or for outlining a future scenario. But it is important that you define the goal of
the analysis before starting so that you fill out all four boxes from the same
perspective.

The Golden Circle
The SWOT is great for outlining the playing field and creating an overview
for your thoughts, ideas and challenges concerning social media. On the other
hand, it is not particularly visionary. Where the SWOT falls short, the Golden
Circle can take over. This is the name of Simon Sinek’s model, which I have
become very fond of. It can be used to identify the company’s motivation and
purpose. It is so simple that you can always remember it and use it, should you
need a helping hand to determine your focus. But do not be fooled by the
simplicity of the model. People in both large and small companies run into
problems when they want to fill out the model.

Model 3. The Golden Circle

Sinek’s point is that we typically communicate from the outside and inwards; in
other words, that we begin with what we are doing – i.e. the product. We can
then explain how we make the product, whether it is a physical or a non-tangible
product such as consulting, sales or welfare services. How is our special
approach, which is what separates us from our competitors. But do we also know
why we do it? According to Simon Sinek, it is from here, at the core of the
matter, that we should begin to communicate. People do not buy what you do,
they buy why you are doing it, claims Simon Sinek. Why should be understood
as purpose and motivation. Earning money is not a good why. This is a result -
not a goal. You can ask yourself, “Why am I earning money in this industry
specifically?” What do you or others get out of earning money on this product?
A why is about what motivates you to go to work, apart from salary. For most
people, their why will have a greater social or humane purpose, such as helping
others achieve something or to feel better. When did you last feel that you
contributed something positive for others at work? You undoubtedly felt good
about it. A similar experience with your work can give you an idea of what your
purpose actually is. You can fill out the model alone or ask colleagues and
managers to contribute so that you can arrive at a collective company
understanding of this why. It has the characteristics of a motto or purpose. A
good why can be a strong internal motivator if it is anchored in the company’s
way of doing business. The Danish bank Jyske Bank is such an example.
You could say that Jyske Bank’s why is that they go against the trend. This
has been the bank’s way of doing things since its foundation in 1967. It does not
simply want to copy other banks, but also to go its own way. In a newspaper
article in 1982, it was described as “havkatten i hyttefladet” (“the catfish in the
well” – referring to someone who uses innovation or new ways of thinking to stir
things up). It was not meant positively in the article, but Jyske Bank chose to
interpret it as such and adopted the catfish character. Therefore, the bank’s
Facebook page is called “Havkatten – Jyske Bank” (The catfish – Jyske Bank).
The fact that it is a different bank extends behind the façade. The main office in
Silkeborg, Jutland, is creatively decorated for a bank, with art and quotes from
authors and Generals on its walls. On the walls you can read, “Kindness is the
only investment that never goes wrong,” or “If everyone is thinking alike, then
someone isn’t thinking.” When they launched jyskebank.tv in the fall of 2008,
they set new standards for web TV and content marketing – in other words, a
focus on creating relevant content for users, thus strengthening Jyske Bank’s
position. In November 2013, when they were the subject of negative media
attention about tax shelters, they chose not to surrender and apologize, which is
otherwise the first rule of crisis management. Instead, they stood firm and
confronted the TV channel’s legal department. This way Jyske Bank gets its
what – what they do – to communicate why they do it, and the Golden Circle is
complete. Their actions match their words, and that makes them trustworthy in
the long run.
Another example of how why and what are connected comes from a
newcomer among supermarkets, the online company nemlig.com. They deliver
groceries to Danes and had their first real breakthrough in the market when they
launched a price war with the discount chain Netto in the spring of 2013. They
brand themselves under the slogan “Get more time”. Their why could be “Get
more time for the things that are important to you.” This is also visible in the
way they work as a supermarket: “You order your goods when you have time;
we deliver them up to the 5th floor and even recycle your empty bottles. Easy,
isn’t it?” The extra service of delivering the goods to any floor and recycling
empty bottles underscores that they make their customers’ lives easier.
How do you find your why? Ask yourself or your colleagues, “What gets
you out the door and off to work?” The answer may often be, “Because I have
to”, or “To get paid.” Keep asking the question. Make it into a communal
activity to discover the company’s, department’s or individual employee’s why.
Perhaps after some time you will be able to see that there is higher purpose with
your work. This may sound like a cliché, but understanding what the purpose of
your work actually is can be a motivating factor. Human beings are not as
different as we may think – for most of us it actually makes sense to work on
something that also helps others.

The Value Ladder
You want people to talk about you positively on social media. You want to
involve users on social media. You want the energy that you invest in social
media not to be a waste of time. Most organizations can agree on all this. So
when you have found a purpose, it is time to take a look at how your company
communicates and how to create value for the users.
The trick is to create content that is based in the users’ daily lives rather than
that of the company. In general, it is not the company’s press releases and annual
reports, but rather something that involves the user’s own reality. The Value
Ladder is my contribution to how you can create content on social media which
is relevant for the user. It is based on my analysis of numerous companies that
have success with social media. In other words, companies that have a high
degree of interaction, and that achieves measurable results.
The Value Ladder can help you see your company from a user’s perspective.
It can, thus, make you aware of the difference between how you communicate
today and how you want to communicate from now on. The purpose of the Value
Ladder is to shift your communication from the product-related marketing
approach to visionary and strategic communication.


Model 4. The Value Ladder

Many companies communicate from the lower rung of “Buy our product.”
Social media is used as a marketing channel, and nothing else. This includes, for
example, updates such as: “This week, half price on ground beef” or “Cardigan
available in sizes S-XL for $40.”
On the second rung you might talk about the workplace with some behind
the scenes updates. If you work exclusively with rungs 1 and 2, you take the risk
that users will perceive the content as irrelevant (unless you have the world’s
most amazing products). Next, you risk running out of content, since there are
limits to how much you can say about the product.
If you work from the third rung – “We talk about our passion” – you have
understood that everything involved in the product is what really works. The
case, the vision, why, the message – it has many names. But you are still mostly
talking about yourself.
If you communicate from the fourth rung, you shift the focus from yourself
to the recipient. “How can we help you with what you are passionate about?”
This requires that you listen to your customers. It is really quite simple. If we
look at an example like nemlig.com, they help me have an easier day. It is not
about their wholesale chain, but about how to find a better balance in a busy day
with work, kids and so on. For JYSK, it is about helping me get a better night’s
sleep – e.g. by using a funny picture to remind me of the importance of airing
out the bedroom, or helping me to have more room in my closet by means of a
funny video featuring a American housewife who authoritatively folds a fitted
sheet. It could also be the fitness app Endomondo, which motivates you to be
more active. Or take SILVAN, a warehouse offering physical Do-It-Yourself
schools, where you learn how to use an impact drill or how to grow plants. Does
it change the world? Perhaps not, but it leads to happy customers and,
presumably, increased sales.
On rung 5 we ask “How can we change the world together?” It is something
that is bigger than the brand. One example is the mobile company Call Me’s Tal
ordentligt (Speak right) campaign, which we will look at more closely later in
the book. The campaign is not about selling cell phone subscriptions at the
lowest price and with the most cryptic binding methods and fee regulations. It is
about getting people in the public space, at workplaces and schools, to talk nicer
to each other.
Another example of a company that communicates from rung 5 is the
Danish company Aarstiderne. They deliver organic fruits and vegetables to your
home and offer recipes and videos, making it easier for the customer to turn the
products into their favorite meals. Together, Aarstiderne and their customers
change the world a little bit each day by polluting less, through lower CO2
emissions, and by living healthier lives.
The further you move up the Value Ladder, the further you get from a
sender-oriented perspective, and the closer you get to a network perspective. Yet,
not everyone should necessarily be on the fifth rung; instead, you should find the
type of communication that suits your company culture, product and users.
You can communicate from all the rungs at different times over a given
period. Some consciously choose not to talk about their product. Others have
users who want to know about the product and so, of course, you should give
them that.
A company that has been very successful worldwide and on social media is
the jewelry manufacturer Pandora. Their communication is largely about the
product – rung 1, but also about how to make others happy and spread love –
rungs 4 and 5. Call Me’s campaign was exclusively focused on rung 5 – “How
can we make the world a bit better together?” But this is far from a sure-fire
strategy if the connection to the product becomes too ambiguous and it does not
result in more customers, better brand awareness, or greater customer
satisfaction.
If you are in doubt about how your company can communicate on rungs 4
and 5, you can use your purpose, or why, as the basis. If it is all about how to
improve people’s daily lives or enrich them with a good experience, then this is
what should guide you on social media. If, on the other hand, you have trouble
determining your why, use rungs 4 and 5 of the Value Ladder as a starting point.
It is critical that you have a clear purpose with your communication.

This is how you use the Value Ladder:

Which rung primarily constitutes your communication today? Many
companies are on rungs 1-2, and sometimes they move to rung 3. But
perhaps your company is the exception.
If you are on rungs 1-3, you need to focus more on the user’s perspective.
What layer can you add to the product that is relevant to the user’s
daily life? Take a step back from the product and look at the bigger
picture. For a supermarket, it might be a healthier lifestyle or
avoiding waste, while for an NGO it could be a focus on how people
can be part of a larger change in their daily lives.
What knowledge or service can you make available for your users in
a new way? Among employees and within the organization, there is
a treasure trove of knowledge. Do not be afraid to show what you
know. The fear that your competitors will steal it is generally
exaggerated.
If your communication on social media is currently on rungs 4-5, you are
doing great. Make sure that you define how your digital efforts will support
your business, for example, by measuring whether customer loyalty is on the
rise.

Use the Value Ladder as the basis to select the subject(s) that you will cover
comprehensively with your social media content. This is where you should have
your focus on the future.


2
Be Relevant to the Users

Content is king, but the users are God.

Christine Sørensen, Communications Manager at Google Denmark

If you compare people’s use of social media with that of most companies, the
conclusion is clear: Your customers are more digital than your company.
On social media, the rules are not defined by the those who used to be in
charge. It is the domain of the young, and it is their rules and codes that
determine how companies and everyone else use social media. The users are
often a step ahead of the companies and organizations. Make sure to flip the
perspective; begin with the users’ needs rather than the needs of the company.
On social media, the company steps into a universe where users have defined the
rules and feel a strong sense of ownership. People rarely go to the company’s
Facebook page; they stay informed through the posts that show up on their
newsfeed. In the same way that everyone has a unique fingerprint, on social
media we have a unique newsfeed. My feed is not identical to yours. This means
that when a company wants to communicate with users, it steps into the users’
space. It appears in their newsfeed and, therefore, the user is the center of the
universe, not the company.

In this chapter, we will look at some of the general characteristics of users on
social media. We will also look at how social media work, as this is a
fundamental prerequisite for understanding the importance of creating user-
relevant content. In the final section of the chapter, we will zoom in on how you
can find the niche where your content matches the needs of the users.

Get to Know Your Users

In this chapter, I will focus on some general characteristics of social network
users. Your job will be to apply this to your specific group of users.
The overall challenge when we look at social media is that we move from
one-way communication to dialogue. The customers and users respond and talk
to each other. This means that they should not be regarded as passive recipients,
but rather as co-creators of the communication. When they share, comment on or
contribute to content, they are part of creating it, spreading it, and making it
relevant.

Model 5: From traditional communication to network communication

One of the earliest representations of the mass-media effect is the hypodermic
needle model – the notion that you could “inject” the message into the recipient,
who would then passively receive it. It was never an actual theory, but rather an
image of how people thought things worked. The idea that the recipient should
simply consume a prepared message is still a widespread belief within
communication and marketing. It becomes clear on social media that this
approach falls short. If the users do not perceive the content as relevant, and if
they do not interact with it, the content is rejected and becomes all but invisible.
On social media the effect is achieved not just through exposure, but as a
consequence of relevant interaction.
I have often heard people in organizations say that their users are not on
social media. But it becomes increasingly difficult to find specific user groups
that are not on social media, apart from young children. One of the most active
Danish pages on Facebook belongs to the DaneAge Association. Social media
are no longer only for the young – all generations are on them. Naturally, the
behavior of different generations may differ. For example, the younger users are
quick to seek out new experiences, such as supplementing Facebook with
Snapchat. There are also differences regarding the extent to which your users
like and share – whether they do it a lot or whether they are more reserved with
their social expression. You are the one who knows your users best. You can
define some general characteristics, but there will be exceptions. If, for example,
you have nerdy users who are very involved in the subject, they might prefer
long text-based posts rather than short texts and funny images. This applies to
the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, which discovered that they get the best
level of engagement on Facebook from posts with long text.
There are large regional and national differences as to which social media are
most dominant. According to GlobalWebIndex, the average social media user
spends 2 hours and 25 minutes per day using social networks and microblogs.
Argentinian and Filipino users occupy the top position, and spend 4.3 hours per
day.
Worldwide, there are more than 2 billion people using social media.
Facebook is the world’s largest and most popular social network, with 1.5 billion
active users. This book does not deal with social media in China, as that is a
completely different market.
LinkedIn has nearly 400 million active users, while Google+, Instagram and
Twitter have about 300 million active users. Snapchat has around 200 million
active users. Facebook is, thus far, the largest social network globally. At the
other end of the scale, Snapchat is starting to catch up with both Twitter and
Instagram. Pinterest has over 70 million users globally, with 85% female users.
 Instagram and Snapchat are both networks that only fully function as
smartphone apps. On Instagram you can apply filters to your photos so that
amateur photographers like me can take pictures that look great. Snapchat is a
mobile app for images and video that last up to 10 seconds. A message is called
a “snap”, and you can send it to one or more friends. Once your friends see it, it
disappears. With the “stories” function, it is possible to make your snaps
available to others for 24 hours. Stories make Snapchat more interesting for
organizations from a professional perspective, since you can make your snaps
available to all your friends with just one click, rather than selecting each one
individually. In January 2015, Snapchat launched the Discover service, a
collaboration with 11 American media brands that publish news on a daily basis,
customized for smartphones. Discover builds upon the change implemented in
the fall of 2014, when Snapchat made it possible for large brands to show
commercials. This did not scare off users, so it is unlikely that this will be the
end of the changes on Snapchat.
The popularity of Instagram and Snapchat supports the notion that the
smartphone is a popular way to use social media. People who own smartphones
spend a lot more time on social media than those without
smartphones. According to Google Mobile Planet, 83% of Americans do not
leave home without their smartphone. And many of us multitask with our
smartphone. 53% of Americans use their smartphone while watching TV, while
16% read newspapers or magazines while they use their smartphone.
To understand user behavior, you have to look at your company and your
users through the smartphone. This is how we access social media, which is why
we need content that can be read on a small screen and which is relevant to us at
work or in our spare time. According to a large study by The New York Times,
there are a number of reasons why we share. First and foremost, we share
because of the fundamental human characteristic of wanting to share with others.
Social media makes it easy to share with many people at once, and others can
see what you are sharing. Another reason for sharing content is to define
ourselves to others. What we share says something about who we are or what we
want others to associate us with. We also share to maintain contact with people
who we otherwise would have lost contact with, or to experience a sense of
community with others who share our interests. Yet another reason people share
is because it gives them the feeling of being part of the world and contributing
something.

 Understand your users and their digital habits:

What is their age and gender?
What are their interests? It is a good idea to include things that go beyond
your product or service, as this might lead to new ideas.
What do they use social media for? Look at the eight types and remember
that most people are interested in following their friends while others are also
politically involved in the digital world.
Which social media do they use? Most people are on Facebook, but they
might also read blogs or take pictures with Instagram.
What language and hashtags do they use? You can learn this by observing
their digital behavior and reflecting that in your own communication.
What are their habits in relation to the field you operate in? Try to understand
their daily life in regard to the time of day and situations when it would be
relevant to offer content. For example, if they are on the move, you need to
reach them on mobile devices.
What content do they use the most on our website? Get an overview of the
pages and articles that are most popular on the website. It can give you an
indication of the type of content they are looking for on your site.
What social media content yields the best response? Look at your existing
account on social media and run a small study to see which content leads to
the best response. This will give you a good idea of where to go.
What kind of person is your typical user? Describe one or several personae
who are the primary target groups for your social media efforts. Name them
and give them an age, an occupation, a residence and interests – the more
vivid the better. Different social media can be targeted at different personae.

The DaneAge Association Generates Engagement on Facebook

One group of users which has become extremely prominent on Facebook in
recent years consists of senior citizens. The DaneAge Association discovered this
in 2011 when they set up their Facebook page. Signe Bisbjerg, former
Community Manager with the DaneAge Association, worked for several years
on creating content that would generate a high level of engagement. It became
so successful that the DaneAge Association had the most active fan base of any
Danish language page on Facebook.

Signe Bisbjerg recounts how the DaneAge Association realized that there was
great potential for reaching their target group on Facebook. “If we had not been
the association that united Danish senior citizens on Facebook, then someone
else would have done it. Someone would have set up ‘Danish Retirees’ or
something similar and they would have this gigantic target group.” Today, the
DaneAge Association has over 85,000 fans on Facebook. And the elderly are
very active. For a while the DaneAge Association was gaining hundreds of fans
every day because their fans liked, commented on, and shared their posts.
Actually, the DaneAge Association has had, for years, Denmark’s most active
fan base, with an engagement of 85 IPM. IPM stands for interactions per
thousand users and is a Facebook metric for calculating user engagement. In the
chapter “This is How Social Media Work” we will look at how IPM is
calculated.
“No other brands have managed to maintain as high an IPM over a longer
period of time as the DaneAge Association,” says Signe Bisbjerg. She uses IPM
as a success criterion for content and, thus, for her work.
It is possible that the Facebook feed of senior citizens has less competition,
since they are not members of as many groups, they do not have 1,000 friends,
and they are less marketed to than a younger audience. Yet, this alone does not
explain the high level of engagement. According to Signe Bisbjerg, “What
characterizes them is that they are involved, active, and generous, but not
uncritical. We have worked hard to find just the right tone at just the right time.
This way our updates have a reach that is many times greater than our fan base.”
Her approach is, “Facebook is something we play.” You have to take it seriously,
but you have to dare to play with it. There is no set strategy; instead, she does
what feels right. Then she looks at what the fan base likes or does not like and,
similar to an anthropologist, she hones in on her tribe. Signe Bisbjerg explains
the general framework for the content, “When we post, we have to be the
interesting, inclusive and entertaining dinner guest. We must imagine that Mrs.
Nielsen is sitting at home in her living room and looking at her feed, which is
full of private updates about the family and the neighbor’s son. Here, we must be
like a guest that you want to invite inside. We are a guest on your feed. It makes
sense to me to think like this as a company.”
One of the things that works if you want a high level of engagement, is
humor. But this is where the DaneAge Association faced a challenge. Could they
appear in the press and complain about cutbacks within home care while still
being funny on Facebook? Could the target group accommodate this level of
variation in communication? These were some of the things Signe Bisbjerg had
to consider, and she concluded, “Yes we can. Balance is important; we cannot
just post kittens and bacon all day – we also need factual, quality updates.”
According to Signe Bisbjerg, it is myth that Facebook cannot be used for
factual debates such as early retirement benefit reforms and the use of diapers in
retirement homes. But it is the humorous and loving updates that definitely
generate the most engagement. It is all about finding balance, “We get away with
the heavy political posts because we also have funny posts which give us some
algorithms that reward us on Facebook. Companies can be humorous and have a
sense of self-irony. We can make fun of getting old, but with sensitivity."
Another thing that Signe Bisbjerg realized in her seven years with the
DaneAge Association is that a “call to action” works well with elderly users.
She explains, “For example, we could write ‘Britta no longer receives home
care, have you experienced the same thing?’ It works really well. The younger
target groups do not want that kind of call to action. Senior citizens, on the other
hand, need to have that indication to tell them how they can interact with the
post. It is matching expectations with the target group – what kind of response
can you give us?”
The DaneAge Association varies its content throughout the week.
Experience has taught them that early in the week, users are interested in what
the DaneAge Association can do for them, i.e. results and action. Towards the
end of the week, they want entertainment. The DaneAge Association has also
worked on their tone of voice. It has become personal, but not too intimate. It is
whimsical, but authentic and professional.
At regular intervals the DaneAge Association has asked its users what
senior citizens get from being on Facebook. The answer is that it is primarily
about following their children’s and grandchildren’s lives. Personal matters
trigger their emotions, not following debates on social issues. Signe Bisbjerg
says that they received many nice stories about people finding lost friends and
old neighbors on Facebook. Some people found each other on Facebook and
began meeting up in real life. “It is touching when Facebook strengthens your
network in the physical world,” she says. “Some of the senior citizens would tell
you that their quality of life improved, thanks to Facebook. This is when it stops
being a pseudo-network and it becomes meaningless to differentiate between
reality and the internet. One woman wrote, ‘I am sitting here on the third floor
with a broken hip. With Facebook I feel just a little less lonely.’ I get
goosebumps just thinking about it – OK, so perhaps it is not physical contact, but
the perceived presence is real enough.”
The DaneAge Association offers courses in using the internet and Facebook
and, in that way, they play a part in helping many senior citizens get onto social
media.
At the beginning of 2014, Signe Bisbjerg moved to a similar position in
Djøf, the union for economists and lawyers. Here she worked with generating
engagement for Djøf Studerende (Djøf Students). She was surprised to discover
their level of engagement was 0.79 IPM. “It was totally off. What does one do
then? I did the exact same thing at Djøf as I did at DaneAge Association.” She
formulated a content plan, one week at a time, she received an advertising
budget, and she began studying the responses to the posts she made. She tried
everything – various kinds of posts containing links, videos, images and so on,
and she tested the tone of voice by being funny and entertaining in some updates
and angry or annoyed in others. She wrote long and short updates, posted late
and early during the day, updated a lot and updated rarely, and she cross-checked
all the parameters. She concluded that the humorous posts also did most of the
work at Djøf Studerende when it came to getting a high IPM. This experience is
not something you get in one week. “It takes a ridiculously long time to learn
from your posts. So do not leave your student assistant in charge of posting.
There is nothing easier than posting, but what have you learned from that? How
can you customize it so that it is even better next time? It is critical that this is
done by someone with the resources to evaluate it.”
The fan base has grown and the engagement score has passed 30 IPM due to
a targeted approach to content. At both the DaneAge Association and Djøf
Studerende, Signe Bisbjerg used a guiding principle that was greater than the
brand. “On Facebook, we have to be cooler than our brand,” she says. “On
Facebook, we should not be dealing with the work of the DaneAge Association;
it should be about being a senior citizen. Now it may well be that the DaneAge
Association is relevant in that context, but the DaneAge Association is not the
core element in the majority of the posts.”
Her advice to other organizations is, “Start to post. Get some experience.
Make some mistakes. I think it is just as interesting to see what works as what
does not work. Is it the text or pictures? It is entirely OK if it does not work. It
gives you the freedom to dare to try something different.”
Another of Signe Bisbjerg’s approaches has been to get an intimate
understanding of the target group. She does this by following the pages that the
target group typically follows on social media. This way she can discover what
they are most interested in these days and what language the members speak. It
is a combination of an analytical and emotional approach because the content
has to be right on the money, otherwise it will fall flat. The best lesson Signe
Bisbjerg learned at Djøf Studerende is that younger people want visual
communication and the target group is crazy about Instagram. Using hashtags
like #studentlife (studieliv) and #lawstudents (jurastuderende), she found images
taken by students and asked their permission to post them on Djøf Studerende on
Instagram. They were also willing to take control of the Djøf account for a week
and show pictures from their own student life. “They have flair for it and they
create awesome content. It has led to some amazing collections of images from
all over the country about being a student. Now we have a great deal of user-
generated content that we can use on places like Facebook, where albums are a
great form of content. In my opinion, it is a company’s dream to have users
create the content themselves on the company’s channels. That communication
is not just about the company, but about the users themselves. It is their media
and their daily life.”
The challenge at Djøf Studerende is to be better at communicating visually
and being concise. Another lesson is that for the young target group it has to be
about “me, me, me.” You cannot talk about future student reforms in general
terms; you need to use the words “you” and “your.” An update might be, “Look
around you in the lecture hall. Two of out of three of you will not complete your
Master’s Degree. This is a new government agenda.” They can feel that, because
it is based on them.
Neither at the DaneAge Association nor at Djøf are social media used for
member recruitment. It is about loyalty and about bringing existing and potential
members closer to the organization. As Signe Bisbjerg says, “They show us
something of their lives, which we can use in our ongoing work. You cannot buy
that with money. It is ROI that cannot be converted into money in my world.”
ROI stands for “return in investment” and, essentially, means profit. We will
look at impact measurement and ROI in chapter 4.
Signe Bisbjerg’s work at the DaneAge Association and Djøf Studerende
clearly shows that you can achieve great presence on social media by taking an
analytical approach to your content. It requires, in part, that you have a
framework that extends beyond the brand and that you are willing to use humor
in your communication. Then you have to adapt to the behavior of your target
group. Do they want a call to action or would they rather look at pictures of their
fellow students? The examples also show that slow and steady wins the race.
You can have competitions and attract many new fans and generate engagement,
but this is just a short-term fix that will not solve the fundamental mystery of
finding the content your users most want.
Instead of wishing you had younger, more digitally able, or less critical
users, you should learn to love the users you have and make an effort to create
content just for them. Signe Bisbjerg approaches users in their own daily lives. It
is a great match with what we know of the way we use social media. In a study
by Lisbeth Klastrup from the IT University in Copenhagen concerning what
people actually talk about on Facebook, the conclusion is that entertainment and
their everyday lives are far more prominent than politics or news. So do not be
afraid to entertain or talk about trivialities such as our daily lives and life in
general. When companies involve themselves in the daily lives of their users, it
brings them closer to each other and creates relevance. You can sneak in some
news or a political debate once in a while, unless, of course, you have users who
want that sort of thing in larger doses.

This is How Social Media Work

A prerequisite for working on social media is that you understand how they
work. What the users see when they access a social network on their computer or
smartphone is the network’s algorithm. Facebook composes the users’ newsfeed
based on an advanced algorithm. This algorithm is constantly being changed. It
is advantageous to stay up to date with these changes because it might mean that
companies need to switch tactics. The exact make-up of the algorithm is a
corporate secret, but Rasmus Møller, director at Komfo, studies it closely on
behalf of his customers. Komfo is a B2B company that carries out social media
marketing. Over the last six years he has been working closely with Facebook.
Based on data from Komfo he realized that the organic reach on Facebook is
currently 4 %. This means that when you post something on your page, in
general only 4 % of the page’s fans will be shown the content in their newsfeed.
Pages with smaller fan bases typically receive a higher organic reach than large
fan pages. The term “Facebook Zero” is used in the industry – i.e. that the
organic reach tends towards zero.
You can increase your reach in two ways – by advertising and by creating
content that people interact with, for example like, share, click and comment on.
A high level of user interaction spreads the content in two ways – in part by
exposing friends of fans to the content, and in part because Facebook rewards a
high level of engagement with increased organic reach.
One way to calculate engagement is called “IPM”, which stands for
interactions per thousand users. The number you get is per thousand, not in
percentages. This engagement score is calculated for the last 30 days of activity:

(comments + likes) ÷ updates ÷ number of fans x 1000 = 0-100 IPM

IPM only includes comments and likes, since it is technically not possible to
include shares. A like and a comment are furthermore given the same value,
even though a comment should be valued higher than a like. On the other hand,
it applies to all pages, so if you want to make a comparison with another
company, the same conditions apply for everyone. IPM can therefore be used as
a benchmark with your competitors. The updates that have many interactions
will be shown more frequently in people’s new streams, since Facebook
considers them relevant content. This means that it is not about having many
fans, but about having fans that get involved.
According to Rasmus Møller-Nielsen, “Facebook tries to determine the most
relevant content for the individual user. The more relevant it is, the more people
see it. If you have many updates without interaction, your content will be shown
to fewer and fewer users.” So it is better to have a smaller community with a
high level of relevance and thus engagement, than a page with many fans that
are not really interested in the brand. Many companies are first and foremost
preoccupied with getting the highest number of fans, but this only results in
increased value if there is engagement. Once your company has a reasonable
size, you should shift focus from fans to engagement.
Rasmus Møller-Nielsen explains that Facebook remembers if you generated
high engagement on your last updates. Then the next time you post, it will be
regarded as more relevant and hence, be exposed to more people. The opposite
applies if you have had low engagement. It is, therefore, about achieving a
positive spiral with relevant content that involves users. If you do not have any
engagement on the page, you are invisible in the user’s newsfeed. The same
logic applies to profiles as to pages, so do not assume that your updates are seen
by all your friends.
Rasmus Møller-Nielsen is not an advocate of competitions on Facebook as a
way of getting more fans. You attract some users who are only interested in the
competition and who will become dead weight for the site in the long run.
Competitions must be used with care, e.g. to involve the existing fan base and as
a form of entertaining content that generates engagement, rather than as a
marketing initiative. For Rasmus Møller-Nielsen, the road to success on
Facebook is a combination of advertising and good content. He says, “What
works is having an active community into which you feed relevant content that
then translates to business. This is the formula. The problem is that the formula
does not tell you what content is relevant to your community. This is unique.
Therefore, you need to have a person or a team that knows how to create
relevant content. You have to overcome this hurdle before you can begin to scale
and have an effect.” So you must find the right content recipe to generate user
engagement and you must also support the page with paid impressions.
Otherwise, your content will not reach your users.
Facebook is not the only company that uses an algorithm so advanced that it
sometimes requires professional help to understand. LinkedIn has followed suit.
There is generally a lot of focus on how Facebook’s newsfeed works, but
LinkedIn tends to go somewhat more unnoticed. The focus here is generally on
how to pep up your profile, not on how to make yourself visible in people’s
newsfeeds.
Users on LinkedIn are generally shown top posts. You can manually select
to see everything, called “recent”. This means that the posts that get many likes
and comments are shown to most people. I often see posts that are four to six
days old on LinkedIn. This means that popular content has a lifetime of up to
one week. And we are not talking about funny YouTube videos here, but rather
job changes, job posts, and other professional content. Apart from the updates,
you can also write blog posts which will appear at the top of the profile page.
As opposed to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn is used solely for
professional networking. However, this does not mean that the content you post
on LinkedIn has to be boring. Here too you can be entertaining, as long as it has
a clear professional angle. With an interesting and active content flow, you can
stand out from the masses of companies that either do not post on the network or
just post job openings.
On Twitter you generally receive tweets from everyone you follow. If you
search for a hashtag you can choose between seeing all tweets, top tweets or just
the tweets from the people you follow. A top tweet is a tweet with the respective
hashtag that has been re-tweeted the most. In search, Twitter is set so that you
see top tweets. So it can pay off to create content that is retweeted or to get
someone to retweet it.
In the Instagram photo feed, WYSISYG applies – “what you see is what
you get.” There is no algorithm to push or withhold pictures from the people you
follow in your newsfeed. In the “Explore” tab, though, Instagram shows popular
posts as well as content from people your friends are following. So even here it
is important to create content that receives a lot of likes and comments.
Advertising and content go hand in hand on social media. The free lunch
that characterized Facebook over the years is over. This means that social media,
and in particular Facebook, are now seen as a more integrated part of your
business. It is no longer something you just use for fun, but rather a platform
with its own budget. This is not advertising in the traditional sense, since you are
not necessarily advertising a certain product or service. You are boosting
individual posts, so you are paying for distribution of content. You can compare
it to printing expenses for a publication or postage for distributing a members’
magazine.
When you need to publish your videos, it has become a battle between
Google and Facebook. In June 2015, Facebook video reached 4 billion daily
views. According to Socialbakers, brands upload more video to Facebook than
YouTube. In most cases, you should upload your video to both YouTube and
Facebook. A third player in the video field is Vimeo, which has 170 million
users worldwide. It is the preferred service for many brands because of its
cleaner design and no disturbing ads. Vimeo can act as a more serious context
for the company’s videos. All three platforms enable you to embed the videos on
your website or share them on social media. YouTube and Vimeo work as social
networks themselves, with user profiles and comments. You can also use paid
services like 23Video where, for a fee, you can customize a video channel with
its very own look and feel.
General user behavior is one thing; your users’ behavior is another. If you
want to understand your users, you have to live like them online.You must, in
other words, participate in the forums where they are active and follow the pages
and people that are popular among your users. Stay up to date with what
interests them. This may not give you the solution, but if you understand their
needs and behavioral patterns, you might get a clearer idea about how to talk
with them. And if you are in doubt, it is a good idea to ask your users.
At FOA (Danish Union of Public Employees), they used focus groups to
show that their members swear by their smartphones. This means that the cell
phone is the obvious platform for FOA to get in contact with their members.
Another way to get to know your users is to ask around the company – including
the secretary who answers the phone or customer service. What problems or
what type of inquiries are most frequent? How can we help by communicating
the answers on the website, social network, and so on? You can also use focus
groups, interviews, and netnographic methods such as observation and
participation. Make sure that you do not limit your knowledge of the users to
digital behavior, but also keep track of their behavior in the physical world.

What can you do to be visible to your users?

Social media fundamentally want active users with good content – and an
advertising budget.
Create content that people will like, click, share and comment on.
If you have a Facebook page, you can use the Insights function to see which
updates did best and to learn the age and gender of your users. Or you can
also use freeanalytics.komfo.com.
Use advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn to boost your content.
Be active on social media where you want to be visible, both by updating and
by commenting on other people’s posts.
Keep an eye on what generates the greatest visibility and effect for your
company. Ninety displays on LinkedIn can be worth more than 200
Facebook likes (as an example).

Listen in on the Conversations

The foundation of using social media as an organization is that you understand
the users. As an organization, you can learn a lot from listening to what people
say about your business or industry. With the right tools it becomes easier to stay
on top of everything that goes on online, and this is a great starting point for a
dialogue with your customers. To listen is a nicer word than to monitor; it also
sounds more human and less mechanical.
Overall, you can organize different tools and systems into three categories:

1. Free tools for monitoring
2. Paid tools for monitoring
3. Management systems for social media

In the free category, you can find Google Alerts, where you get Google to keep
an eye out for certain keywords, such as people’s names, company names, or
concepts. You receive an email notification when there is something new online
with these words.
If you want to keep track of your followers, hashtags, and Twitter lists at
once, you can download the program Tweetdeck. You will get all tweets without
filtering and you can create several columns with tweets, and use various filters.
This makes it easy to monitor a brand or a subject using a set hashtag search.
Facebook is harder to monitor than Twitter because you cannot listen in on
the profiles that are private (and most are). If you have a page, you can, of
course, check manually to see if there are new comments and posts. You can
search the available updates on Facebook using hashtags, but this is not a very
reliable search method.
An automated surveillance tool for selected keywords, as we know from
media monitoring, is a good starting point for using social media, like Social
Mention, Talkwalker and Topsy.
If you have many accounts on social media and if there are more of you who
respond to comments, you could benefit from a social media management
system. One of the most common is Hootsuite, where you can collect your
accounts from different social media on one screen image. This means you can
gather your profiles, pages, and groups from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. in
one place. Similar systems like Hootsuite, Komfo and Falcon Social, make it
easy to monitor many accounts at once and to have several moderators. The
advantage of a management system is that it is easier to coordinate when more
than one person is responsible for answering inquiries. You can plan your future
content in the system and it will also act like an archive of published posts. You
can set up your KPIs in the system, which will help your calculations and
reporting. You can also carry out your Facebook advertising using such a
management system. On the flip side, it also requires a budget.
Systematic monitoring is not enough on its own. You also have to listen in.
Your own eyes and ears can capture information that may be difficult to define
with search words. This has been described as “weak signals”, since small bits of
information can often be found amid the noise, which may be of value to the
company. It may involve an understanding of customer needs or spotting trends
before your competitors do. It may be advantageous in this endeavor to involve a
manager or management in social media. People who, in other words, have
insight into where the company is going and what we should be listening for.
These could be examples and concepts that you do not know you are looking for
and so cannot catch using monitoring and search engines. This sounds a bit
vague, and listening often is. So systematize what you can, and spend some time
listening for weak signals. This is called the exploratory approach – you do not
know what the result will be and you do not work according to set hypotheses or
search terms that you then test. Instead, you want to clarify an area, such as new
payment models for media houses. You start somewhere and let one
intermediary result lead to the next search until you have gathered enough
knowledge to carry out an assessment, or until you have had a new insight. The
weak signals must then be channeled into the right place in the organization.
When I worked as Community Manager at the Danish news media Berlingske,
part of the job was listening in on social media. What subjects were the users
talking about, what hashtags were trending, and what content was being shared
right now? This let us know what users were preoccupied with on that given day.
We used that as inspiration for new angles and stories, to find sources, and for
meta articles about events on social media.

Where are you Relevant?

With social media you not only enter people’s living rooms, but also their
bedrooms and bathrooms. You get very close to their body, as we carry our
smartphones on us most of the time. You have to put the user in the center, since
you appear in their world.
From the studies performed by the researcher Danah Boyds on teenagers,
we know that most people use social media to hang out with friends they already
know. People look for things they are interested in, and this is generally neither
news nor politics. This fits well with the way social media are designed – in
other words, to be about “me and my friends.” Social media are organized
around the individual. They are heliocentric, since you are the sun in your own
Facebook universe. Everything you see points back at you, your friends, your
interests, and advertisements targeted at you. Companies must take this into
account.
The question, then, is how do you create good content on social media in the
long run? The key word is relevance. Model 6 is a good place to start when you
are about to begin making content for social media. As mentioned previously,
the things companies want to talk about are rarely the same things that interest
customers. The starting point is often based on “what do we want to say in our
company – which messages do we want to communicate?” instead of beginning
with the users’ needs. It is all about finding the common ground between “what
you want to say” and “what they want to hear.”

Model 6. Relevance

Relevance is an elastic concept and it should not be understood as political or
social relevance, but rather, relevance for the users. For example, getting
Christmas gift suggestions on the last Saturday before Christmas Eve, when I am
about to go shopping, is relevant for me. A funny video is relevant for me when I
need a break from work. Finding subjects that users are interested in and which
you can see make sense from a business perspective is a good starting point.
Each Friday the Danish publisher Gyldendal generates relevance on Twitter.
They encourage people to share their experience with books – either something
they read or want to read – using the hashtag #fredagsbog (fridaybook). They no
longer need to remind users to share, as it has become an integrated part of the
way Danish users tweet on Fridays. With #fredagsbog, Gyldendal has set the
scene and the users create the content for the benefit of both parties. So even
though social media is on the users’ premises, you can get users to create
relevant content.
Gyldendal’s efforts are minimal and they receive a lot of goodwill. The
tweets are not just about Gyldendal’s own books, but the publisher stimulates a
conversation about reading books for the benefit of the industry. Gyldendal
retweets a selection of the tweets that are tweeted with the hashtag each Friday,
such as when their own books and authors are mentioned. Does that sell books?
It certainly reminds people to read books and it strengthens Gyldendal’s brand
with an interesting audience. What more can you ask of a simple hashtag?

This is how you find your relevance:

Where is the common ground between the things you want to communicate
and know something about, and the users’ interests? For a recruitment firm, it
might be how you land the next top job or explain a period of unemployment
on your CV or resume.
You do not need to create relevance for everyone at once, just for the people
in the community with which you are communicating. The more clear-cut
this community, the easier it is for you to create relevance.
Keep an eye on your spam score on Facebook. If it is high, your content is
too irrelevant for your users. Your spam score should ideally be under 5 %. It
is calculated based on how many people have reported your content as spam,
have hidden your updates from their timeline, or no longer like your page.

Call Me Speaks Nicely

As a mobile phone operator in a very competitive industry, Call Me had to find a
way to differentiate itself. They used their opinions and knowledge of Danes as
the basis of a campaign that was to make Call Me more interesting than their
competitors. The campaign was preceded by two years’ internal work on
strengthening corporate culture.

Call Me is a mobile phone operator owned by Telia, and they wanted to increase
their communication to something more than just competition on subscription
prices. According to Project Manager Sofie Heilskov, “We wanted to take
responsibility in society, we wanted to create reflection and we wanted our
customers and employees to be proud of being part of Call Me.” Within the
company, they had a sense that many Danes thought the tone in the public space
had become harsher and people did not speak as nicely to one another anymore.
Call Me conducted a survey to investigate this. About 77% of the respondents
agreed, 60% said that they had experienced a harsher tone at work, and 29 %
said that a campaign would help.
For Call Me, this justified focusing on the tone of the debate. It led to the
“Tal ordentligt” (speak nicely) campaign, which has become the key element of
their external communication. They made a film that focused on the problem and
they only used employees from the company. This way, the employees felt a
sense of ownership towards the campaign and they felt as though they were a
part of it. The campaign had nothing to do with cell phones, yet Sophie Heilskov
thought that the business connection was obvious. “We live off communication,
so the connection between selling cell phones and Tal ordenligt is apparent and
relevant.”
The campaign consisted of TV spots, a website, and three Facebook pages –
one for the campaign in general, one for the work space, and a page for Call Me
as a company. The debate took place on Facebook. The same content is often
adapted to all three pages, but it is posted at different times since the content is
received differently on each page.
According to Sofie Heilsov, the result of the campaign is a significant
improvement in Call Me’s brand awareness. Customers stay with Call Me longer
than with other telecommunications companies, the cost per new customer has
been halved from 2012-2014, and the Facebook pages have a higher level of
engagement than competitors in the industry. At the same time, the customer
base and bottom line are growing and there is a high degree of employee
satisfaction. All this was achieved after several years of not running any
aggressive price campaigns, which are otherwise the trademark of the
telecommunications industry, according to Sofie Heilskov.
 She refers to “Tal ordentligt” more as a movement than just a campaign.
“Tal ordentligt” also proved to be far more than a classic campaign. It was
preceded by two years’ internal cultural efforts. Internally at Call Me, the central
concept of the campaign is a so-called Trust Strategy. According to Sofie
Heilskov, “It is about the trust we need to have in each other as employees. It is
an attempt to remove the structure where management is at the top of the
building and has little to do with the employees.”
“It is also reflected in the way we look at customers,” says Sofie Heilskov.
“We want to do something for the existing customers. Customers should like
Call Me because we are proactive and, for example, because they receive offers
before everyone else. New customers who call in and want to buy the new
iPhone are told no, as we want to make sure that the existing customers get them
first.”
The central element in the Trust Strategy is a culture book, in which the
employees wrote a text on how they perceive Call Me and the values they
associate with the company. The employees have also been part of formulating
Call Me’s five rules of conduct. The culture book was inspired by the online
shoe and clothing store Zappos, which is known for their exceptional customer
service. The focus on customer satisfaction permeates the organization. Sofie
Heilskov informed us that when new employees are hired, they get a buddy who
helps them in all areas, brings them coffee, and makes sure they do not have to
sit alone at lunch. “It is better than getting a piece of paper. We actually do not
have a piece of Trust Paper, just our culture book,” says Sofie Heilskov.
For Call Me, the lesson of “Tal ordentligt” is that you can make money by
focusing on opinions, customer needs, employee satisfaction, and a healthy
corporate culture. Her advice to others is: “Put down your old marketing glasses;
do not just get new lenses, but buy an entirely new pair. You need to look at
business and social responsibility holistically. Find something that is actually
connected to your product and then start working with it internally. We are
relevant with the “Tal ordentligt” campaign because we live off communication
and because it is our external formulation of our internal strategy – Trust – and
because it is relevant to society. No one can disagree that we need to speak
nicely.”
The conclusion with “Tal ordentligt” is that you need a model for
communicating something other than your core product, so that you become
relevant by talking about a greater agenda that concerns the users. At the same
time, Call Me shows that it is not enough to just formulate a problem externally
if you are unwilling to work on it internally. You can certainly implement a
campaign, but if it does not have the right foundation you will not make a lasting
change, either at the company or with users. The internal and external strategy
must be coherent.

Find Your Niche

With insight into your purpose, the users, and your relevance, you are well on
your way to finding the niche where you belong. The starting point for this
process is understanding that the traditional target group concept is changing. To
a far greater extent than ever before, we organize ourselves by interests, and a
target group like 15-39 year-olds is a poor basis for an initiative. It would make
more sense to define people based on whether they like World of Warcraft,
Homeland, or Justin Bieber. The “niche” concept should be based on the
common interest, which enables you to make relevant content for this group. It
may be hard to create relevance for a large, heterogeneous target group. It may
be difficult for a municipality to reach all citizens with relevant content at once,
unless the message concerns everyone, such as a municipal election (which,
again, is only relevant to those over 18 years of age). Therefore, many brands
and organizations choose to communicate in niches, i.e. a smaller target group
than all users. A niche should be understood as a community of people in a
social media. The niche can be broad and large or narrow and small. It is defined
by a common point of view, a common lifestyle, or a common interest. For
example, it could be a sports club, a political issue, or a disease. When you
segment your communication into niches, it can lead to a myriad of websites,
Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, and profiles on other social media. You need
to find balance between the number of niches and the resources you have
available. You need to offer relevant content in your niche, not merely recognize
that it is an interesting target group. You should, therefore, not start a discussion
in a niche if you do not have the resources and content to keep the discussion
going. You can include people from the niche as co-creators, but you will have to
take on a central editorial role.
At Astma-Allergi Forbundet (The Asthma Allergy Association), they faced
the challenge that the pollen numbers were extremely relevant for people with
pollen allergies, while for everyone else they were utterly irrelevant. They make
this information available to people with pollen allergies through an app, so that
they can access it quickly. They also have a Facebook page targeted at youths
with food allergies. Here, they are combining the youth demographic niche with
an interest niche, namely food allergies.
At The Student Counselling Service in Copenhagen, they wanted to
complement face-to-face advice with digital communication, and they decided
on making a smartphone app. Subjects such as depression and stress could not be
tackled with a simple app, even though they constitute a large part of the work at
The Student Counselling Service. They therefore focused on exam and
performance anxiety, which many people are familiar with and which you can
often remedy yourself by using anxiety relieving techniques and studying
techniques. This resulted in an app for exam anxiety that can be used as a
preventive measure or while in treatment at The Student Counselling Service. It
can also be used after treatment is complete as an aid to continue with certain
strategies. The app has been downloaded over 11,500 times.

Model 7. The company’s niches

A company will usually have a general presence on social media, such as
through a Facebook page. The niches either have a specific target group, such as
young people with type 1 diabetes, or they might be a subject, like film noir or
vintage cars.
The size of the niche should depend on the subject and your goals.
Sometimes ten users might be exactly the niche you need, while other times it
might be 100,000 or one million users. It is OK to be inspired by others, but do
not copy the competition; find your own way, instead. You do not need to cover
the same subjects as your competitors or add even more. Focus on what
distinguishes you. What is it that the competition is not talking about? What are
the users after? Instead of focusing on what gives you more likes and friends
than your competition, focus on having better content – that is more relevant,
funnier, and more viable content.

The University of Southern Denmark Communicates in the Users’
Native Tongue

The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is in fierce competition with other
universities when it comes to attracting students. SDU is one of the newest
universities in Denmark and has found a lucrative market in attracting foreign
students. Bo Kristiansen, the Senior Consultant in charge of social media at
SDU, has generated visible results by combining niche pages with advertising on
Facebook
.
At SDU, they consider it a virtue to reach users with niche content. SDU has 100
Facebook pages with a total of 400,000 fans. The pages are in 15 different
languages, including Polish, Bulgarian and Italian. According to Bo Kristiansen,
they have more pages than any other university. Furthermore, there are many
interest pages, such as SDU Fitness, which turned out to be very popular among
the students. For these pages he hired students from their respective countries as
assistants, so that future students can communicate in their own language with
someone like themselves. The student assistants also act as ambassadors for
SDU. Bo Kristiansen has equipped them with cameras so they can take pictures.
This means that SDU has over 3,000 pictures on the photography website Flickr,
which SDU and others can benefit from.
“We have a direct order to be leaders in social media,” says Bo Kristiansen.
He is not the usual guru type within social media. A man in his mid-fifties who
feels no need to speak of the goldmine of knowledge he possesses, since with so
many years of experience in the industry and a good success rate, he knows what
he is talking about. SDU has been on Facebook since 2008, when they combined
content and advertisements from the very beginning, achieving good results.
Since then, the university’s top management has backed Bo Kristiansen’s
strategy for social media. In reference to SDU’s massive presence on Facebook,
he says, “The mundane reason we are on Facebook is because this is where our
segment is. When they are bored in high school, they get on Facebook.”
At SDU, 20 % of the students are foreign. From 2012 to 2014, the number
of applications increased by 130 %. SDU does not mind whether the students
come from Copenhagen, Lisbon, or Krakow. For engineering students, for
example, the university receives a contribution of about USD $15,000 per
person. This way, SDU can be compared with a commercial enterprise; they are
simply selling educations. Targeted advertising on Facebook has been an
important piece of the international marketing of SDU.
“Each year, we invite German students to our campus in Sønderborg, where
they can discover what it is like to study here. Apart from education fairs we
only find participants for the trip on Facebook. The last time there were 150
participants, of which 25 applied. Eight of them said that if it were not for
Facebook, they would have never seen us and applied,” says Bo Kristiansen.
This is just one of several calculations that show the value of social media for
SDU.
Bo Kristiansen’s formula on Facebook is a combination of relevant content
and targeted advertising that is also aimed at fans of other Facebook pages. For
Bo Kristiansen, this is why it is less important to have large Facebook pages
today, since you can just target your advertising to the users you want to reach.
Bo Kristiansen is now beginning to shift focus away from Facebook and to other
social media, while keeping a watchful eye on the opportunities with Google
Ads. This shift in focus towards other social media will open the door for being
more creative. SDU uses Pinterest to show off their 500 or so partner
universities.
SDU’s use of social media shows that you can create relevance for users by
being present on their premises – in their language, student to future student, and
with subjects like fitness, which are of concern to the users. You can certainly
run many profiles on social media without diluting the brand, but it requires that
someone is running those pages and that you have relevant content.
 At the same time, this is an example of being willing to adapt to the constant
development that social media are experiencing. What worked two years ago,
concerning both content and advertising, may not work anymore. You have to
adapt continuously to user needs, your content, and the DNA of the network,
including changes in the algorithms and advertising options. SDU realized very
early on that ads and content come together on social media and that users
decide whether a niche is relevant or not.
There may be a number of different approaches to finding your specific
niche. We have already discussed a number of subjects that can help your
process. It might be that you need to share the niche with someone, but at the
very least, make sure that you are the best at whatever you do. You will get a
quick indicator of what makes your organization interesting when you speak to
other people about your work. When you explain what you do to your dinner
partner, neighbor, wife, or friends, when is it they are most interested and when
do they stop listening? It is often not the core business or product that is
interesting to others. What makes the company interesting is what differentiates
you from the others or that you deliver a product, service or story that users can
relate to.

Find your niches:

What do we know about users? Use that knowledge to track down a good
niche.
What can we listen for? This applies to traffic on the website, engagement on
social media, and the subjects that otherwise preoccupy users on social
media.
Where are we relevant to users? For example, if we are trying to reach
families with small children, then subjects like time, logistics and food would
be relevant to most of those people.
Where can you differentiate yourselves from your competitors? One look
around at the competitors may show that they have adopted a classical
approach, with one-size-fits-all communication. This does not necessarily
generate a lot of relevance for the users.
What issues will our content involve? These issues might be a result of using
the Value Ladder. For an architectural company, it might be world-class
architecture, sustainability, and city life.



3
Create Good Content

Your strategic aim is in place and we have looked at how to create relevance for
your users. In Chapter 3, we explore the characteristics of good content on social
media. In this chapter you will get the inspiration and tools necessary to work
strategically with your social media content.
First, we will take a general look at what characterizes good content. Then
we will look at what I have termed “the three undercurrents”, namely
storytelling, emotional communication, and visual communication. Continuing
from this point, we will look at the balance between existing content, other
people’s content, and new content. You can benefit greatly when you use other
people’s content. Many people will find, though, that they need to create new
content formats if they want to get the users’ attention. Towards the end of this
chapter, we will look at how you can use content to set the agenda using social
media, with a focus on Twitter.

Criteria for Good Content

You are the only one who can determine what good content means to your users,
and the best way to do this is through trial and error. However, there are some
general characteristics of good content that generate user engagement. Based on
my own experience, observations and interviews, I have created five criteria for
good social content:

It can be passed along.
It is emotionally charged, relevant, surprising, entertaining or important.
Ideally, it is visual.
It has the right timing.
It should help people to do something.

The first three criteria correspond to the three undercurrents from above,
which will be presented later in the chapter. Timing is all about when to publish
your content. It is to understand when the content is relevant for your users. So
the fact that it is nearing 4 p.m. and the weekend is fast approaching, is not a
good reason for you to publish your content. During my time as a chief press
officer, I have sent off many press releases late in the afternoon, knowing full
well that they would not have the best effect, but because I just had to get them
off my desk (or because we were not particularly keen to give the press time to
discuss a certain subject, but that is a different matter). It is about being in touch
with both the users’ rhythm and the current business of the day. If you want your
content to be about the soccer World Cup, then you need to release it before or
during the tournament, not 14 days later. Good planning can help here, as we
shall see in chapter 4.
The fact that good content helps people do something means that it should
be clear to you why you post this specific content to them. Are they supposed to
learn more about a subject? Are they supposed to read a current article to
strengthen their case? Are they supposed to think that you have some cool
products and eventually purchase them? Should they be inspired to live healthier
lives? Should they be entertained and indirectly end up liking you more because
you make their day more enjoyable? In the end, communication is our attempt to
influence someone to do something or think something specific. For inspiration
on how you can create posts that help people do something, look at your purpose
and at where you are of relevance to your users. What can we help our users do?
In “Content Strategy for the Web,” Halvorsen writes that content is more or less
worthless unless it fulfills one or both of the following conditions: it supports a
business purpose or it fulfills your users’ needs. “To truly differentiate yourself
online, you must offer content that specifically and authentically embodies your
brand. Your content must help your audience do something – better, smarter and
with greater ease,” she writes.
The five content criteria can be used to analyze current content or as
inspiration for a brainstorming session concerning the kind of content that you
could offer. If your content lives up to most of the criteria, there is a good chance
that it can work on social media. The criteria are not the be all and end all; think
of them as a guide and do not let your ideas be limited by them.
Now we shall take a closer look at three of the five content criteria, which I
call the three undercurrents.

The Three Undercurrents: Storytelling, Emotional
Communication and Visual Communication

Regardless of which social media will be most popular tomorrow, the basic
principles of how humans interact and how we are affected will still apply. We
like nice pictures and funny videos, and visual communication is suitable for
online users all over the world. We are also receptive to content that speaks to
our emotions. Both good stories and visual communication can do that;
therefore, emotions connect the three undercurrents.
The reason why I chose these particular undercurrents is that they are the
closest thing to a timeless understanding of communication. An undercurrent is
like an invisible force just below the surface. They are not tendencies or trends,
since these three concepts are fundamental to people. However, most companies
lack these three concepts in their understanding of what constitutes good
communication on social media.

Allow me to explain the three undercurrents with an example. At the memorial
ceremony for Nelson Mandela, the former Danish Prime Minister Helle
Thorning-Schmidt was spotted taking a selfie with Barack Obama and the
British Prime Minister, David Cameron. Off to the side in the photo, we can see
the first lady, Michelle Obama, with a glum look on her face (see photo:
goo.gl/LtHJe9). Based on this one picture, thousands of stories have been written
all over the world describing what actually was happening. It speaks to our
emotions in a number of ways. In part, we have the sentiment of the Danish
people toward Helle Thorning-Schmidt – should she be taking selfies at a
memorial service, or is it simply a modern woman in her element? Then we have
feelings as a nation – little Denmark side by side with two great nations like the
USA and the United Kingdom. Should Danes be proud or embarrassed? Then
there is the feeling of being entertained. It is a sensational event, which either
provokes indignation or joy. Nonetheless, very few people remain unaffected by
such a picture. More so, the funny thing is that we have never seen the selfie that
Helle Thorning-Schmidt took with her smartphone, but this makes the story even
more exciting and mysterious. It is visual, emotional, and contains a good story.

Tell More
Storytelling is like Converse shoes. They were among the first sneakers on
the market, sales peak here and there, and they never go completely out of
fashion. In the same way, storytelling never goes out of fashion. It has always
been there; we just don’t always think about it. This applies internally, to provide
employees with a story that will unite them, as well as externally, since
customers like the idea that a product they buy is part of a greater story and not
just a piece of industrially manufactured plastic. Storytelling in relation to social
media includes the larger story – what we are saying about the company. This
relates to the company’s why, since a good company story can help the company
find its purpose. Next, storytelling involves the small stories that we share every
day on social media. A tweet tells a story. An image on Instagram tells a story.
Since your activity on social media consists of a number of small stories, it is
critical to have a strategic goal and some general content frameworks, so that all
the different pieces do not end up forming a fragmented and incoherent picture.
All the new technology and all the server power in the world have not even
slightly changed the fact that what brings us together is good stories. In the same
way we sit around a hearth or meet for a beer on Fridays to tell funny or
horrifying stories from the real world, social media is the fire that can never get
too much wood. Without wood – that is our stories – it dies out. It is reduced to a
stone circle around some ash. An empty infrastructure without purpose.
Storytelling is actually the essence of social media. But telling good stories as a
company is easier said than done. Particularly for people within
communications, because we are trained to think in terms of messages, slogans
and arguments. Forget all that and just tell stories. Stop selling and start telling.
Or even better, get others to tell the stories. They might be colleagues,
employees or customers. Because we humans are constantly telling stories.
When we talk to each other, we often tell small stories. When we talk about
ourselves, it is a story we have pieced together. Even when we sleep, we are
immersed in stories, be it a pleasant dream or a nightmare. In his book The
Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall describes how our lives are built around
stories. We read books, watch movies, and play video games constructed as
stories. We teach our children about the world through stories. Storytelling is
rooted in the human mind, in our ability to play out future scenarios. We
remember stories, particularly those that produce vivid images. We are, in fact,
completely addicted to stories. If you want people to learn or to remember
something, it is better to use stories. This is one reason why I have included a
number of cases in this book. You will probably remember them better than
everything else. For most of us, it is easier to remember a story than to memorize
a spreadsheet. A story consists of a number of scenes or images that we piece
together in our minds. Your content on social media must be something that
generates strong images that people wants to pass on – both on and outside of
social media. Often, a story will have a hero and a villain, which may be
specified directly or implied.
One day in April 2014, DanChurchAid recounted this short story on its
Facebook page: “Here is a story that made us smile a lot today  . Yesterday we
received USD $4,000 from Big Brother viewers who thought they were voting
for one of the contestants, Nirvana. The autocorrect function changed NIR, for
Nirvana, into our donation code MOR [Danish for “mother”]. Every time, this
triggered a donation of USD $23 towards our work. But don’t worry, the
unwilling donors can certainly get their money back.” The story got better later
on the same day, when DanChurchAid was able to say that SBS Discovery, the
makers of Big Brother, had decided to donate USD $4,000 towards their work of
helping the poorest people in the world. In the first version, SBS Discovery is
the villain, which gets people to throw away money on irrelevant television.
DanChurchAid is the hero, giving to the poor, Robin Hood style. SBS Discovery
changes this image by donating money and we get a happy ending.

Find good stories in social media:

What stories are being told? Look at the posts that are shared and commented
on a lot.
What stories make an impression on you and on other users? These might be
the ones where you stop and simply have to read the entire post and all the
comments from top to bottom.
Which stories do you remember? This could be two hours or several days
 after the story was first told.
Which ones do you pass along, either by sharing, retweeting, or by talking
about them? Try to look at your own activity on social media in order to zero
in on the stories that you prefer.
What characterizes good stories? Try to see if you can identify some general
characteristics in the stories that appeal to your users.

An important prerequisite for storytelling is storylistening. If you want to learn
more about your company, you need to listen your way to good stories, both
internally, with the employees and colleagues, and externally, in relation to users
and stakeholders. According to author Karen Lumholt, this requires curiosity,
attention and respect – as well as brave managers who dare to listen to what is
actually being said. Because the stories that are being told are not always
positive. This also applies to social media. When customers and employees talk
about us, they do not necessarily say what we want to hear. We would learn a lot
if we listened more and talked less.

The Video Story about Water

“It is not because what I have is the new oracle. We started slowly. I could see
the point in using video for our internal communication. We are 220 employees,
half of whom are blue-collar men who work at our technical plant or out in the
field. We need to reach them through means other than the intranet,” says Jan
Tøjbner, Communications Manager at Aarhus Vand, the organization that
provides clean drinking water to the people of eastern Jutland.

The challenge for Jan Tøjbner was to communicate the company’s values to
employees working in the field, who were not interested in lengthy texts. With
videos recorded on smartphones, he got the employees to tell the company’s
story themselves.
Almost all the employees at Aarhus Vand own a smartphone, and Jan
Tøjbner wanted to use the camera for something. Together with a former TV
employee, Jan Tøjbner started a project with 50 employees. They taught them to
make videos by getting them started doing brief recordings. The task was for
them to start with the day-to-day events: What is going on in our department?
Then the participants made a storyboard and received help for the editing
process. Afterwards, the videos were shown on a large screen for all the
employees. The expenses were minimal. “It turned out to be a breakthrough,”
says Jan Tøjbner. He has since used employee videos in a number of contexts. At
a teambuilding event on knowledge sharing, Jan wanted to show the creative
side of the employees through video. It turned out that the cleaning ladies were
good at telling stories through video. Jan Tøjbner realized that video was able to
do something written words could not. “How do we get people who are so
different, like our employees, to come together around something? Video can be
one way to do this. People get involved emotionally.”
Since then, Aarhus Vand has used video to work with the company’s values.
“How do we get the employees to internalize our values?” asks Jan Tøjbner. “We
could make posters or long, clever strategy processes. Instead, we ran a
competition and had an internal briefing: This is how you can make videos about
values in your department.” These were people who had never made videos
before or thought along those lines. The question is, how do you involve people
who are not used to communicating – workmen and wastewater operators –
some of whom may even have a difficult time reading?
“With video, we are more equal than with writing, which is the home field
of academics and management. In the communications department, we sit warm
and cozy indoors and write news, while they are out there cleaning pipes in rain
and sleet,” says Jan Tøjbner.
The added benefit has been that people started to use video out in the field
for documentation. For example, sewer cleaning, working environment
conditions, and flooding following a cloudburst are documented by a short
video. Video has become an everyday tool. Jan Tøjbner recounts, “For example,
one summer we had a supplier that climbed up into a crane without the necessary
safety measures on the site. An employee recorded it and it was documented. It
makes it hard to deny.”
For Jan Tøjbner, it has been very important to use humor in internal
communication. “When something is difficult, we try a humorous angle. It can
soften things up and give people a platform from which they can communicate
something to management.”
He experienced this in the wake of the introduction of a smoking ban in
Aarhus Municipality. From one day to the next, a total smoking ban was
implemented. There was one small exception to the smoking ban - if you paid
for the breaks yourself and if it was not possible to tell from your clothes or car
that you worked for the municipality. An employee decided to make a short
amusing clip on the subject. She allied herself with someone who operated a
sludge extractor. They used the theme song from a well-known comedy as their
background music, so that it ended up being a slapstick film. The film showed
the sludge extractor vehicle with the man sitting inside in his work clothes. Then
he wrapped the large vehicle in black plastic. Then he wrapped himself in black
plastic. He found a chair, sat down, and lit a cigarette. Then he looked at his
watch. The break was over.
The film was created with a cell phone, five post-its and a pen. The video
was put on the intranet where people commented on it. The video ended up
acting as a lightning rod, and added humor to a difficult situation.
At Aarhus Vand they now have found a way to tell stories that aligns with
the humor that is widespread in their work culture. According to Jan Tøjbner,
“Images and videos are a shortcut to reaching people in an entirely different way.
When people are filmed, they are very careful about what they say; they make an
effort. They reflect in a different way. I really like this media. We love to reflect
ourselves in other people. Therefore, people are always a part of our
communication.”
Through storytelling, Aarhus Vand kills many birds with one stone. The
company story and vision is told by the employees themselves. This means that
the employees are involved and heard. It also means that they are active in
relation to the organization’s culture and vision. Management can listen and get
valuable knowledge from the people on the frontlines about the organization and
the working environment. As an extra bonus, storytelling through video is used
in the daily work of the employees when they report from the field. Did I cover
everything? Storytelling is democratic, as opposed to strategy and
communication plans, which are most often prepared or dictated by
management. Everyone can tell a story. The case of Aarhus Vand also teaches us
that:

You can change a lot with very few resources.
One person with great drive can make a big difference.
Management that backs up digital development generates change and
innovation.
You need to be willing to try new things without knowing the end result.
Employees are a resourceful group. You have to know their behavior and
create a relevant framework within which they can communicate.

 Storytelling is also part of the solution for this well-known challenge in
communication: What do you do if the people you want to start communicating,
are not used to doing so in writing? This leads to a paradox. Communication
does not need to come from the communications department. It should come
from the employees, customers, ambassadors, et al. This means that the new role
of the communications employees is to support the opportunities others have to
communicate. And for the boss, it is about creating the space where people are
able to express themselves. It is not necessarily the communications people who
are best at communicating on social media. After all, where do you find the
things that the users find interesting? Not necessarily in the communications or
customer service department, but rather where the products are made, used, or
where new knowledge is created in your field. So go out into the organization
and recognize that it is the employees who must help you communicate. They
have the stories.
This is a reminder that fundamentally, we are social beings. Technology
does not change this. This is why stories are still central to us as individuals and
for society as a whole.

The Company’s Tone of Voice
The stories you want to tell are related to the tone of voice you choose on
social media. When you decide on a general way to express yourself, you can
better control how others perceive your company and, therefore, your brand.
“Tone of voice is, therefore, not limited to the words you use, but also to the
visual expression. Tone of voice is useful when you have several people who
post, when you have to train new employees, or to reach an agreement with
management about the expression that should be used on social media. If you
have a clear idea of the tone you want to use on social media, you can use it as a
incentive to talk to your manager or team about the tone you want to achieve.
Are we going to be completely professional or can we also be cheerful? SKAT,
the Danish Tax Authority, is on Twitter with @skattefar [@taxdad], which is
quite silly – not something you normally associate with SKAT. They use smileys
and their real names when replying. Some people feel that it is too much; others
think that it gives SKAT a human side. Your tone of voice can vary from one
social media to another. People are typically more boring on LinkedIn, but I
think this is a misunderstanding. We are still only communicating with people –
not companies. Tone of voice can be regarded as the mood you want to generate
in your community. For example, should it be like a lively reception, or like
talking to a good friend? Others choose to define the page’s moderator as a
certain type, such as the peppy customer service employee or the motherly
hostess. Others choose to construct a fictitious character to act as the foundation
for the company’s tone of voice.
Bolette Olsen, who is responsible for Jyske Bank’s Facebook page, has
found a voice that fits Jyske Bank’s motto of going against the current and which
is compatible with their mascot, the Catfish. For example, she lets the catfish
speak in the third person, “Facebook is ten years old today. Congratulations and
thank you, Zuck. The Catfish is celebrating this day by sending ten of you to the
movies with a friend.” The Catfish is always the one who posts the updates and
comments. It is an angle that Bolette Olsen thinks disarms the fact that this is a
bank on Facebook. “It fits into the informal way of communicating on Facebook.
This is how we want to see ourselves – as a different and informal bank. It can
be difficult for other banks to break free of the stiff bank image, since it does not
match their other actions. It is so see-through when they try to be too personal.”
What keywords can you attach to your presence on social media? Here are
three suggestions for tone of voice, but your own idea will probably be much
better. A news media’s tone of voice can be curious, controversial and cheerful.
A bank could be service-minded, attentive and informal, while a trade union
could be defined as future-oriented, open and a good friend.

How do you tell good stories?

Begin with your company, including historical roots, founders, location,
philosophy.
Involve the employees, such as the way Aarhus Vand used videos, or Call
Me’s culture book.
Customers, members, or the people whose interests you represent often have
lots of good stories that you can pass on. The DaneAge Association tells the
story of senior citizens, WWF tells the story of endangered species.
Use a fictitious character, like Jyske Bank, for instance, which uses a catfish
as its spokesperson on Facebook.
What voice should you use? The style must be trustworthy in relation to your
brand, but the tone should be more informal on social media than in letters or
leaflets.

Leverage Emotions
In June 2014, it was discovered that Facebook had manipulated the newsfeed
of some 700,000 users. One group was shown fewer of their friends’ positive
updates, while the other was shown fewer negative updates. Together with a
team of researchers, they wanted to understand how people’s emotions were
affected by Facebook. The experiment showed that people who were shown a lot
of positive content would also tend to make posts that were more positive.
Similarly, the people who were shown more of the negative posts were
somewhat negatively affected. This indicates that emotions could be contagious
on social media. When one person is sad, they may pass that along to someone
else. There was some uproar concerning the study, since Facebook had not
obtained the permission of the test subjects. Many people were also frightened
by the fact that Facebook had the power to define people’s moods. However, this
does not change the results of the study, i.e. that social media is about emotions.
In this chapter we will look at how feelings are an important element in
communication. For an extended period, two researchers from the University of
Pennsylvania looked at the articles people chose to email the most from the
website of The New York Times. The conclusion was that people preferred to
share articles that were positive – preferably long articles with serious content.
The emotion that was shared the most was shock – content that was surprising
and awe-inspiring. The study shows that content that appeals to certain emotions
generates the most engagement. Scientific journalism did particularly well. The
most effective feelings involve content that is entertaining, moving, thought-
provoking, inspiring, shocking, cute, controversial, sexually oriented, fear
inducing or angry.
Among the feelings mentioned above, the distribution of positive and
negative is roughly even. They also have different effects. If you work with
building customer loyalty and a strong brand, positive storytelling is the most
viable, preferably with the customer or employees as the heroes.
The premise on Facebook is precisely that you “like” something. A positive
discourse is thus associated with social media, and this rubs off on the content
that is circulated. On social media, people want to have positive stories and
content that makes them smile. In this way, content on social media
differentiates itself from the classical journalistic notion of good content.
Journalism is dominated by conflict stories. It finds two parties that disagree on
an issue and outlines each party’s point of view. As a general rule, the critical
and negative angle is chosen, not the optimistic or solution-oriented angle.
Conflict, understood as people who are in disagreement, is not a requirement for
social media content. This indicates that the content criteria are different from
those that dominate journalism. And no, this does not mean that there is no room
for a critical story, a political debate or negative content on social media. Yet the
balance is different from traditional media. Among other things, it reflects that
we do not want to live in a world where we are carpet bombed with war and
catastrophes from morning to night. This does not make us worse or less critical
citizens, so do not be afraid emphasize emotions. Many companies are a bit
emotionally stunted. The communications department may suffer most of all. We
have learned that it is improper to appeal to emotions. Reason is what counts.
This is part of our understanding of the world as a rational entity. We have
learned that arguments are the only true form of expression. We have a clear idea
that reason and emotions are separate things. This can be seen in the metaphor
that the brain represents reason, while our heart represents emotions. Think
about that – with all the knowledge we have of the human body today, it makes
no sense to stick to that perception. We cannot separate the rational and the
emotional. Studies actually show that without emotions you cannot be rational.
The story of the railway worker Phineas Gage exemplifies this modern
interpretation of the human psyche. In Antonio R. Damasio’s book Descartes
Error, he recounts the story of how Gage was hit by an iron rod more than an
inch thick during a mine explosion. The rod passed through his skull and out the
other side. Gage miraculously survived and, after the accident, he was still able
to talk and remember. Yet he was emotionally damaged and abrasive in the way
he expressed himself. Due to the brain damage, his ability to make reasonable
decisions was gone and he slowly deteriorated. The story of Gage, within the
field of psychology, became evidence that one side of the brain harbored
emotions and that these are critical to our ability to make reasonable decisions.
The point is that without an intact emotional center in the brain, we cannot make
good decisions. We need both reason and emotion to be complete human beings,
and the same applies to our communication. The advertising industry has known
this for a long time. Some political parties use it very consciously and
effectively, while others still think that people can only handle logical arguments
(which are often only clearly logical in the eyes of the sender) and Excel
spreadsheets. But emotionally based communication has played an important
role since ancient times. The Greek philosopher Aristotle operated with three
forms of appeal: logos, ethos and pathos. Logos stands for the logical and
rational. Ethos is personal trustworthiness, which can be strengthened or
damaged by how you represent yourself through words, expression, and actions.
Pathos is emotional appeal. Our entire socio-economic understanding is built on
logic. Much has been written on trustworthiness, authenticity and genuineness,
which all point back to your ethos. Pathos, on the other hand, has all but
disappeared from the theory books. I, too, have a core belief that pathos is not as
effective as the other two. Something you only resort to when you are out of
reasonable arguments, pathos is often described as manipulation of the
recipient’s emotions to attain a goal. And yet all three forms of appeal can be
used for manipulation. So let us get the emotions in motion.
Both proponents and opponents of an issue like paternity leave would be
able to present what they consider logical arguments. They will throw numbers
around, which prove first one position and then the other. Logical arguments will
be based on their own standpoint – cultural, political and historic – and are not as
neutral as we are often asked to believe.
Ethos, meaning a high level of trustworthiness, can also be used to
manipulate. For example, when a Prime Minister, who due to his/her title, has a
great deal of ethos, says, “Nothing has been hidden.” Or when a businessman is
hailed as a business genius prior to being exposed as a big-time swindler.
Of course, you should not throw either logos or ethos overboard. My point
is, that regardless of whether you acknowledge emotional appeal or not, it exists,
and you cannot make a logical appeal without also sending an emotional signal.
To make conscious use of the emotional appeal, you can incorporate it into your
communication. It is worth noting that the three forms of appeal, pathos, ethos,
and logos, constitute an artificial distinction, which makes sense intellectually,
but is not based in human biology. They cannot, therefore, be used
independently of one another.

Take stock of the emotional appeal in your communication:

Is your content based on the daily lives of citizens, or is it the company’s
own internal language that is being used? How can non-professionals
understand it? It might involve replacing “we, them, our” with “you and
your”, in order to speak from the users’ perspectives. Instead of talking from
a global perspective, you can talk from the perspective of the users’ daily
lives.
Which emotion would you like to generate in your audience? It might be
 safety, solidarity, indignation or curiosity. This is connected to the action that
the posts are supposed to motivate the users to perform. Test your updates on
customers or colleagues and ask what they feel when they read the text or see
the picture.
How can you support your message and the desired action with visual effects
so that what you see is also what users see? If it involves a video, both the
image and sound aspects can appeal to emotions. You can use strong symbols
like a flag, or more subtle expressions like the choice of color, font, and
whether the person in the image is wearing a tie or has rolled-up sleeves.
Be aware that you cannot control the emotions people feel when they see
your content. You can really go wrong, especially with humor and irony.

Visual Communication
Following his re-election in 2012, President Barack Obama uploaded a
picture of himself and the First Lady in a close embrace on Facebook with the
text “Four more years.” It became the most shared post ever. At the time,
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg held that record with his wedding picture.
Obama’s picture is strong in several ways. The short text does not divert focus
from the image, which gave me goosebumps the first time I saw it. It is a strong
emotional expression, and of course, the timing is perfect. The journalist Asger
Liebst explains the effect of the picture: “However, the image’s viral scoop is
that his wife’s face is not visible. She is an empty template, which the viewers of
the image can subconsciously jump into. In this way, Michelle Obama becomes
the incarnation of all the President’s grateful voters. By sharing the image you
are practically touching the man.” It was the most shared image until Ellen
DeGeneres uploaded a selfie full of celebrities from the Oscars in 2014, which
was shared over a million times on Twitter.


Visual content works well on social media. It activates our senses. It is said that
up to 90% of the information received by the brain is visual. Additionally, we
decode visual impressions faster than text. I do realize that text is visual, since
we decode it with our eyes and we can read it in black and white. However, in
this context text only counts as visual if it is part of a graphical presentation and
not just words written in an update.
The increased competition for the attention of users online requires
creativity and visual communication. When we talk about visual internet content,
we mean more than cats, babies, and pictures of a shirtless Vladimir Putin. What
is most prevalent is user-generated content consisting of images and videos of
things taken by people like you and me with our pocket cameras, a.k.a.
smartphones.
The visual-based social media like Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are
growing, and content that includes a picture or video is shared more than text on
social media. An American study showed that people are far more inclined to
buy a product of which they have seen a video. So there is good reason to figure
out how your company can use visual communication on social media.

What Can Good Visual Communication Do?

Create an experience that leaves an impression. So what impression do you
want to leave with your users? For example, it might be an informative
 infographic. One example of an infographic that made an impression on me
is called “The true size of Africa”. It shows a map of Africa containing the
USA, most of Europe, China, Japan, and India within it – to show how large
the African continent actually is.
Tell a story that supports the purpose. If the story is far from the core of the
business, it may seem strained and untrustworthy. The Danish Parliament
experienced this when they launched the Voteman video leading up to the
European Parliament election in 2014. It involved a caricatured gangster
cartoon figure getting a blowjob and beating up people who did not intend to
vote in the election. After four days online, it was withdrawn due to massive
criticism on social media accusing the video of sexism and violence.
Appeal to emotions, including humor. For example, this is what the WWF
has done with pictures of wild animals, such as polar bears and lions,
covering their eyes with their paws. The text on the pictures says, “What on
earth are we doing to our planet?” It needed no further explanation.

Photos, Videos, and Graphics
The visual aspect is a natural extension to the subjects we previously talked
about in this book: storytelling, the power of emotions, and the strategic
approach to communication on social media. Visual communication can be
further split into three elements: photos, videos and graphics. You can create all
three elements or get help from users or professionals.


Model 8. Visual communication in three parts

A good picture tells a good story, and it helps if it is a bit surprising. People do
not demand nice advertising images, but would often rather have something
which is clearly created by amateurs. It is more authentic. At the Copenhagen
Zoo, they have some very worthwhile material, namely animals. It was actually
a picture of an animal, an elephant to be exact, for which they asked their
Facebook users to provide a good caption. This went on for several months,
since users continued to come up with creative suggestions. It is a so-called
“caption this” and it is known from magazines where readers can send in their
suggestion for a humoristic text that best fits the image.
With videos in particular, you have the possibility to make a viral hit that
many people talk about. This happened, for example, in March 2014 with the
video “First Kiss”, where 20 complete strangers had to kiss. Most were models,
actors and musicians, and it was actually a commercial for the clothing company
Wren. In the wake of “First Kiss” came a number of parodies that tried to do the
same with ordinary people. “First Kiss” thus got its own life online, surpassing
the brand of the clothing company. Often it is the small, everyday situations that
become viral hits on social media, such as a baby grinning or a cat playing in the
snow for the first time. One parameter for determining whether the content will
make an impression is its retell-ability. Can I briefly explain what the video is
about?
But for the vast majority of companies, the reason videos are made is not to
create a viral hit. So the success criteria for a good video should not be limited to
reaching a million people and getting its own life on social media. For example,
the video could have a small target group but have great longevity.
If you want to make videos, you can start with your niches and, based on
that, create relevance for your users. This might include how-to videos that
explain how to use your products or to do a task related to your field. In other
words, videos that make life easier for your users, customers or employees. You
can also look at your written communication on your website and in letters. Is
there something that can be communicated by video? The advantage with a
video is that you are forced to communicate content in a simple way.
It may be very challenging for the organization to boil down a long report to
its core message. A simple message is more easily understood by users and acts
as an appetizer that may eventually lead them to read the report.
Videos can be up to 15 seconds long if they are for Instagram, or several
hours long if they include recordings of conferences, lectures, etc. It is generally
a good idea to work with formats of no more than 30 seconds, one minute, or
five minutes.

I would like to introduce three types of graphics that dominate social media:
pictures with quotes, memes, and infographics.
Images with quotes is a format that has been particularly promoted by
President Barack Obama. They generally involve a recognizable face,
supplemented with a short text or quote. This format has been imitated by many
other politicians and organizations, sometimes featuring a famous person or
historic icon.


A meme consists of an image, often with text. It might be an image of a well-
known person from an old movie accompanied by a text. The text is typically
written with large, white letters with a black shadow. You can have a single
meme or it may evolve into a series. Generally, individuals create memes, not
companies, but we are seeing an increasing commercial use of memes in an
attempt to profit off the coolness and appeal to a younger target group. On pages
like memegenerator.net and quickmeme.com you can quickly and easily make
your own memes. One example of a meme happened after the Eurovision song
contest where well-known Danes started to appear with a beard and wig like the
winner, Conchita Wurst. In this case, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR)
was behind it. Memes can also be videos that have been translated with an
incorrect humorous text.

Margrethe Vestager, former deputy prime minister, now European Commisioner for Competition, has been
Wurst’ed.

The last of the three types of graphics is infographics. I love the ability of
infographics to present knowledge and data with graphical simplicity so that the
message can easily be decoded by users. However, just as easily as an
infographic can be to decode, it can be just as difficult to create a good
infographic. It is about finding the story that your numbers and data show,
selecting the most important aspect, and expanding upon it. It is a bit like the
caricature artist who chooses to focus on the large nose or the crooked teeth. The
reproduction of the London underground network is an example of an
infographic that helps passengers get an overview and find their way in the
Underground passageways. An infographic is not an exact representation of
reality, but rather a graphical manipulation of it. Less is more – find out where
the story is and remove everything superfluous.
One way to start with visual communication is to look at the content you
produce today. Where could it use a visual infusion? Should the next job post be
an infographic? Can you replace your press releases with a video or tweet? Can
the issue you want to put on your agenda be displayed with a thought-provoking
series of images? It is a good idea to try out the three forms of visual expression
yourself and experiment with the numerous free or relatively cheap tools that can
help you. Here is a suggestion for how you can do-it-yourself and be part of the
digital DIY wave:

 3-step DIY Visual Content

Start with:
1. Photos – your smartphone takes good enough pictures for online use. Use
Instagram to add filters, or editing apps like Pixlr, play with them in
Photoshop or Pixelmator, or just upload them as they are. Remember, practice
makes perfect.
2. Infographics – try out different kinds of infographics. Play with existing
memes or come up with your own. There are a number of programs that make
it easy to create simple infographics. These include free services such as
piktochart.com and infogr.am, or paid tools such as Keynotes Toolbox. Be
inspired online and start with something simple.
3. Video – once again, the smartphone is a perfectly good tool for short videos.
Use Apple’s iMovie, Windows Moviemaker, or download one of the many
free or paid editing programs. You can publish your video on YouTube,
Vimeo, or directly on Instagram or Vine. Improve sound by using a clip-on or
handheld microphone, which can be bought for less than USD $20.

Analyze your organization’s communication for the three
undercurrents:

What is the overall story?
How is it expressed in your content on social media today? For
example, for the training app Endomondo, there are updates that
focus on how you trigger endorphins from training. It is part of the
overall story of an active and healthy lifestyle.
Who can help you to tell it? It might be customers, partners or
employees.
How can you use an appeal to emotions in your communication?
Which feelings do you want to induce in your users? For a medical
company or an insurance company it might be the feeling of safety,
while for a real estate magazine it might be coziness.
How do you create content that induces an emotional response? It
might be through pictures of people and animals instead of buildings
or by using emotionally laden words.
 What is your visual expression?
If you remove all the words from your website and social media,
what is then the appearance? Look through your images on
Facebook and Google your company to see what images show up. If
they match your intentions, that is really great. Otherwise, you need
to get started making visual content.
How can you support your messages with visual content? Introduce
a general rule, for example, that all messages must be supplemented
by a picture or infographic. On my blog I always try to include a
visual aspect, so that it does not end up being one long text.
Review your cover images, background pictures and profiles, and
look at what signals they send. If it is all in corporate dark-blue, the
recipient gets a different impression than if you have playing
children and puppies. Find the expression that suits you.

We are not talking about long, complicated stories, horrifying content, or
expensively produced videos, but rather about something that can help you to
become more relevant and visible with your content. You can take the three
undercurrents into account when making content, but they are not the purpose in
themselves.

My, Your, and New Content

Now it is time to work more specifically with your content for social media. For
this purpose you can use a simple three-part model, where you begin with the
content you already have in-house. Then you look at how you can incorporate
other people’s content in your flow – also known as OPC (other people’s
content) or content curation. When that is done, most people will discover that
they do not have enough content that is relevant for their users, or at least not in
a form suitable for social media. So you will need to create new content and new
formats.
The ratio between your own content, content made by others and new
content depends on your situation. If you are a media house or a news company,
you have a lot of existing content that is relevant for users. If you do not have a
lot of content creation yourself, you can use other people’s content to a larger
degree and then find the right formats for producing new content. Some will
have an abundance of existing content while others will have to be creative and
come up with new content formats. In the next chapter we shall look more
closely at how to work with the three types of content.

Model 9. The content triangle

Existing Content – Get an Overview
To get your content strategy started, you need to have an overview of the
content you already have today. Make a study of the content you have on your
website and on social media. To what steps of the Value Ladder does the content
correspond, which subjects you are communicating about, and is the proportion
of text, images, graphics and video right? Is this the kind of allocation you want?
Is the right content visible and prioritized?
Another way to prioritize your content is to look at what is actually in
demand. You do that by looking statistically at what content users like the most.
It will point back to the way you work with your content. Do you create content
that is published on the website and then nothing happens? Could it be that the
content does not really have an audience? Many companies create so-called duty
content, which they have always made because that is how things once were.
You can either try to pep up the format so it becomes more accessible, or simply
phase it out. When you cut it down, you free up resources to create relevant
content and to try out new content formats, which may lead more users to take
advantage of the knowledge you share or to become interested in your company.
At the Danish trade union FOA, they decided to strengthen the digital
content in line with fewer magazine publications. When they went from
publishing eleven trade journals per year to eight, they kept the same number of
employees so that the extra resources could be used to upgrade the web,
newsletters and social media.

Model 10. Overview of existing content

It might be challenging to cut down on content you have been making for many
years, but try to approach your communication with a fresh set of eyes. A press
release might be replaced by an infographic, which can be shared on the
employees’ network. An annual report can be told in a video. Some content
might no longer be relevant to anyone except the people who create it, so stop
making it.
Get an overview of the content you have in-house. For example, look at
where you get your content for social media today. In many cases, you will find
that the content you already have is not suitable for communication via social
media. You might also have content that needs to be adapted for the internet. It
could be a report that needs to be split into smaller parts and supplemented with
images or graphics piece by piece before being published with an intriguing title.
There are four general types of content: text, picture, audio and video. They
can be combined in different ways, leading to hybrids like graphics and video
with text. There are a number of different text products that you can use on
social media.
We have seen in particular how images and video should play an important
role in your digital content strategy. With practically any kind of content, text
will feature to a smaller or greater degree. Whether it is a blog post, a report or a
video, it needs a title. The website Upworthy has attracted a great deal of
attention. Using long titles that act as cliffhangers to the article’s content, they
created an internet success based around content. These are titles like “Nine out
of 10 Americans are completely wrong about this mind-blowing fact.”
Until Upworthy proved otherwise, the standard for web texts was that titles
had to be relatively short. They can now either be short or long, but they still
have to be captivating. They have to say what the content is about, but also be a
bit edgy or provide a twist. But do not promise anything in the title that the
content cannot deliver. Upworthy has been criticized for their titles promising
more than their content offers, leading to disappointed users.
Apart from a good title and an exciting image, the articles and blogs should
contain links and references to other people’s reports and so on. In this way, you
reach out to others and expand your network. In the next chapter we shall look at
how to incorporate content made by others.
When the content has been created, it needs to be published on social media.
An update is in itself also content. As a rule of thumb, a good update is short,
visual, personal and relevant. It can also be long and impersonal, but never
irrelevant. It has to have some value to the user.
You often hear that people do not want to read long texts online, but there is
no clear evidence for this. If long texts are exciting and relevant, people will be
willing to read a lot on their cell phones and other screens.
 Some content can be transferred from a different media, such as an article
that has been printed. However, it is always a good idea to adapt the content for
the internet. The requirements for a title may be different in print than online,
both graphically and content-wise. An article can have user comments. An
infographic that works well in print does not necessarily have the right format
for sharing on social media. And you can adapt the infographics so that they are
suitable for the internet and social media. The most important thing is that you
do not aimlessly publish your printed content digitally or from your website.
Each communication platform has its own rules, as do the different social media.
On Twitter the texts are brief, while Facebook and Instagram can handle longer
posts if they serve a purpose.

Other People’s Content – Curation
We are familiar with curators from museums, where they select the works of
art and combine them into an exhibition. In the same way, you can select
relevant content within your niche and present it in a nice way for your users.
This is completely free, not counting the work hours of the curator. Content
curation cannot be handled by a machine. You can set up some searches on
Twitter or use Google alerts, but the actual curated content has to be handpicked.
The areas where you need to act as a curator will depend on your purpose,
or “why”, as well as on the niches you target. Think of it like taking ownership
of an area or finding a field where you are unique. What do you want to have a
conversation about? It is content within this field you can curate. It is not enough
to link to a video or article. Offer a text that puts it into context for your users so
that they understand why you posted it. The same applies to Twitter, where a
retweet is a kind of content curation. Add a comment to your retweet so that it is
apparent why this content is relevant to your followers.
Rohit Bhargava, author and Professor of Digital Marketing at Georgetown
University, has defined five types of content curation. They can help you become
more creative when you work with other people’s content. The five types are:

1. Aggregation – Here you select content online on a certain subject and collect
it in one place, such as on a blog or Facebook page. For example, if you pick
five stories on a given topic.
2. Distillation – Here you simplify other people’s content so that only the most
important ideas are included. For example, in an infographic or as a quote.
3. Elevation – Here you take things to a higher level by identifying significant
 trends in the numerous social media updates. For example, it could be a Top
10 list of a current trend.
4. Mashup – This is where you combine two or more pieces of existing content
into a new product. For example, this might be pictures or data added to a
Google map.
5. Chronology – This is where you show how a subject has evolved over time.
It could be the company’s own story presented as an album on Facebook, a
board on Pinterest, or a current case where you collect media mentions,
tweets and images in Storify, a tool that makes it easy to construct an article
consisting of updates and content from social media.

If you combine the five types of content curation with the selected niches
and subjects, you enable new ways of working with content creation. You do not
need to start from the beginning each time; you can expand on good content that
already exists online, hence adding new value.
For the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, using content that belongs to
others is a way to get cheap content that does not require many resources. So
instead of only communicating about the museum, they curate general
discussions on navigation, and the users respond positively to this.
The disadvantage with content curation is that you point users to websites
other than your own. But you cannot expect to get both free content and a lot of
traffic. When you post YouTube videos on your site you can, though, kill two
birds with one stone.
Are you allowed to simply use other people’s content? You may link to it
but, naturally, you may not take it and copy it onto your website or blog –
whether it is text, images or video. You may embed a YouTube video into your
article, unless the embed code has been deactivated. Yet, you may not link or
embed illegal content. If you want to use an image you found online, you have to
ask nicely first. On picture sharing networks like Flickr, you can search for
pictures that have been published with a Creative Commons license, where the
owner allows others to use the image. This usually requires that you credit the
owner. It also differentiates between personal and commercial use. Other times,
you can go far by asking people if you can use the picture or text they posted on
social media. Most people post content so others can enjoy it, so they are
interested in the content being seen by as many people as possible. After you get
permission from the creator, you should credit them with a link to their website
or social media profile.

A Social Media Business Case

How do you create content on social media if you sell everything from
comforters, garden furniture and scouring pads to clothes pegs? Social Media
Manager Anders Lunde at JYSK overcame this challenge by being faithful to the
company’s culture.

JYSK sells articles for the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room and the patio,
and is a leader on the European market. The company has over 2,200 stores and
19,000 employees in 37 countries. As a new employee at JYSK, you need to
learn how to be a good businessman. Therefore, you start with a traineeship for
two to three days, where you pack boxes, stock goods, and work in the
warehouse. The businessman culture also permeates the way JYSK approaches
social media. Anders Lunde has used large amounts of curated content, usually
videos and pictures that he finds online or in JYSK’s large archive. One of them
is a video with a slightly older American housewife showing how you fold a
fitted sheet. As she puts it, “One of the greatest challenges you will face in life is
how to fold a fitted sheet.” The video is quite amusing and, at the same time, it is
a good practical tip to get more closet space. The post with the video was seen
over 300,000 times and shared more than 3,000 times on Facebook. Anders
Lunde says that they could see that it was shared mostly because women posted
it on their husbands’ page with an affectionate and well-intentioned
encouragement to see the video (link: goo.gl/yLc9xD). The video is a great
match for the overall framework. “Based on our motto of wanting to be experts
in sleep, we make a lot of effort to develop and plan the right content and to post
updates at the right times. This might include good advice on how to optimize
your sleep and have a healthier bedroom, or it can be about nostalgia with
businessman Lars Larsen,” says Anders Lunde.
The founder, Lars Larsen, features often on the Facebook page. When JYSK
hit 50,000 likes, they posted a video where he says thank you. The customers
loved it. They also love competitions. For example, JYSK posted a picture of a
towel set with nine parts in three different colors and asked people to comment
on which color they preferred. 1,800 people took part. By asking which color
towel the customers liked best, JYSK got an idea of their preferences. The same
applies if JYSK’s Pillow Procurement Mmanager does not know which of three
decorative pillows she should choose. “Then we ask on Facebook. There is real
value in user engagement,” says Anders Lunde.
During the spring of 2014, JYSK invited users on Facebook to offer
suggestions for a new design for a set of bed linens. They received over 1,200
designs and over 5,000 votes from users. The winner’s design was available in
stores for Christmas.
In order to get inexpensive, unique content, Anders Lunde would go to the
nearest JYSK store and record videos with the employees. This involves the
employees out in the stores and gives
them an increased sense of ownership concerning JYSK’S activities on
social media. For example, it could be to remind people to use a summer duvet
and the things customers should be aware of in connection with this. Anders
Lunde likes to use JYSK’S own universe in a way that customers do not
perceive as being a commercial message. During the winter he posted a picture
of JYSK’S mascot, Gåsen [the Goose], perched on the building with icicles
hanging from his beak. The text read, “It is freezing cold out there – so cold
#theGoose is all sniffly… Like or comment below to let Gåsen know you want it
to get better.” On rare occasions like this, he asks people to click like or leave a
comment. “People do it and it is nice to see that it does not lead to a high spam
score; instead, people think it is fun,” he says. “We also use humor, but we never
post any cat videos, unless they are about to fall asleep – because it must always
have relevance to the product. We are still known for good offers; that is also
part of the humor at JYSK.”
However, not all posts are received positively by JYSK’s fans. On the first
Monday of the summer holidays, he posted a Madonna music video that
morning with the song Holiday, so people could wake up to the video. Many
people marked it as spam. A high spam score said that many people found it to
be irrelevant. This is why Anders Lunde monitors the spam score on Facebook
carefully and learns from it.
In August 2014, Jysk Danmark hit 100,000 fans after six months on
Facebook. During that period, the importance of social media as part of a
company’s marketing grew steadily, and JYSK coordinated the effort in the 10
European countries where JYSK has stores.

New Content – Release Your Creativity
You can fall short with your existing content or with other people’s content.
Then you need to develop some new content concepts. Look at your content
overview from earlier – what is missing? What would you like to have more of?
What works for other companies on social media? Pay attention the next time
you see some cool content – could this be something that inspires you?
Most companies and organizations are far behind with their visual
communication. Most of them can write press releases, annual reports, and
perhaps debate posts for newspapers. But how about taking photos, making
videos and creating infographics? It is not that complicated. It begins with the
decision to get started. It requires that you are willing to test different formats. It
is not certain that the first video you make with your smartphone will be any
good. I am certainly no expert at recording videos or taking pictures, so I
practice and keep an eye on how others turn everyday life into visual amateur art
on Instagram. But can’t you just leave it to others and to professionals? Yes, but
if there are no others, or if there is no budget to buy pictures, then, increasingly,
it is expected that the communications or marketing employees have the skills to
carry this out.
Another way to create new content is to involve suppliers. A cornerstone of
the social strategy of the builders merchant SILVAN is an online forum for do-it-
yourself people. Here, SILVAN’s suppliers contribute with 25 to 30 experts who
answer customer questions. The suppliers have also made a number of videos on
do-it-yourself subjects, for which both SILVAN and the suppliers are listed as
publishers. It is easy and inexpensive content for SILVAN, and the suppliers
reach an attractive target group.
Now we will to look at a company that created a new content format by
creating a shell around its products, namely, the focus on their customers’
enthusiasm for creativity at home.

Søstrene Grene Do-It-Yourself in the Creative Corner

Søstrene Grene has over 70 shops worldwide, but no web store. The challenge
for Søstrene Grene today is to give their story a life online while still
maintaining the atmosphere that customers associate with their shops. At
Søstrene Grene they discovered that among the best-received content is DIY
videos that show how you can be creative with their products. It has led to a high
level of engagement.

The family-owned company is based in a large villa by the sea in Aarhus. The
first shop opened in 1973 in Aarhus, where you could buy an eraser for 1 cent,
candles in all colors, jawbreakers and knick-knacks as far as the eye could see. It
was Denmark’s first discount store. The concept is the same today, and the prices
are still low. Part of Søstrene Grene is the story of the two sisters, Anna and
Clara, who bring home goods from exotic parts of the world.
They have an enviable position because their customers are very involved
on social media and they do not have to do much to attract new fans, explains
Mads Jensen, the Marketing Manager at Søstrene Grene. This places demands
on the content side, to which they dedicate a lot of time. “We want to create a
layer around our products called creativity. When we give our customers creative
inspiration, there are virtually no limits to how the products can be used. Our
products get a new life with this creative layer.”
One video, for example, shows how to make old-fashioned hair bows from
drinking straws, so the product gets another useful function. In connection with
Christmas shopping, they have provided inspiration on wrapping Christmas gifts
and making homemade Christmas decorations. The videos are popular, so Mads
Jensen knows in what direction to go, “If you only create text or pictures, you
face stiff competition when attracting customers. Actually, it’s really about being
heard above the noise. I think that video content is underrated. You have a
greater probability of being shared because users respond better to video content.
But most important of all, it is about creating relevance for your customers. We
think there is an obvious match with our DIY projects. Our videos are not super
viral, but they are relevant content for Søstrene Grene.”
At the same time, he is careful to have the right proportion of text, pictures
and video in his posts. According to Mads Jensen, they get the best results in
terms of views when they combine posts with text, pictures and video.
User engagement is one of Mads Jensen’s strategic goals. Using brief posts,
they have asked customers on three occasions about where they thought Søstrene
Grene should open a new shop. It resulted in a few thousand replies. According
to Mads Jensen, “It was a very overwhelming response. We group the answers
manually and look at which town received the most responses. This way we
have an indication of where there is good demand. Naturally, we cannot promise
that we will open in the town with the most votes, but we look at the responses
and see if there is a good opportunity in terms of premises and location.” This
has led to two new shops opening.
Another example of user engagement concerning the products is when they
write on Facebook that the sisters “Anna and Clara are going on a trip, what
would you like them to bring back in their suitcases?” Mads Jensen passes along
the answers to the purchasing agents, who then have a list of ideas for new
products.
Within home and design there is a large group of bloggers and
Instagrammers with many followers. Hence, Søstrene Grene has determined
which bloggers act as influencers within interior design. Søstrene Grene does not
use paid promotion with bloggers, but instead, the company holds blogger events
which are very successful. Here the focus is to provide the bloggers with good
advice on how to get the most out of their products, such as how you make nice
Christmas decorations. Leading up to Christmas, they also ran a competition
where they chose Scandinavia’s most creative person. They selected ten of the
best bloggers within DIY design in Scandinavia to act as jury. The bloggers were
not paid but, according to Mads Jensen, it was a stamp of quality for their blog
and therefore, all ten of them wanted to be part of the jury and they promoted the
competition and hence, Søstrene Grene on their blogs. Bloggers express two
values that many companies try to emulate: trustworthiness and authenticity.
Instead of copying the interior magazines, Søstrene Grene looks to the bloggers
for their communication on social media. “At one point we hired a professional
photographer who took pictures of the products in a studio and made them look
really nice. But we could see that people would rather share or like the hand-held
pictures from the shop. The other presentation was too commercial.” Pictures of
new products are put on Instagram, since that is a faster way to get them out than
through the website, where they have to look more professional and be in several
languages. According to Mads Jensen, “The challenge is to give the products a
hint of newsworthiness, without it affecting us operationally. This is where
Instagram is good. Then we either take some products from the sales department
to the studio and take the pictures ourselves, or we just go down to the nearest
shop and ask what new products they have. This is usually the safe solution
because then we are certain they are out on the shelves.”
Søstrene Grene gets about 500 new Facebook fans per day. There are two
and a half full-time employees dedicated to social media. One is Mathias, the
grandson of founder Anna Grene. Mathias is also the one who keeps careful
track of Facebook’s changing algorithms so that they can post the content
properly. “We can spend time to create relevant content, but if it does not reach
people, the effect is minimal and we spent our time incorrectly. That is the
premise,” says Mads Jensen. Ads are created for all posts. Views resulting from
ads constitute 25% of the total views. For Mads Jensen, it is most important that
the strategic premise is in order and that they are able to exploit the strengths of
the different media.
For Søstrene Grene, the story of the two sisters works great as the common
theme around the world, according to Mads Jensen. “We believe that the story of
Anna and Clara will hold up. We think so because we live up to it every day. In a
new market like Japan, we have emphasized all the storytelling regarding Anna
and Clara, the low quirky prices, the Danish design, the classical music in the
shops, and that we are situated in an ideal location in Aarhus, also called the City
of Smiles. Everything indicates that there is a good match between Danish
design and the Japanese people.”
Søstrene Grene’s work with social media shows that when you create a layer
around your product you are able to make new kinds of content. The users want
content they can use for something, and short videos that address their creative,
do-it-yourself gene is just the right thing for Søstrene Grene’s target group. Mads
Jensen and his team have learned to make the videos, and they go down to the
shop themselves to take pictures of the products. It is authentic and perfectly in
line with the story of the two sisters, which emphasizes a cozy atmosphere,
thrift, and taking pleasure in simple things.

This is how you start to create new content:

Use the top rung of the Value Ladder to connect your “why” to the content. If
the purpose for a beauty products manufacturer is that people should feel
beautiful the way they are, then the content on social media must help them
in that direction. For example, this could be a campaign where women
submit pictures of themselves without makeup.
Look at your content today, both online and offline. Can it be communicated
in different ways? A number of companies are at a crossroads between print
and digital. For example, it might lead to a decision that your internal
communication should take place by cell phone rather than a printed journal.
What is your balance between text, infographics and video? Should you
perhaps shift focus and allocate resources to visual communication? Instead
of a written manual, you might make a video guide or an infographic.
What kind of content do you think would be fun to make but never get the
chance to do so? Perhaps you should do something about it now. Many
companies have lots of good ideas for new content but they never get
 implemented. It is a shame because you will not get a new result by doing the
same things you did in the analog era.
Start small, test what works, and then scale it up. Not all initiatives need to
make it past the test phase, but just because your first video failed, that does
not mean the video format could not work for you.
Learn to take pictures and make infographics or simple videos. Then it will
be much easier for you to make new and varied content. You can take small
steps by practicing taking pictures, learning a new editing software, and so
forth. You can find lots of free guides and help online. You might have to
purchase the services from professionals, but the better you know the
principles behind how these things work, the easier it will be to see where
your own skills fall short.

The Content Triangle can be used as a basis for determining how to work
with your content. It can help you make a realistic assessment of the time you
need for content creation, depending on how much you plan to use your own
content or content belonging to others. It can give you an idea of whether you
even have enough content to sustain several media profiles. It can also show you
which kind of content you need to pay more attention to. You might realize that
you need to create a type of content that is not currently being made in the
organization.

Set the Agenda

For some of you, the goal of your content strategy is to strengthen the brand or
to sell more products; for others, it is to set an agenda. Every day a struggle
plays out in the public space regarding who sets the agenda. The times when you
could determine the agenda by the front page of a newspaper are over. Today, the
debate regarding what we talk about and our position takes place in a flow of
news, tweets and posts, from early in the morning and throughout the night. With
social media, the users are now involved on equal footing with traditional
players and opinion makers in the public discussion on the day’s news, sporting
events, and other occurrences.
If you work with PR and public affairs, Twitter has become the place to
listen and be seen.
There is a predominance of politicians, journalists and lobbyists. Here, news and
opinions are exchanged all day long, and people move in and out of each other’s
conversations. Social media is often being used as an entrance ticket to
traditional media. It is quite simple, really. You post a link to a blog post in the
morning, and before lunch you might be contacted by a journalist who wants a
quote or a TV interview. The same mechanics apply to politicians, opinion
makers, and experts who act on Twitter. It can also be used to comment on
current matters and for crisis management.
The starting point is knowing what you want to achieve: Who do I want to
affect in what way? Then you can look at the tools you have available to
influence them in that direction. These might simply be text tweets, where you
communicate a strong opinion. They might consist of a video that supports your
central message. This happened, for example, in connection with the vote for a
European Patent Court in May 2014, where The Danish Union of Metal Workers
tweeted a video that was intended to get people to vote “Yes”. When I
commented on the video, I got responses from both sides of the argument within
an hour; both sides were certainly monitoring #patentdomstol [patentcourt]. You
can also use graphical elements, which are easier to decode in a quick Twitter
feed. In the election for the European Parliament, the Danish Social Liberal
Party, Radikale Venstre, had prepared a series of infographics that they could use
to support their tweets. It might, for example, involve a discussion on Eastern
European labor, where the graphic of a coin with the value of “1.3 billion” was
supplemented with the text “Eastern European citizens represent a gain for
Denmark.” With pictures, graphics and video, you can go beyond Twitter’s
restriction of 140 characters and broaden your playing field.
Another way to affect the agenda is through newsjacking. This refers to an
attempt to take over the news agenda with a creative post. In August 2013, when
a story came out that the EU wanted to ban the liquorice pipe, social media was
swamped with liquorice pipes of all kinds. It turned out later that the story was
not true, but at that point the internet was already flooded with liquorice pipes
posted by people that wanted to have fun at its expense. Similar newsjacking
took place when the Copenhagen Zoo anaesthetized Marius the Giraffe in early
2014. Carlsberg posted a picture of an elephant beer – so named due to its high
alcohol volume – with the text: “First the giraffe went, then a couple of lions.
But the elephant is luckily still here!” Another brewery, Albani, shared a picture
on Facebook of their giraffe beer – another strong beer type – with the text:
“There is a lot of talk of giraffes these days. One thing is certain… we will
NEVER put down ours.”

Digital adviser Benjamin Rud Elberth writes in his blog that Twitter has changed
the anatomy of news. “Stories are planted on Twitter. Stories are found on
Twitter. Stories are discussed on Twitter, and stories spread on Twitter. And more
so – if your brand or CEO is not available on Twitter, you are last in line to be
quoted in the news.”
American Ambassador to Denmark, Rufus Gifford, used this knowledge in
January 2014 when he tweeted to the two journalists behind one of Denmark’s
most popular radio programs, “Monte Carlo”: "@peterfalktolft @EsbenBjerre I
heard your New Year’s speech. Can I drop by #MonteCarloP3 and discuss it?
Hope to hear from you. Rufus.” One month later, he was on the radio and the
two hosts tweeted a picture of the three of them to their 100,000 or so Twitter
followers.
As more companies work to influence the media on Twitter, the relationship
between journalists and sources is changing. Benjamin Rud Elberth writes,
“Journalists no longer need to look – professionals find them and make sure that
the journalists get the sources, information and stories that they previously had
to search for. And this is a fact that divides it in two: On the one side, the brands,
companies and players that have understood and engaged professionally with the
media mechanisms, and on the other, everyone else who has not seen what is at
stake and still relies on sending out the classic press release or tries to reach the
media through the editors in a classic source -gatekeeper relationship.” The
classic understanding of mass communication is being challenged. It is built on a
model where the sender uses a medium to reach the recipients. With social
media, the connection between the sender and recipient has been re-established,
so that companies and organizations must talk to their customers and enter into
dialogues. This is something that we had moved away from in the era of mass
media. It also means that the role of mass media is being challenged. The image
of the media has become more fragmented, and discussions and debates are
taking place in many parallel spheres.

Previously, we mainly perceived the media as gatekeepers which filtered the
information and news that went out to the people. In their traditional role as
gatekeepers to the public, the media act as a filter between the events and
politicians on the one side and the citizens on the other, but that role cannot be
maintained. The Australian researcher Axel Bruns describes the media’s new
role as “gatewatchers”, where they do not have the sole right to filter the news
since we have all become our own gatekeepers when we piece together our
newsfeeds on social media. In their role as gatewatchers, the media become
spectators to the exchanges that take place on social media. Instead of being the
ones that set the scene, they stand on the outside looking in. This is happening
because we can all be our own media online, either as a company or an
individual.
It has often been said that people only want high-quality content, but both
YouTube’s and Instagram’s popularity demonstrates that we want amateur
content just as much, providing it is useful for something. For companies, this
means there is far greater freedom to reach users, and that content no longer
needs to be adapted to the media’s news criteria, but rather, to that of the users.
However, traditional media still plays an important role in the overall media
picture, so it therefore still makes sense for many companies to work towards
getting media publicity. Here, too, social media has become an important tool if
you want to affect the agenda and reach out to traditional media.
When PR efforts extend to social media, it becomes clear that organizations
cannot hide behind a logo and pre-formulated quotes. We want people in flesh
and blood. For CEOs and managers who understand this, Twitter is a good
platform for influencing the agenda. Journalists will rarely quote a company
account, so by involving yourself personally, you can find a shortcut to the press.
At FOA, Head of Media Gitte Hejberg discovered that their President, Dennis
Kristensen, is himself a channel to both Facebook and Twitter: “Often journalists
use his profile to orient themselves regarding a story, because he has such a wide
reach.”
On Twitter, the stories the journalists post are enthusiastically discussed.
These could be a headline or an angle that a source or party is unhappy with. A
tweet can change a news angle. This also means that a tweet can simply be
quoted by the media. This sounds like a description of the Wild West, where
some people reached the good gold mines faster than others. In any case, it is the
beginning of a completely new understanding of the media, and the people who
work with this development have a head start. Finding news or a source through
social media instead of a press release somewhat fulfills a journalist’s hunting
instinct, while for sources, it is a new way to promote their point of view.

The Danish Union of Journalists Make an Impact on Twitter

One person who works with social media to affect the agenda on a daily basis is
the communications manager at the Danish Union of Journalists (DJ), Troels
Johannesen. DJ is a prominent voice in the debate on media and conditions
faced by journalists. This debate has moved to Twitter, and Troels Johannesen
has therefore chosen to involve DJ. He uses Twitter for PR and public affairs,
i.e. to affect media, politicians and opinion makers, including also the union’s
own members.

During the spring of 2014, it was discovered that the weekly gossip magazine Se
og Hør had paid a so called hush-hush-source to leak information on the credit
card use of celebrities, making it possible for Se og Hør to track the celebrities
and royalty all over the world. It was a case that involved many of DJ’s members
as well as the professionalism and ethics of the industry. DJ used Twitter to
define their position on the matter right after the news was first released. By
quickly distancing themselves from the methods used by Se og Hør, DJ secured
an advantage relative to other players. According to Troels Johannesen, “It gave
us a voice in the entire debate because we were quick to act and had already
created a go-to position where we made ourselves available to comments. It is
important for DJ that we are visible in the debate for such cases. Our members
expect that.” In addition to this, DJ must position themselves relative to their
numerous stakeholders in the media business and on a political level. According
to Troels Johannesen, “In this way, Twitter is a game changer. At DJ, we will
never again have to wait to communicate important messages until there is room
for a feature in the newspaper.”

Model 11. Niches on Twitter – presence with brand, employees and hashtags

In order to have more clout on the discussion on Twitter, DJ has decided to have
several profiles. They chose some professional niches which they communicate
about on social media. They chose their niches based on areas where they have
unique knowledge and an interest in establishing themselves. Knowledge, in
other words, that no one else can deliver as well as they can to their members.
This applies to intellectual property rights, media law and freelance/self-
employment.
The consultant for the respective area tweets in his/her own name. Even
though DJ is populated with journalists, it has also been challenging to get
people to understand the value of sharing their knowledge. It is a traditional
organization and, in order to act on social media, it is critical to have some
leeway, explains Troels Johannesen. However, he has no doubt that he gains
value from this. “Social media saves me a lot of time when monitoring media
and agendas. At the same time, I can inform many journalists and media people
with a single post.”
On Twitter, you can react when there is an opportunity, or you can start a
discussion yourself and use relevant hashtags. The conversation on social media
is different from the discussions you can otherwise have in the public space. A
debate meeting, a TV interview, or an exchange in the newspaper’s debate
section are all conclusive processes. On social media, the discussion can
continue forever. You should, therefore, not always expect to get the last word.
Perhaps your counterpart has greater endurance. It is OK to withdraw if you
have nothing more to contribute. But you should continue to monitor the
discussion to see whether there are new contributors to which you have to
respond. So you cannot just shut down a discussion. Discussions on social media
can be compared with a reception – you have to speak politely with everyone,
but you do not have to hang around and talk with the same person for three
hours.
The tone in social media can sometimes be harsh. In such cases, you have to
remind yourself that you cannot win every time – sometimes you just have to
agree to disagree, and that is just fine.

Set the Agenda on Social Media:

Make social media a part of your PR/PA: The next time you set an agenda or
influence a matter, think social media from the beginning or make it the core
of your strategy.
Listen in: If you want to be part of discussions in your field, find the relevant
hashtags and keywords to listen in on. Then, contribute when you have a
strong opinion. Make lists of the relevant journalists or use other people’s
lists of journalists so that you can easily follow what they are currently
talking about right now.
Find hashtags: Look at which hashtags other people in your field are using or
which hashtags are popular right now. For major events within sports,
culture, media and politics, people use the same hashtag. If you have
something relevant to contribute, you can add your voice to the important
events by using the hashtag. But remember –only do it if you have content
you think is relevant for others. Use the right hashtags in your tweets so you
can be discovered by others who are interested in the same subjects.
Create your own hashtag: Hashtags are characteristic, so anyone can make
 them. If you want to make your own hashtag for a case, a conference, or
anything else, then consider carefully if the company’s name should be part
of the hashtag. The advantage is that the company gets some visibility. The
disadvantage is that people would rather use a hashtag that deals with a
subject rather than a brand, as the latter is too reminiscent of a commercial.
Another disadvantage is that a hashtag that includes your company name is
more vulnerable to hashjacking, where someone uses the hashtag for a
different purpose than what you intended.
Use @: Refer to people you want to address in your tweet by using
@username. Then they will be notified that you mentioned them and the
conversation can begin.
Timing: Post your content at the right time. This generally means that it
should be posted shortly after the release of the news in question. For
example, you can post during a TV debate.
Be sharp: Contribute with good content – a clear opinion, an incisive
criticism, a clarification, a new perspective, new information on a story, an
amusing graphic, etc. Needless to say, your angle should be interesting or
incisive for it to be noticed. But avoid personal attacks, sarcasm and insults.
These things always come back to bite you. Karma applies.
Organize yourself: Make a plan for how you want to draw attention to your
case. It requires that the content is distributed, commented on, and shared. It
may be an advantage to ally yourself with supporters who can quite literally
help put your content high on the agenda, i.e. at the top of the users’ stream
of updates and tweets.
Make it personal: Use personal accounts as a supplement or instead of a
brand account. The communication is clearer when there is a person behind
it. People would rather talk to a person than a brand and, similarly, you
cannot network with a brand, only with people. You can also make it
personal by signing the brand account with a name or initials.

Give Your Content a Long and Happy Life

During the spring of 2014, an internal report leaked from The New York Times
and it resonated throughout the media industry. The report showed that the
newspaper needed radical new approaches in order to survive. The most
important conclusion was that despite the fact that The New York Times has
some of the best content in the world, it does not reach far enough. Facebook is
now the big news distributor. This is where users go, not to the websites of the
newspapers. This tendency has only grown stronger. Even though content is
king, it needs a helping hand. Good content can do a lot, but it unfortunately has
neither legs nor wings, so you need to help it on its way. Push it out, carry it
around from social media to social media, and give it life. Use artificial
respiration if necessary, meaning the use of advertisements, which is something
we shall look at in Chapter 4, in the section “From Engagement to Results.” If
you have already used a lot of resources to create good content, it is all about
getting it out to as many relevant users as possible.
Regarding distribution, it is worth considering how the users will react.
People’s access to the internet is Google, Facebook, and increasingly, other
social media. This may sound trivial, but it is often forgotten when inside a
company. Then you convince yourself that people’s access to the internet is the
company website. But it is on Google and on social media that the content battle
should be fought.
An important motto for any content strategy is “less is more”. Good content
can live a long time on social media. Social media has a somewhat
misunderstood reputation of being for quick and superficial content, but a five-
year-old video or an old blog post can still be valuable. The time you spend
making a bunch of irrelevant content, you could use on making long-lasting
content, planning and measuring effect. Yes, the social media beast must be fed,
but it is better to make content that has greater longevity, rather than posting
something because you think you must. I often find that a blog post of mine that
is several months or even years old gets tweeted because someone comes across
it for the first time or because it is relevant in relation to the discussion at hand.
You will find it very beneficial to have content that is out there working for you
in the long-term. This approach is supported by the algorithms of social media.
If something is shared and liked, it has a longer lifespan. This means that it is
better to focus on creating quality content and fewer posts than posting several
times a day just because you have decided to make three daily updates. It also
means you can focus more on what you are best at. It does not generate a lot of
confidence when a baker also sells pizza and sushi. In the same way, you also do
not need to offer all kinds of things. Just make sure you know what you have in
your bakery.
Now we will look at a company that has taken matters in its own hands and
organized itself with its own digital TV station so it can reach end users directly
with relevant content.

Jyske Bank is Its Own Media

How can one be a different bank online? And what do you do when you are tired
of the media’s coverage of your area? With jyskebank.tv, the bank from Silkeborg
showed that you can exploit the digital development to circumvent the
established media’s role and create your own content ecosystem.

Shockwaves hit the Danish media landscape when Jyske Bank launched its own
TV channel online in 2008, broadcasting financial news. This happened again in
2011, when they hired a highly respected journalist, Kurt Strand. “What about
journalistic impartiality?”, they were asked. Since then, the criticism has died
down and the Editor in Chief for jyskebank.tv, Lasse Høgfeldt, has turned “think
like a media” into their strategy. However, the greatest challenge for
jyskebank.tv today is distribution, since their videos have to reach far beyond
their own platform. Lasse Høgfeldt says, “Eighty percent must and will be seen
elsewhere than on jyskebank.tv. This is where social media are a hand in glove
fit.” Reaching users involves a lot of work, and jyskebank.tv has one employee
whose primary role is to put their videos online. Their communications
department has been transformed into a brand newsroom with video production
as the main focus. Instead of communications employees, they only have
journalists and photographers, all of whom create content. By making the
production part of the organization, they can do it cheaper than if they bought the
services externally.
In the old days, making video was a costly affair, but it is getting less
expensive year by year. The strategy for jyskebank.tv is based on a gut feeling.
Lasse Høgfeldt explains, “We saw a fragmented media landscape. And, as the
Americans say, ‘If you can’t trust the media, be the media.’ We did not want to
be dependent on traditional media for getting our message across. It is
expensive, they interpret it, and at the same time it loses its power. There was a
time you could print full-page ads in the morning newspapers and reach 90% of
the target group, but that is not the case today. Because of this, we decided to
create our own media.”
Lasse Høgfeldt sees the communications department as a media company
within the company. His communications team thinks in terms of content
creation, and that enables them to react quickly. “We use the TV media because
we think it is the strongest media, both internally and externally. The effect is
better than with magazines or text, for example. Videos do better on Google and
videos keep people on your website. To us, this is a good fit with being a
different bank.”
The videos are made for Danes in general and the content is based on what
the users are currently concerned with, such as the real estate market. Lasse
Høgfeldt’s goal is to prepare people for dinner conversations and give them
content in small morsels, inspired by the American podcast “The Dinner Party”,
a product which discusses the subjects in the spotlight this week that everyone is
talking about. Knowledge is capital, and this applies in particular to the group of
users Jyske Bank wants to reach.
However, jyskebank.tv does not work with a defined target group. Instead,
they make content for “the curious Dane who is interested in what is happening
in the world and who wants to learn more about subjects like personal finances,
real estate, the new iPhone, management, or who wants stories relating to the
world’s economic situation that have not been presented in Danish media,” says
Lasse Høgfeldt.
A good online video is about having the right content at the right time with
enough relevance. Lasse Høgfeldt explains, “It is told in a way that reflects how
we are at Jyske Bank. We do not want to make TV like the others, but rather
straightforward and different.” They do this by dispensing with some of the
dogmas associated with making TV. They made one series called “Made in
Denmark”, about Danes who live the American dream. According to Lasse
Høgfeldt, it is television where people show off their accomplishments –
something that very much contradicts the modest nature of the Danes. The
Danes tell their story, and the journalists are not in the picture and do not
“translate” it for the viewers. In this way, Jyske Bank breaks some of the
unwritten rules of how to produce news programs.
There is also a focus on how TV can be used in internal communication.
Every day at 7:30 a.m., there is a two to five minute internal broadcast, “Good
Morning Jyske Bank”, regarding a current issue such as something going on in
the media. Then the advisers can quickly be brought up to date before the bank
opens. Additionally, one Friday per month, Lasse Høgfeldt does a live TV show
aimed at the employees. “Here we work with a concept called critical culture.
We want to make sure that the things that the employees believe are not working
are brought to management’s attention via a different route.” The format of this
program is a feature with advisers in different towns, and then a live feature with
the confrontation of the manager responsible. Lasse Høgfeldt is not afraid these
will be leaked, as, “Bank workers are quite orderly.”
The videos are also used by advisers in their communication with
customers. For example, advisers can mail a video clip for a real estate loan
instead of sending a long text.
Lasse Høgfeldt’s tip for others who want to walk the plank and create their
own newsroom is, “You need a playing field where you do not have someone
who has to approve everything all the time. So that there is room for
experimentation. TV is the easiest to produce if you have the space in the
organization to do it without someone breathing down your neck. This is also
why a number of our internal formats are live – then no one has to approve it.”
Jyske Bank dared to gamble with a new content format, i.e. web TV, at a
time when most companies were still communicating primarily via the press.
This gives the users relevant content which is not about Jyske Bank, but is
targeted at the customers’ daily lives. At the same time, this is one format for a
network-based communications department. But just like The New York Times,
Jyske Bank finds distribution to be challenging.

Get the content out there:

On websites and newsletters that belong to others, such as stakeholders,
customers, suppliers, organizations and politicians. There are many people
interested in having good content on their site and in their newsletters, so do
not hesitate to make your content available. Naturally, it is a prerequisite that
the content is not the actual product, as might apply to the media. If you want
to make sure people can see who the sender is, you can do so by putting your
logo on the photos or video.
With bloggers. Many bloggers want to link to or use content that is relevant
to their readers. Some blogs also have guest bloggers who contribute with
one or more blog posts. This way, the blogger gets easy content and you
reach out to the blogger’s readers and benefit from the blogger’s
trustworthiness. You can also write a comment on other blogs and link back
to your content. However, you should only do this if it is relevant and if you
are interested in the discussion.
On other people’s social media profiles and in groups. As with websites,
 most organizations want to link to content which is interesting for their users.
For example, if you have some content that might be relevant for an
influential person or a politician to post on his/her Facebook page or Twitter,
you just need to ask. The worst that can happen is that you get a rejection.
The employees can spread the content in their networks. Whether you have
one or several thousand colleagues or employees, this is an attractive way to
spread content. It is free and it is spread to many different networks at once.
Via the traditional media’s websites and social media. The media are in a
daily struggle to have the most read and shared content, so if you have
content with a different angle or viral potential, you can tip the media about
it.
Re-use content across platforms. Do not auto post – instead, make different
versions of the content for different platforms. For example, an update on
Facebook can be longer than Twittter’s 140 characters, and the perspective
could depend on the users of the individual network.

Involve Users
Throughout this book we have seen that good content can live long on social
media. It can be a good story, a funny video, an educational infographic, or
simple things like a good headline and the use of links and hashtags. Another
way to give content life is to involve the users. Most media, companies, and
organizations think their communication is a finished product that they send off,
only to hurry on to the next story, press release or article. This approach misses
out on the numerous ways user engagement can be of benefit. By involving the
users you can enrich your content creation, get more ideas, get more people to
feel a sense of ownership, and get help to spread your content.
When you create content for social media, it is clear that it does not
necessarily involve a finished product. The users’ input can mean that you may
add something to the article or blog. You find new angles and continue to
develop the subject, or you create a new video that takes into account the input
you received. By involving the users in your content creation before, during, and
after product creation, you can benefit from the dialogue. Before making the
product, you could ask open questions that open the way for dialogue and input.
This way, you could test to see if the idea is even a subject the users are
interested in. Along the way in the process, you could set up a live blog on
Twitter or show the process in images on Instagram. After the product is made or
finalized, you can share it on social media, preferably with an invitation for users
to offer input.
If you have a blog, the content lifespan is extended if people comment on it.
Google likes content that generates activity and to which others link. I am not a
proponent of consciously writing controversial pieces for the sole purpose of
getting a lot of comments. The goal is to have a good debate, not just generate
more traffic. It is my experience that specialized posts can also yield comments
along the way. Great comments make blog posts better. They force the blogger to
clarify and go into more detail on the matter, and the users may offer input that
the blogger had not considered.
By changing your content creation from traditional communication and
marketing to network communication, the content can be enriched and enjoy a
longer lifespan online. This process that the content undergoes can be described
in six steps:

1. From a finished product, such as an article or campaign, to a longer
endeavor: A blog post lives on in the comments and in the debate on social
media. Then the discussion continues on platforms like Twitter.
2. From a finished product to a collective product: The users offer input before,
during, and after content creation. The users can start to contribute in the
research phase.
3. From a statistical product to reality: You report while it happens. For
example, when there is an important event, whether it is the World Cup or the
elections, citizens report what is happening in their living room using social
media.
4. From online as icing on the cake, to online as the core: Restart your company
today with social media. If you had to start over with the company’s
communication today, it would probably not be so difficult to start using
social media because it is a natural part of the media habits of your
employees and customers.
5. From authoritarian to customer focused: You are not necessarily always right,
so focus on giving the users the best possible customer service. A harsh or
accusatory tone looks really bad in social media. So remind yourself that
even though customers do not always talk nicely, they need awe-inspiring
service.
6. From one-way communication to networks: Instead of only seeking out the
largest possible audience with broad content, you can act within many
different digital communities with targeted content and with a focus on
 dialogue, rather than one-way communication.

When User Engagement Becomes a Shitstorm

User engagement, as described above, is of course based on a best-case scenario.
Sometimes companies discover that critical comments on their blog or Facebook
page can shift the focus of the debate. And the fear of angry customers is
something that can really prevent people from using social media – as though the
complaints will go away if you close your eyes. It actually only gets worse. It
might have been a sensible press strategy in the old days to stay silent until the
matter went away, but not anymore. Today, you want to react as quickly as
possible and to respond in a friendly and patient tone in order to avoid the
criticism developing into a shitstorm. A shitstorm means that the company or
person’s account on social media becomes flooded with negative posts.
The candy and chocolate manufacturer Toms is known for their chocolate
snowballs, filled chocolate turtles, and a number of other chocolate products.
Their fans love them on Facebook. At least they did, until Christmas 2013. This
is when something went wrong, because on December 7, when the customers
opened door number 7 in their Toms chocolate advent calendar, they found a
sticker instead of a piece of chocolate. The customers stormed Toms’ Facebook
page with disgruntled posts. They indicated that it was not just about the
customers’ own disappointment, but that of their children. The criticism got
worse as more users found empty compartments over several days. Toms
handled it by the book; they responded nicely to criticism and sent a small
chocolate gift to the disappointed, chocolate-hungry customers. This led to a
new wave of the shitstorm, since users were unhappy that the value of the gift
was less than the price of the chocolate Christmas calendar, and also that every
customer who complained only received one bag of chocolate even if they had
bought several Christmas calendars. On December 16, Toms apologized for
having made customers feel they had beencheated. They explained that the idea
for there being a surprise behind two of the doors was suggested by the
customers. “Based on a consumer feedback from previous years, we decided to
replace the content in two of the boxes with surprises. It turns out that many
people still prefer the calendar with just chocolate and candy  We will do it
that way next year.”
What can we learn from that? That chocolate is serious business, that you
cannot always count on the feedback you get being representative of all users,
and that the product has to be in order.
The first goal to avoid a shitstorm is to minimize the number of unhappy
customers. You do this by having a good product and excellent customer service.
The network society’s Number 1 rule is: We love our customers. Customer
service is experiencing a golden age online. As more and more purchases are
carried out digitally, trust towards the company is critical when buying online.
Are inquiries to customer service answered quickly? Is it done in an appropriate
tone? And what do other users say about the company on Trustpilot, Yelp,
Tripadvisor, PriceRunner and in reviews on their Facebook page? An American
study shows that 79% of consumers trust each other’s product reviews online as
much as the reviews by people they know. More and more companies are,
therefore, asking customers to review the company on Trustpilot after an online
purchase. Among the numerous reviews, there are a number of fake reviews,
both positive and negative. So as a customer, be critical of user reviews.
However, as a company, you cannot ignore reviews. You have to listen to your
customers online. What are they unhappy about? How can we help? Then you
answer them and deal with the complaint as you would if it were an email or
phone call. The difference is that there are many other people reading it on social
media.
It can be difficult to work with customers, citizens, and users. However, it is
the essence of your business, so stop the excuses and get to work. Do not think
of the task as unmanageably large; instead, meet customers and citizens on their
playing field and turn the complaints into an advantage. You can react to
complaints and establish the necessary changes. There is usually a pattern in
what customers are complaining about. You can choose to either say, “It is OK;
we can live with that criticism,” or “We need to change our product or service so
this kind of complaint dies out.”
The position of the users is that they have the right to be critical of
companies and products on social media. Instead of looking at it as a living hell,
you could look at it as democratic potential, where everyone can express
themselves. And all companies have equal conditions – everyone is a potential
target. You cannot necessarily make everyone happy in a world full of
contradictions, opinions and interests. Therefore, there will be people who think
that your product or service is not something for them. Learn to live with some
complaints, but always listen, react, and answer people politely.
Many of the crises a company faces on social media are crises that arise
other places in the business. But regardless of where the criticism originates, it
will hit social media sooner or later. This is what Bolette Olsen discovered when
Jyske Bank hit troubled waters concerning tax shelters. Here, she made sure to
support the bank’s official position, but at the same time, to respond with
personality. The Catfish can be firm, but the response is more rounded than the
one from the bank’s legal department. She also discovered that users on
Facebook and Twitter behaved differently and hence, required different kinds of
responses. You cannot just copy the response from one platform to the other. The
Catfish’s loyal followers were not the most critical, but rather people who did
not “like” the site. Bolette Olsen says, “This is when we try to be attentive and
listen to criticism – is it fair? And can we provide a knowledgeable response that
they can hopefully use?” This approach probably contributed to the tax shelter
case not resulting in a shitstorm on Facebook.

Model 12. Shitstorm development in five phases

The dynamic of a shitstorm can be described in five phases. The model is
reminiscent of the classic Hollywood model, which is based on the suspense
curve in the traditional story.

1. Striking – the criticism begins on a blog or social media, usually Facebook
or Twitter.
2. Elaboration - the criticism spreads on social media as people share, like,
retweet, and comment on the respective posts. If you can deal with the
criticism at this stage, you can avoid the shitstorm spreading to the media and
become even more influential.
3. Escalation – when the criticism has reached a certain size, the case is big
enough for the online media and local media to write about. For example,
when Legoland in Billund faced massive criticism on Facebook from
families with children in the summer of 2014 due to high prices. That all
began with one discontented mother.
4. Climax – if it involves massive criticism or if it involves a company that is
of general interest, the criticism may spread to TV, radio, or printed media.
Mentions in the media are self-reinforcing, leading more critics to voice their
opinions.
5. Fade out – the media’s interest dies down. The criticism abates on social
media, usually because the company responded to the criticism.

Nothing is so bad that it cannot be used for something. So what good comes of a
shitstorm? In part, you tried it – and discovered how to survive it. A shitstorm
can help uncover weak links in the organization, so use the time after a shitstorm
to fix the organization. You might need to hire additional resources. A shitstorm
can also mean that management notices the power of and opportunities with
social media. Often the shitstorm is what initiates a company’s digital presence.
The good news is that the news value of a shitstorm always dies down.
Shitstorms can still quickly move from phase one to three, where the online
media discuss the case, but they often skip phase four since a bunch of
disgruntled Facebook users is not enough to make it to the front page of the
paper.

This is how you minimize the risk of a shitstorm:

Fix the problem. If customers are unsatisfied, the product or service is not
right, or you have the wrong customers.
Monitor social media so that you can catch criticism at the beginning.
Respond quickly and politely, even if you do not agree with the customer’s
criticism.
Be proactive in relation to problems with your product or service.
 Be aware of what goes on internally. Is there a matter coming up that might
lead to external criticism?
Create house rules. Ensure that there are signs on the blog and Facebook
page about the applicable rules. This way users know what to expect and you
reserve the right to remove rude or insulting comments. However, remember
not to delete critical comments, or this may lead to additional criticism.
Formulate a crisis plan in relation to staffing. What do you do if something
comes up during the weekend or vacation?
Learn to live with the risk of criticism and shitstorms. Do not let fear prevent
you from using social media.










 4
Planning and Measurement

In this chapter, we shall look at how to plan your content so as to best exploit
your scarce resources. Good planning frees up more time for you to create good
content. In this chapter, we shall also look at how to choose the social media on
which you will be active. At the end of the chapter, we shall look at how to
measure your efforts.
For many years, social media has been characterized by the approach where
you open an account and see what happens. But more companies have started to
have a more organized approach to social media. This enables them to work
more strategically with their content, making it easier to measure the effect.
Some people think planning on social media can hinder you creatively – after all,
you cannot plan your way to a genuine dialogue. Yet you cannot take your
content to the next level if you have to define it and create it on the same day it
has to be published. Without planning, you may get the feeling that you are
always behind, and it is hard to bring strategy to your efforts when there is no
general planning taking place.
Many people intend to plan their content but they never get around to it. I
can relate to this with my own ambitions to write a blog post each week – it just
does not happen. In such cases, it may be helpful to allot a specific time during
the week to plan your content, preferably together with one or more colleagues.
That way you are more committed to it and it becomes a joint task.

Content Plan and Annual Cycle of Work

When you plan content, you optimize your time – and I have a feeling you
consider your time to be a scarce resource. One of the tools used by virtually all
the companies I interviewed for this book, is a content plan or a conversation
calendar. It is a schedule used to plan your content at least one week ahead. The
easiest way to create it is with Excel, Google Documents, or on a large
whiteboard you can erase each week. The plan is used to keep track of where
and when the content should be released.

Model 13. Example of a content plan

The plan is organized according to the seven days of the week and can be used
across different social media. It is a good idea to split the updates into subjects
so you ensure variation. For example, a category with updates about the brand, a
category on the subject you want to discuss, and a third category with humorous
updates or a type of content you want increased focus on, as video or
infographics. By assigning a color to each subject, you can quickly decode the
distribution between the categories.
At Northside, a week-long music festival in Denmark, their content calendar
includes categories such as music, events, competitions, tickets, sales content,
and sustainability. An update can cover more than one category. They use the
calendar for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but not all the tweets and images
are added to it. Northside’s online manager, Anne Jensen, says, “For me it works
really well to have the overview. But we do not always fill it out, since much of
our work is on the fly, particularly in relation to the release of the new names at
the festival. Here, we depend on the agreements that go through. So there are
limits to what can be planned, but we try as much as possible.”
Another way to organize your content is to assign certain subjects to each
day. For example, you could decide that Monday is Career Day and Friday is
Humor Day. This structure also makes it easy to maintain a good content flow on
social media.
With a content plan, you can fill out the calendar when you get an idea for
some kind of content. The content plan gives you an overview and, in the end,
you save time by planning your content. But you sometimes need to deviate
from your content plan based on an opportunity to post something related to a
current event. You might have the opportunity to newsjack a case, or perhaps
users need to be informed of important internal or external factors.
The extent to which you can plan may vary considerably. Some take it one
day at a time. On the other end of the spectrum, we have an institution like
Statistics Denmark, where the general management decides each week which of
their many news items will be posted on Twitter.
At SILVAN, the builders merchant, online manager Flemming Jessen works
according to the company’s general marketing plan, which is created one year in
advance. Within this, he formulates a digital marketing plan for the next two
weeks. He follows this plan unless something unforeseen happens. At JYSK,
they plan the content two to three weeks in advance, and at Søstrene Grene, they
get the best results when they plan one month ahead. Here, they make a
Facebook plan in a Google document with entries for the content they want to
publish. It is then translated by the contact people in the countries where
Søstrene Grene has shops. Everything is posted on the same page, managed
centrally, and geo-segmented, that is, the German updates only to Germany and
so forth. The following week’s updates on the schedule are suggestions that can
be disregarded if more current news arises.
There are many theories regarding what day of the week and time of day
you should post your content. First and foremost, it depends on when your users
are most active on social media. It then depends on the nature of the content.
Where does it fit into a user’s day? How much does it demand of users – do you
want them to comment on the topic, or is it just an entertaining picture they can
share late in the afternoon before going home? The most important thing is that
you learn the behavior of your users and adapt to it in order to get the maximum
effect from your updates. At the same time, it is also a question of when is there
the least competition in your users’ newsfeed. Most companies update during the
day on Monday through Friday, but users are also active in the evenings and on
weekends.
Another way to organize your content is with a yearly cycle of work. You
look at the whole calendar year and plot in the events which recur each year.
These include both internal factors such as projects, launches, conferences, etc.,
as well as external factors. The latter may refer to weather conditions, sports and
cultural events, red-letter days such as Mothers Day and Valentine’s Day,
holidays, vacations, the school year, the academic year, the political calendar,
and so on. There will, naturally, be more work involved in filling out the
calendar in the first year, but the following year you will have a ready-made
calendar to inspire you. This is particularly useful for companies that do not
create content on an ongoing basis and must, therefore, be more creative in how
they use social media.













Model 14. The annual cycle of work

How often should you post?
Many companies want a definitive answer regarding how often to post
updates on their profiles. There are a number of rules of thumb that you can
abide by, which I will outline in this chapter. But it is important for me to
underscore that it varies from company to company, and that different social
media have different rhythms. What is right for one is not necessarily what
works for another. As I said in connection with social media algorithms in
Chapter 2, content on Facebook and LinkedIn can live, for example, for several
days, whereas updates disappear faster from Twitter and Instagram. Yet most of
the content on Facebook and LinkedIn will also have a shorter lifespan.
Therefore, on many platforms, the rule of thumb is to post updates once daily,
like they do at Søstrene Grene. According to Mads Jensen, “The most important
thing is that our updates have relevance. That we have something to say that the
customers find interesting. We choose not to post updates if we do not have the
right content.”
Gitte Hejberg from the union FOA says, “We shouldn’t post ten stories a
day on Facebook, since many people are not on Facebook as often as we are.
Rather, one good story a day, which contributes something and where we keep
track of what happens and what members write, instead of just posting one
update after the other and letting them die out.”
Signe Bisbjerg says that the DaneAge Association could update on
Facebook nearly every day and still have a high level of engagement – but not
several times a day.
The frequency can also vary during the year. It is a challenge for NorthSide
to keep social media running year round. Right after the festival in June there is
a down period. People can still share their experiences, and NorthSide runs a
competition for the best picture. During summer vacation they drop down to a
minimum number of updates, both so that they can simmer down, and also to
avoid oversaturation with their users. According to Anne Jensen, “NorthSide is
not relevant year round. After August we slowly start building up again, and in
October we put tickets on sale. So until October we look back, and after that we
start with next year’s festival.” They post updates on Facebook about once a day,
whereas the frequency on Twitter is higher. Anne Jensen explains that Twitter is
less formal. “You can post something quick, and it disappears quickly as well.
For us it is easier to use irony and to be funny on Twitter than on Facebook.”
An indicator of whether you post too often on Facebook, is the spam score.
According to Anne Jensen, they have a low spam score. “The only time we
found that we had updated too frequently was during the festival of 2012, where
someone wrote that it was time for us to stop. After that, we lowered the
frequency drastically.”

Guidelines for how frequently you should post updates on social media:

Generally, “once a day” is a good rule for most companies; however, it does
vary among different social media. You can update more frequently on
Twitter and Instagram and a bit less on Facebook and LinkedIn. Ten daily
updates or even more may be right for media companies.
You should only update when you have some good and relevant content for
your users.
In reality, this means you can update as often as you like, as long as you still
generate engagement with each update.
Test things out by updating less during one period and more in another, but
do it consciously so you can assess what works best for you.

Choice of Social Media

I have mentioned several times that it is not enough to choose the social media
you want to be active on, and then believe the rest will follow in succession.
Choosing a social media platform is not the same as a strategy. But we have
reached the point where this decision can no longer be postponed. You probably
already have a clear idea of which social media your company should be active
on. Similarly, your strategy and content framework should be in place before we
delve into how to choose the right platform.
I will not go into long descriptions of each social media platform; I
recommend that you read the Wikipedia entries or articles online. Instead, I will
point to some general trends for the most popular social media platforms. Next, I
will present a framework to help you choose between them. Some of the general
tendencies on the popular social media platforms are:

Visual content is growing. The social media platforms where visual content
is the central element, such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, are the
ones growing in recent years, and video content increases on Facebook and
Twitter.
Live video is catching on, with services like Meerkat, Twitter’s Periscope,
Blab and Facebook Live.
Social media platforms are becoming commercial. You can hardly be on
Facebook these days without using money on advertising. The same
increasingly applies to LinkedIn, with Twitter and Instagram following suit.
The younger generation goes against the flow and searches for greener
pastures. It is not “follow the money” but rather “follow the younger set” if
you want to be where it is happening. Make it a habit to ask the tweens and
teenagers or younger employees about their use of social media and their
media habits.
There is an over-representation of women on social media, especially on
Pinterest and Instagram.
Senior citizens are also there, primarily on Facebook.

New kinds of social media are popping up all the time, and this generates
different reactions in people. Some may get the idea that if only these new
platforms disappeared soon, everything would go back to how it used to be. But
that will not happen. If you perceive social media as a huge loss of control, then
I would say you only lose control if you close your eyes and do not deal with it.
Yes, social media are anarchistic. But they are built on patterns, contexts and
rules. It is not chaos. But it can seem that way if the content on social media is
not planned and the work is not organized. And much like with other forms of
communication, once you have tried social media enough times, you will begin
to see patterns. You will be able to have qualified opinions about how issues
develop and what works. Your task is to become familiar with social media,
perhaps at first in a closed group or an internal network, but the important part is
that you involve yourself with it personally.
Even if your first thought is that no one needs this new social media
platform, or that you cannot see the point in it, try, nonetheless, to understand the
media’s premises. What makes it attractive and why would some people think it
is interesting? Could you imagine that your users would eventually start to use
it? And how would you, as a company, be able to follow?
It is a good idea to learn about the social media platform, but your company
does not need to be a first-mover. Just because it exists does not mean it has
business value. The advantage to being among the first is that it often results in
numerous mentions on those social media platforms, as well as in traditional
media, and you help to establish how it will be used. When you choose to use a
new social media, you must allocate resources to find the right match between
your business and the users on the platform. The disadvantage of being a first-
mover is that you will use many resources on relatively few users, and on efforts
which carry a great deal of uncertainty. On the other hand, it can be both fun and
educational.
If you already have a number of profiles, it may be a good idea to have an
overview. Perhaps you have a wealth of staff groups, fan groups, and other
things that need to be cleaned up or developed further. At the same time, you
should prioritize the social media based on the level of activity you want to have
on each one. The different profiles on social media might all be important, but
often you will need to focus more on one or two. You can make a list of all your
accounts, pages, and groups, across different social media. Make this overview
available to others in the organization, such that you could hang it on a wall in a
visible location. You might want to use model 11 or the following poster from
SKAT as a template.
A company profile is the official account for the company. Here, you can
focus on customer service, news, recruitment, or the subjects you want to talk
about. Additionally, a number of employees can have profiles. It could be the
Director or professionally qualified employees who have a certain specialization
or expertise. Then you could assign some hashtags that everyone in the company
should use. It could be a hashtag that relates to the company’s name or a product,
or to the subjects you want to focus on.
At SKAT, the Danish Tax Authority, their approach is to be on as many
platforms as makes sense in order to supplement email, homepage, and the
telephone. Their social media strategy plays out on five platforms, each of which
is supposed to do something different. They do not post the same things on the
profiles and, if they do, it is from different angles, because these are different
platforms and target groups.
Jesper Rønnow Simonsen, the CEO at SKAT, says, “We would, for
example, use Facebook to plant ideas about how we think our tax administration
is developing. It could be ‘What is your opinion about an annual tax return that
looks like this?’ This is user involvement in product development. Twitter is
where you find answers if you do not want to telephone or is stuck on our
website. We want to get out on many platforms, providing we are able to manage
it and if we can see a reason for it.”


The strategy on social media at SKAT has been put up as a poster in the halls at
SKAT’s main office in Copenhagen. The five social media profiles each have
their own profile:

On Twitter, the “Skattefar” [Taxdad] account is used to provide guidance and
news of SKAT.
On Facebook, the account SKATdanmark is used for news and knowledge
about SKAT.
SKAT on Instagram deals with everyday life at SKAT.
The LinkedIn profile is SKAT as the workplace and company.
On Pinterest, SKAT is represented by Toldskatmuseum (Dutytax Museum),
 which is about SKAT’s history in pictures.

It may be advantageous to establish an account on a number of social media
platforms in your company name so that others do not do so. Make sure the
account looks presentable so that users do not end up on a blank page. If you do
not use your Twitter account, you might want to write in your bio or the latest
tweet where people should get in touch instead: “We are currently not using this
account, please find us on Facebook.”
An increasing number of social media have automatically created accounts
for companies and institutions – this, for example, applies to Facebook and
LinkedIn. So at the very least, make sure these pages look presentable. When
your company is set up on Google+, it also means you are easier to find on
Google Maps.

NorthSide are Digital First-Movers

At NorthSide Festival in Aarhus, they do what many established companies do
not dare: they move onto new social media platforms among the first, in order to
try them out – and they get to know the other first-mover users. They started
using Snapchat in February 2014. Fifteen minutes before the official
announcement, Snapchat users were informed that the world-famous pop icon,
Lana del Rey, would perform at the summer festival.
“You just need to be friends with us and we will send out something. We
have started now and if it is a good idea, we will develop it,” says online
manager Anne Jensen. She says that it could just as easily have been done on
Twitter or Facebook. The charm of Snapchat is that you have the possibility to
see a video of a few seconds duration before it disappears, so it is perfect for a
sneak peek.
NorthSide joined Snapchat before the introduction of Stories. With snaps,
Snapchat is one-on-one. In other words, if you want to send mass messages, you
have to do it manually by clicking each user. This makes it more authentic than
Facebook, where you can just send the message to everyone. After about a
month on Snapchat, NorthSide had 1,500 friends. Leading up to the festival, they
send about one snap per week. Anne Jensen says about the target group, “We
definitely reach a younger segment that does not want to interact with us
elsewhere and that may later become guests of NorthSide, or perhaps they
already are. It is a new way to communicate. It is very direct and spontaneous
and with completely different aesthetics than, say, Instagram – in reality, it is the
real Instagram.”
She sees it as an advantage to be among the first companies to use Snapchat.
“We enjoy working with it in an informal and not particularly strategic way right
now, where we can try out a few things and see the response. For the very first
snap I sent, I got a lot of replies that said, ‘Thank you too,’ ‘You are cool,’ and
things like that. It gets more personal.”
In 2015, they had engaged the Norwegian Snapchat artist Geeohsnap. His
snaps consists of ptohos with very creative drawings. Snapchat is not (yet) the
main social media platform for the festival. Facebook is the most important one,
and they also use Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Their target group is 18 to 40
year olds, and they have a large proportion of highly educated people and
students, which reflects the population of the city where the festival takes place.
Anne Jensen finds that they reach different target groups on different networks.
Apart from creating visibility for the festival, in her opinion there is also a great
opportunity for dialogue on social media. “We listen to what they say. When we
ask, it is because we want an answer. Sometimes we should have been better at
getting back to them to say that we actually used it.”
Throughout autumn, people can make suggestions for the band names they
would like to see at the next year’s festival. Each month NorthSide makes a list
to identify the most wanted bands and they use it for inspiration to plan next
year’s festival.
Instagram has proven to be a particularly active platform for the festival’s
35,000 guests. In 2015, almost 17,500 pictures were taken with the festival’s
hashtag, #NS15. Apart from the visibility enjoyed by the festival, Instagram also
gives NorthSide a look at how people experience it. Anne Jensen works on
improving the connection between the social networks and the physical festival,
using tweets and images. During the festival, selected tweets and pictures are put
up on a large screen. It can develop into a digital conversation where people
react to their content on the screen.
During the festival, Anne Jensen has a team of 20 volunteers who only
focus on social media. NorthSide uses practically no money on traditional
marketing. For them, social media is the backbone of their communication. They
have a playful approach, so they choose to try out the new social media
platforms before others do. This supports their brand as something that is hip and
in sync with its audience. In 2015 Periscope was of course part of their social
media presence.
It is a refreshing approach, which you often see with companies that want to
establish themselves as a new player on a market with large, well-established
brands; in this case, as a competitor to the well-established Roskilde Festival. In
such cases you need to be a bit more brazen, lively and creative, in order to draw
attention to yourself. By not being afraid to try new formats, NorthSide gains
valuable experience that can make next year’s efforts even better.
At the same time, NorthSide’s use of social media is an example of how
your choice of a platform can in itself play a part in promoting change. When
they decide on a new social media platform such as Snapchat, they also decide to
learn something new, to create content in a new way for different users, and to
define different KPIs than what they have on other platforms.

Below you can find three steps that help you choose the right social media. First,
you should get to know them, then make a decision, and then you are ready to
get started.

Decode a New Social Media:

What can you do? What functions are available?
How is this different from other social media?
Who are the users? Typically, it is the youth who begin using a new social
media platform.
What subjects dominate? Some social media platforms are about everything,
while Pinterest, Instagram, and others appeal to fashion, design, and do-it-
yourselfers. Twitter, on the other hand, appeals more to people interested in
politics and news.
Are there companies or celebrities already using this social media platform?
It is worth keeping an eye on other first-movers and learning from their
experience.
What possibilities do you see for your company in using this social media?
You should try to identify how you can exploit the unique features of the
platform. You could also think in terms of offers or knowledge shared only
with these users.

 Choose the Right Platform:

How can we create value for the users? Make sure you have something to
offer and that you are not just there because everyone else is.
What content can we introduce? Look at the analysis of your own content,
other people’s content, and new content. How do the subjects and initiatives
you want to use fit here?
Who will manage the profile? It is important that you allocate resources for
content creation and to maintain the dialogue on the network.
How much time will it require? As a rule, if you want to get something out of
it, you should set aside an one hour per day for a social media platform –
sometimes more. On top of this comes the time for content creation, which
varies depending on whether it is a quick comment, a current news agenda,
or a longer blog post. It also depends on the number of user comments and to
what degree customer service is a part of it.
Do we have the competences, content and resources to begin to operate on
the platform? If it is, for example, a visual network, it is a prerequisite that
someone in the company is able and willing to take exciting pictures or make
videos.
What do we get out of it? There should be a high probability that you get
some sort of value from the time you spend on social media. It can be in
terms of money, but it could also be an extended network, brand awareness,
or input from users.
How can we assess it? Define some goals for your initiatives. It is a good
idea to start with simple goals; you can always get more ambitious as you go
along.
Have the courage to rule out some platforms. Just because everyone is on
Facebook, it is not necessarily the right social media for you.

Get Started on a Social Media Platform:

Set up a profile for yourself or your company.
Upload a picture and write some info on the account. On Facebook and
LinkedIn you could write a longer text about the company, while on
Instagram and Twitter you need a short bio. You can also add a profile
picture as well as a background or banner picture.
 Begin with your strategic considerations about the content, such as
considerations about new or visual content, and start creating.
Plan the first updates for the week ahead.
Post the first content and monitor the response. It is possible that not much
will happen, since you have few followers or you have not yet found the
most interesting perspectives. Continue to try different formats until you find
your very own style.
Users rarely discover your profiles on their own. Draw attention to the
account on the social media itself, by advertising or commenting on other
profiles and pages. Also, use your email signature and that of your
employees, the website, and physical resources such as at your premises or
on your printed materials.
Enter into a dialogue with others within your field, including your
stakeholders, users, and people you do not know. If anyone responds to or
comments on your content, it is a good opportunity to start a dialogue. This
will create a closer relationship between you and the user and it will show
other users that you are listening and engaging in the conversation. All in all,
it makes your content more visible.
Make an effort with the content. For some, social media is the place where
they post content that does not really fit elsewhere or where they
automatically post all their news and press releases. Start somewhere else -
with some creative ideas for content that users can enjoy.

This is How Companies Should Blog – Or Not

We have seen how first-mover NorthSide takes the plunge onto social media. I
have given you advice on how to decode a new social media platform, as well as
how to choose the right ones for your company. Now it is time to look at an old
acquaintance within social media, namely, the blog. It leads a relatively quiet life
among most companies and that is a pity. The increased focus on content
marketing has certainly led to several company blogs, but it is still primarily
limited to communications companies, agencies, and one-man enterprises.
There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to blogging as a
company. You can find these below, followed by ten guidelines for companies
that want to blog, and five tricks for a successful blog post.

How Companies Blog – Not
The blog is an old horse that still has many good years left in him. However,
it has been overtaken by younger racehorses like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest, and Snapchat. When Twitter popped up it was referred to as a
microblogging platform, because you write short posts that are displayed on the
profile, with the newest content at the top. In the same way, Facebook and
Instagram are also microblogs and we have, therefore, all become bloggers
without knowing it. When I refer to blogs here, I am obviously not referring to
these kinds of blogs. I am referring to the longer posts you find on a website.
One of the top areas for blogging is fashion. There are several established
fashion blogging communities, and many fashion bloggers have created their
own product – like Swedish Blondinbella and Trines Wardrobe – while others
cooperate with established brands for new collections.
Company blogs are not a widespread phenomenon within many other
industries. Arla, the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia, moved
quickly in 2005; as one of the first Scandinavian companies, they posted a series
of blog posts on their website. Here you could meet a farmer, a nutrition expert,
and the communications employees. Arla has since chosen to shut down its blog.
Arla’s Communications Director, Kasper Ibsen Beck, explained why at a
conference in 2014: No one read them. So why should a company have its own
blog?
A good blog allows you to live out your passion and to be nerdy about your
knowledge. It is, perhaps, why company blogs have a tendency to get a bit dry.
We are generally more passionate about other interests than we are about our
work. The exceptions here are politicians, who blog incessantly on the websites
of the media. These blogs are intended to draw awareness to the politician and to
create headlines when the blog is edgy enough. They intentionally blog on
controversial subjects, and it is largely about traffic generation to the media’s
website. It is a fast way for the bloggers to reach out to a larger target group than
they could on their own blog.
This leads to the question of whether you should have your own platform or
blog on others. The advantage to having the blog on your own site is that you
lead traffic to your own website and, thus, closer to the products, services or
ideas you want to sell or spread. The disadvantage is that you have to build up
your audience with things like newsletters and social media, so the blog is
actually being read. Another disadvantage is that the people behind the external
platforms, such as a media company or organization, can have specific
requirements regarding how you should blog for them and about what. Most are
interested in traffic generation, but if you want to take a very nerdy approach,
you have more freedom to do so on your own platform. Here you can also make
your own guidelines regarding comment moderation and you are not subject to a
general set of rules.
That being said, for many of us it makes sense to offer our blog posts or
articles to an online media or an organization with a larger audience that matches
our target group. You can also blog on LinkedIn, and in that way reach out
directly to your professional network with the posts. The blog post appears at the
top of the LinkedIn profile, making it more visible than the updates. All profiles
automatically receive a blog.

Advantages to Blogging as a Company

A blog means business. Of course, this is not the same as saying all blogs
lead to new customers, but for many, this would be the optimal goal of a
company blog. According to the blog B2B Social Media, B2B companies that
blog receive up to 67% more leads than non-blogging companies.
The blog is your own place on the internet. More so than on social media,
you can customize your design and set the framework for the blog.
The blog is a good way to communicate your knowledge or interest. Whether
it is fashion, politics, science or interior design, the blog can be used as the
starting point to share your knowledge and research, and establish yourself as
a thought leader.
With a blog, the company can provide users with relevant content and create
a stronger relationship with existing and new ambassadors or customers.
The blog is part of the digital ecosystem, along with social media and
newsletters. If you have new content on the blog, you have content to put on
social media and in your newsletter. This leads to traffic for the blog, more
guests and, potentially, more customers.
The blog gives you the option to stay on top of a subject as well as to
communicate your material to a larger audience.
If there is activity on the blog, in terms of traffic and comments, the blog will
be visible in Google searches related to the blog’s content.
How do you measure a blog’s effectiveness? You can have goals for
frequency – such as three posts per week or two a month, as well as goals for
 the number of readers and the amount of time they spend on the site. This is
where Google Analytics works well together with Wordpress, and both are
free. You can then measure how many new customers you get from the blog
by asking new customers where they heard about the company’s products or
services. This way, you can determine if the blog is contributing to the
business.
This leads us to the disadvantages of a company blog and, thus, a bit closer to
why most companies choose not to blog.

Disadvantages to Blogging as a Company:

Blogs often grind to a halt when the honeymoon is over. So have a realistic
plan regarding what the blog should contain and when you should put time
aside to write for it.
It is difficult to establish a personal connection when you blog as a company,
and there is a risk of the blog becoming too impersonal. It might be easier to
make a personal connection if the blogger is the company’s CEO and,
therefore, the face of the company.
It is unclear what the blog contributes towards, and how the content on the
blog will lead to new customers. Establish a goal for your blog and monitor
whether you are getting closer with each post.
It takes time to write longer posts if the purpose is to communicate
knowledge in the broad sense of the word. This time should be set aside for
blog creation.
If you have a more visual blog, it is often just as easy to use Instagram or
Facebook, where the users already are. If your content is heavier on text, you
might want to use LinkedIn.
You need to lure people to your blog and, thus, away from social media.
A blog places high demands on your ability to write, communicate, and
maintain the attention of the users, as compared to a brief update on social
media.

Who Can Blog for the Company?
If you are curious about company blogging, it is worth considering who should
do the writing. Here are some suggestions:

 The boss – As the boss, you know what goes on in the company and within
the industry, so blog about the latest knowledge in the field. Both from your
own experience and what others in the industry have come up with.
Employees – Selected employees can blog about their field. This would
often be the communications employees or specialists.
Customers – Selected customers or ambassadors can be invited to submit
one or more posts.
Established bloggers – Get other bloggers to guest blog for you. Just
remember the mantra: “What’s in it for me?” What do they get from blogging
for you?

My Life as a Blogger
I love to blog. I have done so on and off since 2009, and on my company
website since 2013. My blog works as research in a book writing process, and as
a place to unload my thoughts and ideas about social media. Most of the posts
are written in conjunction with the research I performed for my work, where it
occurred to me that if this information is new and relevant for me, then there
would be others who would also be interested in it.
At the same time, of course, I also show that this is an area I am interested
in and know something about. The most popular post is, “Which social media do
Danes use?” That post is almost two years old, yet it is still being referred to
both by others and myself when someone asks for the number of Danes on
Twitter or by email. I, therefore, try to keep it updated.
What do I get from blogging? First and foremost, a personal satisfaction in
having covered the subject. Then, the pleasure of sharing it on social media and
getting people to read it. And then, it has the positive side effect that it results in
customers. New customers are happy to refer to a specific blog post or say, “I
have searched around on social media and your name pops up.” It is effective
content marketing at its most basic.

Ten Guidelines for Writing a Blog:

1. It must be personal. Not private, but it should be clear who the sender is.
2. It must be relatively stable. For example, plan blog posts for the next three
to six months and make sure to set time aside for blogging. It is like going
for a long run – it feels so good afterwards.
 3. Make the purpose of your blog clear. Typically, it would be to make your
knowledge available. It can mean that 1) you become an expert in an area,
2) you play a role in affecting what people talk about, and 3) you reach
existing and new customers as well as employees.
4. It should be possible to leave comments and you should respond to those
comments.
5. Circulate your blog. In other words, use social media, your website,
newsletters, etc. to draw attention to your posts.
6. Enter into professional discussions on other blogs and social media.
7. Take time to make your blog post look great; for example, use pictures,
infographics, video, and links.
8. Is the blog being read? Check the statistics. If not, it could be because the
content is only interesting to the blogger, or because people have not
discovered the blog. Make adjustments or, as Arla did, acknowledge that the
blog has failed and shut it down.
9. Come to terms with the purpose of the blog. Are you writing to ten others
with the same expertise as yourself, or do you want to reach many users
with your content? If it is the latter, you must make the material available
and capture the users’ interest. Below are a few introductory tricks for doing
this; you can find even more online.
10. Make a content plan for the blog. Use the models and the approach from
this book to manage your content.

Five Tricks for a Good Blog Post:

1. What questions are you most often asked by customers and stakeholders?
You might choose to answer them.
2. What unique knowledge do you have within your field? And how can you
share that without selling out your core business? You can often share much
more than you think before someone steals your business secrets.
3. Think in terms of top lists: The three greatest misunderstandings about
genetically modified foods, ten things you should know before you buy a
new car, five examples of the ultimate customer experience. Go ahead and
make the headline more original than these examples, but it gives you a
framework for the blog post. For example, this chapter was written around
the framework: Advantages and disadvantages with company blogs, my own
 blogging experience, tips and tricks to blogging.
4. What annoys you when others talk about your field without the benefit of
your amazing knowledge? What fascinates you or gives you a “eureka!”
moment? Share some of this knowledge on the blog so everyone else can
learn.
5. What are people talking about right now? See which hashtags are hot right
now on trendsmap.com, google.com/trends, or other services, so you can
participate in a current conversation.

When Not to Use Social Media

This may be the most important section of this book for you. If you got this far
and still have no idea how to use social media, you should probably not start.
Either your business is not suited for it, or it does not have a culture of
communicating, and you are doomed to fail. Or you might not be the right
person to usher this into the organization. For a long time I believed that all
companies and organizations could benefit from social media, providing they
found the right one or a usable concept. However, I keep running into
organizations that should not use social media in their current form. It would
require other employees, a different culture, a different customer perception, and
not least of all, the desire to communicate and to network. The internet does not
need yet another page or profile with no activity. For example, a local
department of a trade union should not have its own Facebook page unless there
is a clear purpose, enough relevant content to keep the page running, and a
person in charge of the task. Relevant content does not include the minutes of the
board meeting or the Chairman’s visit to a local nursing home. In this case, it is
better to make a group for the five to seven active board members and then send
a letter or email a couple times a year when you need to reach more people. It is
about using digital platforms for the right reasons, not just because they are
there. Social media presumes that you have an ongoing need, an interest, or the
desire to communicate with your customers. For example, if you are a pension
company with a monopoly on a specific trade group, you need to communicate
with people at both ends: when they start working and begin to build savings,
and when they near retirement age and want to know what they have in their
account. In the meantime, there may be some communication that has to be sent
out, which can be handled by letter or email. When you have something on your
mind, you also have the option of targeting your ads to your customers on
Facebook and LinkedIn. The advantage to advertising is that it does not require
continuous effort to get people to follow you; instead, you just purchase
visibility. Beyond this, if you want to offer knowledge and content to your
customers, then you need to think creatively and to allocate resources for the job.
If you do not have the right competencies today, consider that the next time
you post a job ad. If you are in an organization and want to experience the
possibilities of social media, start with your own personal online profile. Explore
the opportunities and set up a LinkedIn group around your professional interests,
a Facebook group for your co-workers, Pinterest boards for your hobby, etc. This
might lead to ideas you can use for your company, and you will ensure that your
digital competencies are kept up to date – even if they are not used very much in
your current job. We shall look more closely at the opportunities to create a
personal online brand in Chapter 5.
Social media is not always the answer to your challenge. There may be other
more suitable ways to handle your problems – a meeting with stakeholders, a
workshop, or a newsletter. Perhaps the problem at stake cannot be solved with
social media.
One type of company which often chooses not to use social media is the
B2B company, which has other businesses as customers. Yet, a number of the
big B2B companies are on social media – among them are Mærsk, Vestas and
DHL. The approach described in this book also applies to B2B companies. You
need to create content for a specific niche and you need to identify a purpose that
extends beyond selling products, and which can act as a guideline for your
communication. For B2B companies, social media is, of course, also about sales,
but indirectly so. It is about human relations, since you cannot communicate
with a brand. The strongest card B2B companies can play is, therefore, their
employees. They can communicate the company’s purpose and stories on the
social media platforms on which they are active. Many companies choose
LinkedIn, but it can easily be done on other platforms. The focus could be on
recruitment, employee branding, and improving the company’s brand.
The B2B company Komfo has 65 employees. Of these, three work with
digital content marketing – and this is, as Director Rasmus Møller-Nielsen puts
it, “a hell of a lot.” You can find several B2B companies with over 5,000
employees that do not have a single employee on the job. The challenge for
many B2B companies is that they are not used to communicating at all. They can
sell goods, but not create content and stories. Fortunately, this is something you
can learn or buy. But it requires that the people in the organization realize social
media is not just a sales vehicle, and that they want to communicate relevant
content. B2B companies usually have to be a bit more creative to create relevant
content. It presumes that they dare go with something that is just a bit beyond the
day-to-day operation. The inability to see possibilities is not the same as there
not being any. Still, it does require that management is supportive and that you
have the competencies and ideas for good content. Otherwise, it will end up as
yet another dead social media profile without content.
Even though you may choose not to be on a social media as a company, it is
still a good idea to listen to online conversations and to establish social media
monitoring. At the same time, managers should remember that all companies are
on social media through their employees. We shall take a closer look at this in
Chapter 5.

When should you not use social media:

When you have nothing to say that is relevant to others. If you only want to
communicate things such as annual accounts or the minutes of the board
meeting, do not set up a Facebook page.
When you do not want to hear what others have to say. If you do not think
your customers’ and users’ opinions are of any importance, you do not need
to participate. For the vast majority, however, it makes sense to monitor the
conversations on social media, and in that way to follow them without
actually contributing content.
If you have no desire, resources, or notion of how to do it. For example, if
you are an investment fund that cannot see how increased communication
would benefit customers or the company, social media is not for you. If you
need to recruit, you could, for example, do it via the employees’ digital
networks.
If it is unlikely that social media activity would contribute to the business.
The employee who chooses to spend five or more work hours every week on
social media must be able to explain how it benefits the company.
If you do not think a brand account is the right choice, you can still have both
managers and employees use social media as part of their jobs.
Do not ask whether you should go on social media; instead, ask if you want
to communicate. If you want to communicate externally or internally, social
 media can be part of the solution, but start by discovering why, how, and
what you want to communicate.

From Engagement to Results – How to Measure Your Efforts

When you have chosen the social media platforms you want to be active on, it is
time to look at how to measure your efforts. Many companies do not do this
because they find it difficult or time consuming. But if you have identified what
you want to measure and have systematized it, there is no reason for it to be very
time consuming on a day-to-day basis. I have never been too fond of assessing
communication, since the task can be rather vague. And yet I find that it is more
fun and easier to work with social media if you work towards a specific goal. It
could be to get 10,000 followers, 1,000 visitors to a blog post, or to get more
customer inquiries because of your digital content. All of these are quantitative
goals, so there should be a clear connection between your general goals and the
sub-goals or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you choose to assess.
If you also have some difficulties assessing, this is what I suggest: What you
assess is almost irrelevant, as long as you start to assess something. You can
always develop it along the way. You just need to make sure it is likely that what
you assess is relevant to the overall goals of your initiatives. But a goal is not
well suited for direct assessment, so you must set up some KPIs that can show
you that you are working towards your vision. If the purpose is to spread
knowledge on a certain subject, a relevant sub-goal could be to have a lot of
readers, i.e. traffic.
In order to achieve results with social media, it is critical that you begin with
specific goals regarding your use of social media. Whether it is sales, visibility,
or thought leadership, the goal must be converted into specific sub-goals or
KPIs. This could be a single KPI; for example, the way some media assess their
traffic. It could be sales in the web shop or engagement on social media. Most
often there will be several KPIs since you might want sales and to convert users
to newsletter readers, while at the same time, going for branding and visibility.
These KPIs should be monitored at fixed intervals. It may be daily, weekly or
monthly. Then you can compare the results to the general goal and determine if
you are on the right path.
A number of factors in your company determine your specific formula for
measurement.
Some companies evaluate their work with social media based only on
engagement, and if that works for them, that’s fine. It might be what is needed
for a while, and then new KPIs can be introduced. Increasingly, many
organizations require social media to contribute towards strategic business goals
such as sales and customer satisfaction. If you do not really sell products, traffic
can often be an important parameter, since it shows the number of people your
information has reached. If you measure traffic, you should look at the time
spent on the page, also called TTR (Total Time Reading), or in Google Analytics
“Average Session Duration”. This will help you focus on quality content instead
of just having a lot of visits. Joe Lazauskas, Chief Editor of Contently, says,
“The only shares that really matter are the ones that drive readers who stick
around.”
At JYSK, Anders Lunde measures their Facebook initiatives using a number
of parameters. This includes softer values such as “people talking about this,”
which is a Facebook metric that shows the number of people who have
interacted with the company during the last seven days. Then he measures the
distribution of organic, viral, and paid displays from ads. At the same time, he
looks at how many sales result from Facebook ads in the web shop. This is
called ROAS, or Return On Ad Spending. If you see a sponsored post from
JYSK on Facebook and you click the link or subsequently make a purchase on
jysk.dk, some of the sale value will be allocated to Facebook. It requires that you
still be logged into Facebook when you make the purchase, but most of us rarely
log out. If the purchase takes place within 24 hours, 90% of the sales value is
allotted to Facebook. Within seven days, it is 50%, and within 7 to 28 days, it is
30%. They have defined the value of signing up for their newsletter as DKK 8,
close to USD $1, which also diminishes over time.

Model 15. ROAS – return on ad spending – share of web sales attributed to Facebook exposure

As an example, 500 purchases might be carried out in their web shop following a
Facebook ad, which gives an ROI of about 24. “It is satisfying to show
Management these numbers and that social media is contributing to the
business,” says Anders Lunde. Or, in other words, it is worthwhile for them to
advertise on Facebook. JYSK therefore boosts all posts with ads. The
measurement is carried out using so-called “conversion pixels,” which are
implemented on the front page of jysk.dk, on the confirm-purchase-page, and on
the newsletter-confirmation-page.
In particular, there are two concepts associated with effect measurement.
The first is ROI – Return On Investment – or, in other words, profit. ROI can be
calculated as a percentage or as the number of times an investment is returned.
The other expression is KPI, which we have already examined. It is equivalent to
KPIs used to measure your efforts over time. For example, IPM, reach, retweets,
comments, traffic, and customer satisfaction could be used as KPIs. Sometimes
ROI and KPI are used indiscriminately, but ROI is the actual financial profit,
while KPIs are the means which lead to ROI. You can decide on the number of
KPIs you want to use. Choose a few and measure them every week or month,
instead of picking a lot and not following up on them.
Rasmus Møller-Nielsen from Komfo recommends setting up some KPIs
which you know add value to the organization, such as sales on the web shop or
membership in the customer club. He also recommends you keep a careful eye
on your advertising. “When you invest USD $1,500 in ads, what happens to your
community? Are users more active; is the business strengthened? If this does not
happen, your content might need to be better. If we double the size of the
community or the advertising budget, do we also double our earnings? When
you discover what works and where the connection point is in your community,
you can start to scale.” For Rasmus’s Møller-Nielsen, scaling is crucial. Because
if you can create increased value for your current advertising budget, can you
then create even more value with a larger advertising budget? This is how you
build a business around Facebook, explains Rasmus Møller-Nielsen.
You have to assume that Jyske Bank is good with Excel spreadsheets and
ROI. After all, they count money for a living. So Lasse Høgfeldt should be able
to tell us the value of the 40 weekly videos they make. The Chief Editor replies
with a smile, “We are not interested in ROI. I tend to speak of ROL – Return On
Love. When you give something away, people appreciate it and they give back.
If you think of ROI from the beginning, you limit the creative process – then it
becomes too salesman-like. In the end it will be visible on the bottom line.”
 This is only possible for Lasse Høgfeldt because his management backs
Jyske Bank TV and does not impose ROI goals. It also works for a number of
the companies in this book, and it can be a good approach to have when you
begin with social media. After a while, when there is a certain level of maturity,
it becomes time to introduce goals that are more specific, so social media does
not remain an isolated initiative and instead, becomes part of the overall
organizational system.
All the companies I have talked to do not focus solely on the financial side,
but also on customer satisfaction and loyalty. So, when you make your monthly
reports to the boss about how social media is progressing ever so well, remember
that apart from cold facts like traffic, likes, reach, conversion, and signups, you
can also include customer feedback.
What do people say about you on Facebook, Twitter or Trustpilot? Every
day, the President of the United States is given ten selected letters from citizens,
and they are not always nice. In the same way, you too can make sure that every
day, or at least every week, the boss sees some of the things customers say about
the company. It helps the boss do his work and it also tells him a bit about what
your work involves.
With all the numbers available, you can measure a large number of
parameters, so you need to decide first and foremost what the measurements
should indicate. Then you need to choose a method which can show you if you
are on the right track, over time. For example, if you measure how much traffic
you get from social media, it is important to see how these numbers grow over
time. If you are measuring customer loyalty, only recurring measurements can
indicate if it has grown. To begin, you have to limit the parameters you measure,
knowing that it will not give you a complete picture of reality.
Each quarter at Søstrene Grene, they combine the numbers from Facebook
with questionnaire surveys which ask their fans about their loyalty towards the
brand. For example, they ask customers how often they shop at Søstrene Grene,
if they would recommend it to their friends, and how they would rate their visits
to Søstrene Grene. In order to make it more representative, they also run a
general customer satisfaction survey. Mads Jensen has no doubt their Facebook
fans are among the most loyal customers. “In the spring of 2014, we posted an
update with some new coffee tables in our own design. The smallest table cost
USD $22 and the most expensive was USD $55. We put it up on Facebook and
Instagram, among other places. The shops barely had the chance to display them
in the shop before customers had bought them all. It was a crazy experience.”
 I suppose that is also some kind of impact measurement. The demand meant
that many customers had to leave empty-handed and Søstrene Grene, therefore,
had to use many resources handling customer inquiries on social media. For
Mads Jensen, social media is not primarily about direct sales but rather about
building customer loyalty. “If we write ‘Anna and Clara wish you a Merry
Christmas,’ it is because it fits into the Anna and Clara universe. Such an update
gets a lot of likes and comments, and we have discussed what this tells us. Here,
we look at the degree of loyalty. We believe that this trivial message leads
customers to believe that we would provide a better experience. Everything we
do has to be focused on the long-term in order to earn our customers’ loyalty.”
Direct sales are not the most important thing for Søstrene Grene on
Facebook. They do not have product catalogs or a web shop, so there is a certain
mystery around the brand – you never know exactly what to expect. This has led
a group of fans to make their own page where the only purpose is to share
information on new products which are in the stores. They go out and
investigate, and then provide information regarding the goods available in
specific stores – and then they stockpile the best goods for each other.
The following model offers some suggestions for what to measure. Some of
the conditions are internal and some are external, while some behaviors are
experiences and others are registered. By experienced behavior, I mean what the
employees or customers say they have experienced when asked, for example, in
a questionnaire about their satisfaction and loyalty or focus groups. Net
Promoter Score (NPS) is another widespread measurement method. It measures
customer loyalty on a scale of 0 to10. It is the soft values that can be difficult to
register without asking customers or employees.
Registered behavior refers to what has been registered mechanically. Here,
we have internal factors such as resource savings or lower time usage on certain
tasks. It could also be that the number of complaints have decreased or a goal
has been introduced to have additional active employees on social media.
The external factors could be engagement, number of users on social media,
traffic to the website from social media, sales resulting from social media,
response to the newsletter, or media mentions that result from social media. You
can measure one or more of these parameters, and it would be advantageous to
take measurements in several quadrants.


Model 16. Measurement matrix with data sources

It is worth noting that the same content does not necessarily generate both
engagement and sales. If you want both, you have to seek balance in your
content, aiming for engagement with some posts while others focus on
conversions and traffic. You get the best assessment if you consider a number of
KPIs in relation to each other, since you can rarely let your efforts be governed
by a single KPI. So unleash your creativity to find the best measurement method
for your organization.
Another way to measure the effect of social media is to compare it to your
other platforms and activities. What requirements do you have for a press
release, publication, internal meeting, or conference? When you compare the
effect across platforms, you establish the foundation from which you can decide
where to focus your efforts. You should consider aspects other than the financial.
Mads Jensen from Søstrene Grene says they get more out of their budget on
social media than they do on traditionally purchased media. However, they also
have to look at other channels if they want the right media mix and for their
brand to have a wider reach. In an interior decoration campaign, social media
constitutes 20% of the budget but contributes significantly more than 20% of the
value, says Mads Jensen.
Social media can be regarded as both an expense and a form of income. It is
an expense similar to marketing, PR, customer service, and content creation. It
can turn into a form of income through sales and new customers.
It is easier to get figures from a computer regarding social media than from
analog forms of communication. But this does not always mean we can
specifically identify the effect of an initiative. When we talk to someone on
Twitter, we cannot know if it turns out to be a potential customer or an
ambassador who will recommend you to others – or if it will just be talk. So the
conversation must be governed not only by the intention of making a sale.
Perhaps you learned something, got in a better mood, or influenced someone else
– it is OK if that is all it is sometimes.

Find the right KPIs for your social media initiatives and start
measuring:

It would be great if everyone in the organization thought engagement on
Facebook was enough in itself. But this is usually not the case. So find out
which KPIs are of interest to Management. Which KPIs are used by other
departments, such as sales, HR or marketing? How can social media
contribute to these KPIs?
Start with your organization’s general goals – is it sales or setting a specific
agenda?
Compare the measurement across channels. Impose the same requirements
on communication, sales, marketing and customer service via traditional
channels as you do on social media (or vice versa). How are other areas
measured, such as the press, printed materials, a magazine or a conference?
Which KPIs are used for other kinds of communication and branding, and
can social media feature in that calculation?
What do you get for the same money on other platforms – such as newspaper
ads, Google Adwords or banner ads?
Acquaint yourself with a statistics program. You want more resources and
more time for social media, while your boss wants results. The solution: Give
the boss some numbers. It is free to measure traffic on your website with
Google Analytics, but if you want to get comprehensive data, you will have
to pay for a premium version.
 Monitor your brand on social media and show Management what the
customers are saying about you. Use the tools from “Listen In on the
Conversations” from Chapter 2.
Establish some KPIs such as website traffic, engagement on social media, or
the number of employees active on social media in a work-related capacity.
Choose some parameters to measure at the beginning. You can add more as
you go.
If traffic is your primary KPI, measure depth – not just breadth; that is, the
time spent by users on the site, not just the number of visitors.
If you have a hard time finding the right yardstick for your company, you can
compare yourself to your competitors.
Use Facebook Insights if you have a Facebook page. Here, you can find a lot
of information on how your page performs over time, as well as basic
information on the users. You can make a simple comparison with other
pages, such as competitors, by adding them at the bottom under “Overview”.
On freeanalytics.komfo.com, you can get a free report that shows how your
updates are doing, based on parameters such as fan penetration, reach, and
spam score.
Use Twitter Analytics, which is free for all users. Here, you can see how
many displays your own tweet received and the degree of engagement for
each tweet.
With paid tools, you can register whether comments are positive or negative
– referred to as sentiments. This way, you can measure whether user
satisfaction is growing or falling, and you can assign a sentiment to an
individual user.
Remember numbers can lie – one million views that result from a Facebook
competition can mean zero customers, while an Instagram picture that
reached 500 users might yield ten new customers. Where are you reaching
your target group most effectively? Where are you getting the most
conversions according to your goals?













 5
Include the Organization and the Employees

In this chapter, we will turn our gaze inwards. We will look at how content
strategy is embedded into the organization. Afterwards, we will discuss how to
involve employees and motivate them, so the content strategy can be developed
in unison. In the final part of this chapter, we will look at how you can bring
your own personal brand into play for the company on social media, as a
director, employee or self-employed individual.

Better Collaboration in the Organization

We will start with a short mental exercise. Imagine that you had to start up a
company today. You register the company. You make a website and you are
ready to go. Easy – right? You find the first employees using social media, and
you talk about the company in a video and in a blog on the website. You receive
input from your network on how to improve the product and communication.
You discover possible cooperation partners. Your company is doing great. If you
have some important and exciting news, you post it on social media. No reason
to write a press release. A journalist calls and wants to hear more about your
business concept. Of course you want publicity in traditional media, but social
media is the foundation of your communication. When you start a company
today, social media is a natural part of the business. You might not even have a
communications department. Instead, there would be a digital team of content
creating, service-minded and networking employees.
For NorthSide Festival, social media is the backbone of their
communication. Your company may not be quite there – yet. For many
established companies, social media is not seen as the natural way to
communicate. And it can take time to integrate it with communications, HR, IT,
customer service, marketing, sales, management and business. But try to take
two steps back from your daily tasks. If you had to start a company today, such
as the one you work in, how would you set up communication? What holds you
back from taking some steps towards this scenario? It requires courage to deviate
from the status quo, but it is not dangerous.
The trick for established companies is to get the content on social media to
mesh with the company’s overall communication. Much in the same way social
media should not be regarded as separate from the overall communication,
digital communication also should not be relegated to the communications or
marketing department. It is not icing that can be spread over the communication
cake. Social media works like a mirror which you hold up in front of the entire
organization. It reflects a number of business areas. Companies primarily use
social media for marketing and PR. It is the logical place to start with social
media, but it also means that a number of areas have unused potential.
To get a grasp on the organization, you should first and foremost figure out
whom you need to include in order to implement your content strategy. The first
step is to look at which departments in your organization are relevant in this
regard. Which departments have interesting content, who wants to communicate
their work, who benefits from input from customers, and who can help distribute
the content? This is who you need to collaborate with. You could include
someone from HR, an editor of the customer or members’ magazine, experts,
and the web administrator. Then you should consider what motivates them to
contribute and be part of the project. They should have a clear notion of how
they benefit from the company’s increased social media presence, greater
visibility, or more effective recruitment. It is not enough that this project is
important to you.


Model 17. Include the organization in your content strategy. What motivates them?

Model 17 offers some suggestions for whom to include in your work on content
strategy. When you create such a model there is a tendency to put your own
goals or those of your department in the center, and all the others on the outside.
Instead, try to put the editor or the HR department in the center. What does their
world look like and how does the content strategy fit in? If you perform this
exercise together it can work as a common starting point for your collaboration.
When I started as Community Manager at Berlingske, my role was to bring
journalism to social media and to bring social media into the organization. At the
beginning, I thought it was enough to talk about all the wonderful things social
media could be used for. So there I was at editorial meeting after editorial
meeting, talking excitedly about all the cool things other people got from sharing
information and from digital networking. In time, I realized that if I wanted to
generate change, it was necessary to figure out what motivated the individual
journalist. To have the support of Management was not enough. One journalist
had to cover a natural disaster out in the great wide world before he discovered
the advantages of Twitter. For another journalist, it was the ability to use
Facebook to find a lot of cases that tipped the scales. For the young and
ambitious intern, social media was a welcome opportunity to find stories and
quotes before everyone else. After a long time of trying to convince journalists
they could benefit from the integration of social media into their work, I began
to focus on those who were already motivated. It turned out that it was more
effective to focus on the journalists who were able and willing.
One thing people often underestimate when they work with social media, is
internal communication. The focus is directed at the outside world, but the
experiences you reap from social media should be brought into the organization.
Each week at Berlingske I would send an email to my colleagues, selected
editors, and people in other departments. The email contained the status on the
number of fans and followers on Twitter and Facebook, as well as some
examples of the digital initiatives which had worked well and those which had
failed. In the email there were some links to articles or a video guide that could
inspire journalists to learn more about Twitter, and so on. Additionally, I
gathered a group of employees across rank and departments, and invited
competent people from other organizations to come in and talk about their work
with social media. There was also a 30-minute lunch presentation about how to
use social media at work. The purpose of these meetings was to inspire and to
ensure an exchange of experience across departments. I wanted a screen in the
newsroom to display a search with selected hashtags and mentions of
Berlingske. This was not implemented, but I have since seen several companies
that have done it. It is a good and simple way to make social media visible to
colleagues who do not use it at work on a daily basis.
SKAT’s poster with the different social media and their uses is also an
example of internal communication. You could choose to make posters with
selected customer quotes from social media or, if you are a large company, have
internal webinars to support the digital effort with internal communication.
If you are a small organization, you might have no one with whom to
communicate or discuss internally. Then you can look beyond your own
organization and reach out to your network for coaching, input and, especially,
content.
Even if everyone in the organization at NorthSide uses social media to keep
up to speed, Anne Jensen is the only one whose job it is to work with it. She has,
therefore, established a “social advisory board” where she gathered some digital
experts who can offer coaching for a nominal fee. They help with new ideas and
can give you a push if you are too laid back. Anne Jensen says, “You don’t want
to relax too much. We have the ambition not to stand still. Because once we
became a large festival with over 60,000 Facebook likes, it would have been
easy to say that now we should be more formal, and that is pretty boring.”
The way you organize yourself internally reflects in your external
communication. It is expressed, for example, in the way inquiries are answered
and how quickly they are answered. In other words, do you have the company’s
monitoring and staffing under control? You can get an impression whether the
company is speaking with one voice or if it is operating as independent entities.
One example is if the response routinely is, “We cannot help you with that. Call
another department.” It also becomes apparent from the way you accept
criticism. As a user, you can get an impression of whether your enquiry will
reach management or whether the reply on social media comes with little
authority.
SILVAN is well aware that the organizational culture is apparent in the
interaction with customers. They work with the concept of front-line
competence, which means everyone is allowed to make a decision without the
Manager. They prioritize their encounters with customers in the stores, by email,
or on social media. The Online Manager Flemming Jessen says, “We have you-
to-you communication. We talk as equal partners even if I might know more
about the product than you do.” In that dialogue, it is important to be able to
reply on the spot. This prevents organizational bottlenecks where people do not
dare make decisions. SILVAN is a value-based organization, which means they
have very few rules. “We have a SILVAN infrastructure with a general vision
and mission. A unique rule is that everything has a consequence. Often
consequences are regarded as negative; however, for example, when we send out
an email to customers, there is a consequence to the stores. Everything you do
and do not do has a consequence. It is freedom with responsibility,” explains
Flemming Jessen. He illustrates this with a story about a man who bought a
product at SILVAN. Three days later, the product went on sale, such that he
could have saved USD $150. He came down to SILVAN and said he found this
annoying, and he received the USD $150 right away. The customer wrote on
Facebook and thanked SILVAN. It resulted in 8,500 likes, which, according to
Flemming Jessen, is a good result for USD $150.
If you want to change something, it requires that you do something other
than what you normally do. When you want people who are not used to using
social media at work to start doing so, you are actually asking them to change
their routines and priorities. It requires, in part, that they understand the overall
picture of where the organization is going and, in part, that they feel personally
involved. At the same time, it requires that you show them how they can
contribute and what they can get out of it. It must be perfectly clear what is
expected of each individual. As a manager or change agent, you must outline the
future and the path towards it – an action plan, timelines, and KPIs, all of this
preferably in collaboration with the employees involved. The KPIs are
important; then you have some milestones to celebrate along the way.

Now we will meet FOA, which has organized itself so that the content gets
the optimal conditions in print, online, and on mobile technology. It is not easy
to change old habits, but by using new organizational structures and structured
planning, they created a new culture and a better product.

FOA – the Trade Union with an Integrated Channel Strategy

The trade union FOA had a traditional organization where the trade journal
journalists and web people were completely separate. This meant they did not
collaborate on content and a lot of information was lost between the
departments. Gitte Hejberg changed this in 2009, when she bacome Chief Editor
at FOA Media.

The distinct differentiation between print and online media no longer exists
today. FOA has developed a wide range of outlets with a particular focus on the
cell phone, newsletters, and Facebook. By focusing on the interplay between
their numerous platforms, their stories enjoy a long lifespan and reach many
users.
Yet in 2009, Gitte Hejberg found a trade journal editorial where all
journalists worked on the trade journal; a press department with four people and
a small group of web communicators who most often posted material created by
the others at FOA. She quickly introduced the practice the trade journal
journalists also had to write for the web, which was not as easy for everyone.
They tried with different organizational models, and today they have a rotational
model where, for a period, a journalist focuses primarily on the journal and is
thus able to create longer pieces, such as disclosures. During other periods, the
journalist can focus on the online content. This means that when journalists write
stories for the journal today, they also consider that it should work online and
that part of the story should be told in a short video.
At FOA they created a model which allows their stories to be used on
different outlets. This applies, for example, to the story of the janitor Claus
Frederiksen, whom FOA helped find employment after he had suffered a blood
clot. The story first appeared in the members’ magazine and then on the website.
Then it was posted on Facebook, where the users could comment on the janitor’s
situation. FOA wrote a story about the debate on Facebook on the subject. The
story drifted between the different platforms and had a life of up to two months.
Gitte Hejberg is certain of what FOA’s content should say in general.
“People need to react to our stories and think, ‘I tried this at my workplace too.’
It is important that we show users that FOA can help.” These types of stories
play two roles. They are the classic, good stories that appeal to social
indignation. At the same time, they are stories that show it can pay to have a
trade union behind you. These types of stories are readily shared by members on
Facebook, says Gitte Hejberg.


Model 18. Get an overview of your numerous communications outlets

The same content does not fare as well on FOA’s different platforms. A brief
story in the magazine can turn out to be fantastic for social media. For Gitte
Hejberg, it is about being able to see the different potential of the stories on
various media. The result of working with the content in a targeted way across
platforms, among other things, is that member satisfaction with the website
improves each time they ask the members, explains Gitte Hejberg. At the same
time, the most read articles today are being read by more than ten times as many
readers than before. The work is measured so they can always see where the
traffic is coming from on the website and the extent to which newsletters and
Facebook contribute. Gitte Hejberg explains that they do not use statistics to
measure how an individual journalist performs, but rather, for example, to see
whether they write adequate headlines. “We come from a world where we want
to write something properly and nice, and this can be hard to combine with the
edginess needed for headlines that people just have to click.”
When Gitte Hejberg started, there were no fixed editorial meetings. She
changed that, so that today they have a number of meetings throughout the week,
where some or all of the employees meet and coordinate their efforts.
They succeeded in attaining a culture where the journalists and web people
work in the same direction and where the professional competences mesh to a
greater extent. Now they find the smartest way to communicate the content
instead of just thinking in terms of print and web. Gitte Hejberg says, “Once
people crack the code, they want to help others. I also think it is a gift for those
who have been here for 20 to 30 years and who have become part of the new
development with social media, more platforms, and new meetings. There was a
bit of “them and us” at the beginning, but now there is more “we”, as a united
department.”
The problem Gitte Hejberg experienced at FOA is one which many
organizations can probably recognize. People have been in the same position for
a long time and they know their target group and their work, so they need
someone to come from the outside with new information if the old ways are to
be changed. Gitte Hejberg believes that working with social media is a
requirement. “You get greater market value if you can incorporate social media
into journalism. It is a prerequisite today that you can handle many media.”
FOA is an example that you can change a classic department structure and
replace it with a platform-neutral organizational structure, where all the
employees know how to work across outlets. This means the content has a
longer lifespan and that you get maximum return on your content. But this does
not happen on its own. The boss needs to be committed to challenging the habits
of the employees and to upgrade their digital competences. The employees need
motivation. And you need to organize yourself using editorial meetings and
internal coordination, so there is a better mutual understanding of what your
colleagues do and the results generated by the common work.

Involve the organization with your content strategy:

 See social media as a part of the total effort within communication, HR,
sales, marketing, etc. Make sure the person responsible for social media is
involved early on in the process.
Determine who should be involved in the work. Here, you can build a bridge
between print and online media, and between communication and marketing
and other departments.
Hold weekly editorial meetings on social media with a focus on content and
results.
Run small pilot projects with individual departments. Start with those who
are motivated and want to act as guinea pigs.
Discover what motivates the people you want to involve in the work. There
may be a personal or professional interest which leads them to see the point
of working with social media.
Make the effect of social media visible internally in the organization, both
physically and digitally. This will improve the information throughout the
organization.
Ensure hat the people who need to be part of the strategy have the right
competences. Otherwise, provide assistance. This could be anything from
practical help on writing good updates, to further training.
Be patient with your colleagues. You may have made digital content strategy
an important priority in the organization, but your colleagues are probably
busy with many other things as well. So acknowledge that change takes time.

The Personal Brand – Management and Employees

One of the common characteristics of the cases in this book is that there is a
distinctive management culture. In most cases, this involves Management which
leads the way and integrates social media into the organization, or employees
who, due to their early success, received full backing from Management and,
hence, resources for being on the leading edge with social media. In the next
section we will look at how managers can use social media in communication.
Then we will look at how employees can be regarded as an invaluable resource
for the company. In the section “The Personal Brand,” I shall show how you can
formulate a strategy and plan for your own brand on social media, whether you
are a manager, employee or self-employed.

Management Must Be Involved
There is a general tendency that the higher you are in the organizational
hierarchy, the less experience you have with social media. This means the
directors and managers that must lead the change do so somewhat blindly, and
this leads to passivity and risk aversion. As a manager, it is therefore wise not to
get off the digital train, but instead to show the way to your employees. You
could ask, “If the manager cannot communicate the company, who can?”
Luckily, there are a number of top managers who understand. You cannot
analyze your way to understanding social media; it has to be experienced.
In the book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath describe that the best way to
introduce change is to get people to see and feel the solution. Translated to social
media, it is only when you yourself have an active profile that you fully
understand how social media works and the value it can have for you and the
company. Chip and Dan Heath explain that if you want to create change, you
must outline the individual steps towards the goal. For example, helping people
create a profile or record videos with their smartphones, instead of general
encouragement, to start using social media. By communicating through specific
actions, you “shrink” the change so it seems more manageable and achievable.
Heath uses the example that people do not get healthier from campaigns that say
“Live healthier.” They do so when you encourage them to buy low fat milk
instead of whole milk. Management can be effectively motivated if you show
them examples of conversations on social media, which you are not yet a part of,
pertaining to your product or subject. It could, for example, be reviews on
Trustpilot or Yelp, where customers praise or complain about companies. Many
managers have received media training so they know how to act on TV. In the
same way, managers will increasingly receive training for appearing on social
media.

When the Tax CEO Goes First

For most of us, taxation is something that involves annual returns and tax rates.
When Jesper Rønnow Simonsen became CEO of SKAT [The Danish Tax
Administration] in 2013, he felt one of his most important tasks was to change
SKAT’s image by opening up communication and meeting citizens face to face.
One of the pieces of the puzzle was being available on social media himself.

As the newly appointed CEO at SKAT, Jesper Rønnow Simonsen considered
how he could be present on social media. As the CEO, he could no longer be
Jesper Rønnow Simonsen the private individual on social media. “It was during
my summer vacation when I was debating back and forth. Then I decided to
delete all my personal profiles and start over as the CEO of SKAT.”
On social media he can support the issues the organization focuses on. For
Rønnow, being available for people’s questions is a democratic dimension, even
though he naturally considered the risk of stepping in the front line on social
media. “I was nervous at the beginning, but two years and 5,000 tweets later, I
think it was a really good decision.” He finds there is general acceptance of the
invisible barrier regarding subjects he cannot express an opinion on, such as
political decisions.
As the CEO of SKAT, Jesper Rønnow Simonsen is active on Twitter,
LinkedIn, Instagram, and Yammer – SKAT’s internal social media. He spends an
hour every evening on social media, where he goes back and forth. But during
the day, he thinks about how to connect the conversations on social media with
everyday life at SKAT in a relevant way. For example, this happened one
Saturday evening, when a nationwide, charitable collection effort was on TV.
The regulations regarding tax deductions had just been reformed, so that you
could deduct your entire payment to a charitable organization. He posted the
news on Twitter half an hour before the show started. It was quickly retweeted
20 times. Then he called the press department and said they should also post it
on the Twitter account because it had a good response.
He also uses Twitter to get involved in current agendas SKAT is involved in.
“You can use it to make your version of the truth, but you need to be a bit
careful. Everything I tweet I would be able to say to a journalist, but it is more
personal on social media than if you were being quoted by a journalist for a
newspaper.”
Jesper Rønnow Simonsen participates in the dialogue on Twitter with the
intention of wanting to talk and to learn something. The day before my interview
with him at SKAT, he had had one of his Twitter followers over for coffee. “We
had a really nice conversation on Twitter, but I had never met him in real life. He
said some things to me on Twitter that I thought were interesting and which
made me learn something.”
When Jesper Rønnow Simonsen came to SKAT, the organization already
had good experience with their Twitter account Skattefar. A lot of the public
administrations and government ministries stay well away from social media,
but for Jesper Rønnow Simonsen, Skattefar was only the beginning of a greater
digital initiative. He was fascinated by Skattefar’s numerous followers, the
pleasant tone of voice, and the invitation to see SKAT from the inside, which is
what the account indicated. But it needed to spread. Jesper Rønnow Simonsen
thus initiated a two-pronged strategy – one for SKAT, and one for himself as the
CEO.
Open dialogue is also an important part of Rønnow’s management
internally. When he started, there were about 1,200 active Yammer users, while
today they are over 2,200. Yammer can best be described as Facebook for
companies. Here, all the employees can write updates to each other and you can
organize yourself into subject groups. SKAT has now integrated Yammer in their
intranet, so in that way it has become mandatory for employees to be on
Yammer. Jesper Rønnow Simonsen says he updates or comments on other posts
at least once a week. Here, he speaks about the organization as well as his goals
and ambitions, based on what he experiences at SKAT on a daily basis as the
CEO.
“By continuing to post and insisting on having the dialogue, I receive
replies, and that is really cool. I hope that what is happening on Yammer can
result in some conversations in different parts of the organization which, after
all, is spread out all over the country,” says Jesper Rønnow Simonsen, who
regards Yammer as one of the ways to reach SKAT’s 7,000 or so employees.
Jesper Rønnow Simonsen does not hide the fact that he has yet not achieved
his visions for the organization. He says, “We undoubtedly face a great
challenge, which has been visible in the image we have had in the media for a
long time; many parts of our organization are hard to explain.” He sees social
media as part of the answer to the challenge – that is, being present where the
users are active. “We need to keep an eye on the conversations that take place in
society and how we can connect with the conversations that pertain to SKAT,”
says Jesper Rønnow Simonsen.
He uses social media because he finds it fun and because it creates value,
both personally and professionally for him as a manager. He offers his theory on
why more top managers are not active on social media. “I guess it’s because they
feel the same way I did at the beginning. You aren’t 100% sure what you are
getting yourself into. What exactly happens out there? Engaging in this kind of
dialogue is not risk-free. You let go of the communication control you often
think you have in a traditional setup. Yet, if you are ready to engage in the
dialogue, then I can only recommend that you decide to do so and take things as
they come.”
Fundamentally, Jesper Rønnow Simonsen sees it as part of his work
description to communicate what SKAT does. SKAT, as an example, shows that
working with social media becomes that much easier with management support
and, as in SKAT’s case, the leader is the driver of development by using social
media as part of his job.
It is no longer just up to the communications department or the intern, but is
rather incorporated in relation to the organization’s overall ambition of opening
up and being on the same level as the users. For a Director of a public
organization, there are no requirements for constant public communication. Still,
Jesper Rønnow Simonsen chooses to use about one hour a day of his precious
time to engage in dialogues with citizens, employees, managerial colleagues, and
journalists on social media. Why? Because it contributes to one of the things he
wants to achieve as Manager of his organization. He wants to open up the
organization’s communication and bring it closer to the citizens, companies, and
partners in cooperation. So it would be no good if he hid himself away in his
office without participating in the change process. Every time he is on social
media he learns how citizens and employees perceive SKAT, which enables him
to lead the implementation of the changes that need to happen in the
organization.

The Employee is an Undervalued Gold Mine
Beneath the slogans, internal budgetary struggles, and the overall focus on
the competition, you can find the company’s raw material: its employees. It is
here that the company’s greatest asset is hidden. This book has thus far dealt
with how to cater to your users with relevant content, so now we will look closer
at the employees. Because employees and social media are a really good match.
People want to have updates of flesh and blood, not business talk or automated
tweets. And who could be better at this than the employees? Through them, the
organization has more eyes, ears and voices online. They can help brand the
company, spread content, and listen to the conversations that take place. Did
something come up that we need to react to or is there someone in my network
that might match the most recent job ad? The best part is, the employees are
probably already active on social media. In this section, we shall look at how a
company can support its employees’ use of social media.
Lasse Høgfeldt sees Jyske Bank’s employees as the “bank’s social capital,”
which they must be better at activating. Each week he sends a video to the
employees which is well suited for social media, and he encourages them to
share it. He says, “Our employees want to share. They just need to learn that
social media is a kind of reception where they can talk about the interesting
things in our company. We need to help them with that. Thanks to our values, the
employees are used to thinking a lot on their own – they just need to get a little
snowball that they can roll into something bigger.”
So cultivate the employees who are cultivating their network. It is good for
the company. If this involves an organization or an educational institution, regard
the volunteers and students as part of your most important communication asset.
Especially if you have limited resources, it makes good sense to divide the task
among several people.
The question is how do you get employees to share content about the
company? It works best in places where it comes naturally. Yet you can
influence it in a positive direction. Instead of encouraging them to “be more
active on social media,” you could specifically indicate the actions you would
like to see. This means providing content they can share. In this way, you make
it easy for them to help the company and, indirectly, themselves. This is
naturally all voluntary, unless it involves a profile set up for the company, in
which case it is part of the job.
The question becomes what would the employees want to share on their
own profiles about the company? It should be content they can vouch for and
that makes them look good. It could be, for example, a job ad which could
benefit someone in the employee’s network and which indicates “things are
going well here; we are growing!” It could be an incisive blog post, positive
media mentions, or a good video. The things employees want to share on their
networks is also a good litmus test for what users want to share. If the employees
do not want to share it, it is unlikely the customers will. Conversely, there is no
guarantee that what the employees find relevant will also appeal to customers.
At Komfo, the most natural thing the employees share is what is happening
in and around the company. “The best marketing strategy on social media is
getting the employees to spread the content. This particularly applies to LinkedIn
and Twitter, whereas Facebook can be a bit more complicated because people
regard it as more of a private network,” says Rasmus Møller-Nielsen, the CEO
of Komfo. He emphasizes that it is, of course, up to each employee to decide
whether they want to post about the company. Another reward of involving the
employees is that they can help find content relevant to the entire organization.
One of the things you can do is have an educational program where you
explain the value of having employees who are active on social media. It can be
particularly useful if your employees are not as digitally inclined as those at
Komfo. Some companies, like the computer company Dell, has established an
internal university for social media. Only employees who have passed the test
can post on a Dell account.
At the museum Medical Museion in Copenhagen, 24 of the museum’s 30
employees are on Twitter. This includes the Director, the curators, the
conservators, and the administrative personnel. Tweeting about work has become
part of the culture. It happens based on the professional areas each individual
thinks would be interesting to share. The museum Inspector, Daniel Noesgaard,
says employees are encouraged to share and discuss with colleagues, work
acquaintances outside the museum, and everyone else interested in the museum’s
work. For example, Nanna Gerdes, the Conservator, tweets about improvements
to their exhibitions, while Daniel Noesgaard tweets both about biomedicine and
about the other things that preoccupy him within the museum world. They have
250 and 900 followers respectively, so they communicate in a niche inside the
Twitter universe.

Include the employees in your social media efforts:

Satisfied employees who are active on social media represent an asset for the
company. They can help pass along job posts and news about the company,
or introduce a subject that is important to the company into their network.
Give them good content that they can share. Everything from infographics to
videos and the newest information in your field.
Equip your employees for using social media. This might involve learning
how to best work with their LinkedIn profile, how to write a blog, or how to
get more Twitter followers. In order to motivate, it may be an advantage to
focus on the needs of the individual employee, and not on the company.
Make sharing your presentations online part of the organizational culture,
such as with Slideshare. This is content which has already been created, and
which gives people a better impression of what you can do and what you
stand for, than a sales text on your website.
Turn up the internal communication about social media. Give them the
newest information, show them good examples from your own company and
from other companies, and give them the opportunity to have their questions
 answered.
Make sure an internal dialogue exists concerning the way the company and
the employees use social media. Managers and employees can have
extremely different views on how employees should write about the company
on social media. You can avoid many misunderstandings if you talk about the
subject internally.

Your Personal Brand

You have read how a company can act on social media, but now it is time to look
closer at your personal brand online. The Director, the employees, and the self-
employed person all have an online brand. You have everything you need at your
fingertips. Google’s Scandinavian Director, Peter Friis, says, “When we look at
what we all have in our pockets – a smartphone – it has the same recording and
distribution ability as a medium-large American movie company had in the
1970s.” Then all you have to do is get started. As employee, you can become an
asset to your company when you help generate traffic to the website and use
your network to find new employees. More and more companies demand social
media competence, and not just for communications, HR and marketing
positions. Additionally, there are the personal advantages a good and active
social media presense can bring. We will take a closer look at this in this section.
Many people want to reap the benefits of being active on social media, but
they do not know where to start and what content to use. So how do you get
started? And why do you even need to have a personal brand online? Well, you
do not need to, but it does come with a number of advantages.
Scenario 1: You are in the final rounds for your dream job; the thing you
have dreamed about for the last five years while you were grinding away the
days at your current job. This is a job with great responsibility and an externally
focused position. There are two candidates left. Professionally, you are just as
strong a candidate. You have just as much experience. He has 10,000 followers
on Twitter and 2,000 LinkedIn contacts; you have no Twitter account and have
not updated your LinkedIn for the last three years. Whom will they choose?
Scenario 2: You really have had enough now. You go to the boss’s office and
quit without a job waiting for you, but with your honor and integrity intact.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could reach out in less than five minutes to the 2,000
people in your network – 1,000 on LinkedIn, 500 on Facebook, 500 on Twitter –
and say you are looking for new challenges?
Scenario 3: You just got a really fun idea. You set up a blog and post your
idea. You would like others to hear about your idea because you think it can
make their day a bit more fun and you also want their input. How do you reach
them if you are not connected?
Scenario 4: You need some input for a challenge at work or for the family’s
camping trip. Wouldn’t it be great if you could ask all your contacts and friends
at once?
These are just a few examples. The possibilities to help others with their
challenges or to follow their professional fields are a couple of others. Or the
possibility to enter into a dialogue with journalists, politicians, bloggers or
potential customers. And yes, it happens all the time. Every day. While you read
this book, people are connecting every which way, helping each other with
services, and exchanging ideas, humor and products, while others may be having
discussions or making complaints.
There are also the two boring arguments: that things are developing this
way, and that companies are looking for this skill. In reality, it is about
something entirely different. Much like many other things in life – when you
have first seen the light and learned the skill it is not only easy, it is also fun.
Think back to the last time you learned something difficult. Driving a car. Riding
a bike. Speaking a language. Three things that today you would consider pretty
easy, right? Using social media works the same way. You can read a lot of theory
that can prepare you. But the only way to really learn it is to get behind the
wheel and try it.
Some people do not even want to have a personal profile. It just disrupts
their daily work. But you have a personal profile online whether you recognize it
or not. If you are in the situation where you need a new job, it is hard to go from
invisible to “exciting job candidate” overnight. Not that it is impossible, but you
can do yourself – and your company – a favor by keeping yourself in shape from
a digital perspective. Networking digitally could begin by sticking entirely to
professional matters, or it could be an interest in your spare time, if that is the
strongest motivation for you. Additionally, by actively networking you develop
professional and social competences which can benefit you and your company.
The first step in your personal online strategy could be to Google yourself.
This is your digital reflection, which you can benefit from by checking regularly.
Imagine you are a potential employer, customer, or journalist who needs to reach
you. What comes up? Can your email, telephone number and information about
what you do easily be found? Does the search yield the results you want? These
days it is almost suspicious if someone cannot be found online. The way Google
searches work is not just rocket science, it also is surrounded by mystery. But
very broadly, profiles on social media do well on Google. If I search for my
name, I get Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook among the top results. At the same
time, the popular content on my blog, that which has many visitors, comments
and likes, also does well. So with active profiles and good content you can
influence the Google search for your own name. This, of course, also goes for
brands.
A prerequisite for working with your personal profile online is having a
clear idea of what it should revolve around. In the same way a company must
find its niche(s) on social media, you can find the area you want to own. Not that
you necessarily have the area to yourself, but that you can contribute in your
own way. It should be based on what you are passionate about. What do you
work with, what do you spend your spare time on, what can keep you awake late
at night or get you out of bed early in the morning? I am not thinking of money
here or because “the boss says I need to deliver something,” but rather the things
that drive you. This is where you can curate for your own network. And if it is a
subject you already follow closely, then sharing it on social media is a by-
product; it is not extra work. It will, presumably, only enrich your knowledge of
the field.

Your Personal Strategy and Plan
It can be advantageous to make a personal strategy and plan for how to work
with social media. Model 19 shows how a personal strategy might look. It can be
helpful if you want to put some thought into how to tackle social media before
you begin. This is reminiscent of the way you otherwise carry out your work –
first you formulate a strategy, and then you execute it. For many, the challenge is
to come out of their hiding place and get started. If that description fits you, you
need to move out of your comfort zone and get into the network. Here you will
meet cooperative partners, former colleagues, current employees and customers.
It may seem confusing, but with a plan like Model 19 you are better prepared.
But this does not change the fact that there will always be an element of learning
by doing – you have to experiment and learn as you go. It gets a bit easier if you
go from thinking of social media as a marketing outlet to seeing it as a network,
where you reach out to people, connect people, and bring your own knowledge
into play.
 For some people, a model for one’s own personal strategy may seem over
the top. If you are already well on your way and are just considering which
media to start using, it is perhaps not something on which you need to spend
time. And that is entirely fair. The model can, however, help give you an
overview across the numerous platforms. By determining the relevant subjects,
the purpose and what value it can create for others, you can focus more on
making good content that has a long lifespan online.

Model 19: Suggestion for a personal strategy for social media

Purpose and motivation. The model starts with your personal purpose and
motivation for spending time on social media. You might want it to benefit your
company or your own situation. For example, you want to learn more or share
your passion about a certain subject. It could also be that you are motivated by
the desire to develop your digital competencies. There could be many different
things. For one person it is chess, for another it is football, a third person might
have a blog about life in the suburbs, and a fourth might be interested in her
work as a headhunter.
Interests. Examine your interests – both in relation to work and more
generally. You might want to mix professional updates with more personal
matters.
Tone of voice. Just like a company can have a tone of voice, you should also
consider the style you want to have and the impression you want to make. This
could often entail some positive words which you can turn into your own
expression – unless you consciously aim to be sarcastic, angry or contradictory.
You can certainly be critical even if you are going for a positive general
impression.
Hashtags. It would be helpful to make some general considerations about
the hashtags you want to keep an eye on and which you can use yourself. This is
most relevant on Twitter and Instagram. Here, you can search for some of the
subjects and interests you have filled out as shown above, and see the hashtags
associated with them. It may require some research.
Social media. Choose the media on which you want to be active. Most
people have a LinkedIn and Facebook profile, and from here you can broaden
your scope. Consider which profile you want on the individual platforms – is it
professional, private, or a combination?
The best time of day. You may see social media as yet another thing you
need to do but have no time for. Consider, therefore, how to best incorporate it
into your daily routine. When is it most convenient during the day? It is critical
that you make it a natural habit during the day. For most people, the challenge is
also not to check their social media constantly, but instead do their work or take
a break.
My next updates. Your next updates can be based on something you
recently experienced or on events that are unfolding. A conference, a trip, or an
interesting subject you are about to work with. It is a good idea to complete your
personal strategy, but there is no reason to wait on posting your first tweet or
picture on Instagram until you have finished reading. For example, you could
take a picture of the book or quote something from it and post it with
#diystrategy. Then you have started.
Frequency of updates. Consider how often you will post. It can be difficult
to determine exact rules about the frequency of your updates. We have very
different perceptions of how many updates are too many and how many are too
few. As a general rule, it is OK to post once or a few times a day on the profiles
you have chosen. You risk your posts being lost among the numerous updates if
they are not shared by others. So if you are inspired to do more, you can
certainly turn up the volume. There is no reason to have a guilty conscience for
not updating three times a day if one update is a better fit with your work
rhythm. On Twitter it is easier to get away with 10 tweets per day than on
Facebook. Tweets are often shorter than Facebook updates, and on Facebook,
updates might be visible longer.

You might also have periods when you are less active. For example, while I
wrote this book I was less active on social media, since I needed the peace and
quiet to write. In other phases, typically when I research, I am more active.
When I wrote this book, the deadline was fast approaching and I still had holes
in my research. I considered buying the research from the freelance service
elance.com. First, I posted it on Twitter: “I need some input for visual
communication.” Minutes later, the first results came in. After a couple of hours
I had more than enough to start work. It took some courage to admit I did not
know everything myself. When you read a blog, you might assume the author
knows everything about the subject. But luckily, this is becoming an old-
fashioned way to look at it.
The consistency with which you use social media also depends on your
starting point. If it is a regular part of your work, you have to strive for a certain
degree of stability. This applies, for example, to politicians, directors, managers
and journalists. But even there, one might choose to shut down for the holidays –
as long as there is someone to monitor the conversation and your name while
you are gone. If you only use social media for fun, there is obviously no
requirement for updating at a certain frequency. But if you are interested in using
social media to promote a certain case or your personal brand, you might be
required to be active over a longer period and have a certain stability.
In my sole proprietorship, I prioritize blogging and participating on social
media, since it gives me visibility and customers, in addition to information,
networking, and enjoyment. If you can set aside just half an hour a day of your
work time, you can go far with social media. And if there are more employees
who can do it, you can start a small revolution. Cut fifteen minutes off a meeting
– after all, who says it takes exactly an hour to reach the meeting’s goals – try 45
or 30 minutes. Check your email no more than three times during your workday.
Consider booking two 15-minute meetings with yourself over the course of the
day. Make a cup of tea or coffee, sit in front of the screen, and use the time on
social media.

This is how to create a good personal brand on social media:

Update on a continuous basis for a longer period of time.
Have relevant content with a personal angle, without it necessarily being
too private.
Share and give out lots of content for free, without expecting anything in
return. You can blog, tweet and link your way to your next job, the next
customer or employee, a larger network, an invitation to speak at a
conference, or free products and perks with some companies.











 Summary

This book offers a framework for how to create a social media content strategy.
It is now up to you to adapt it to your specific company. All the models from the
book can be downloaded and printed from astridhaug.com.

1. Find your purpose. The purpose must guide you throughout the entire
process. So do not skip this step. You will experience greater satisfaction and
better results if your work with social media begins with a purpose which
benefits the company and makes sense from an individual perspective. Start by
building a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] which
outlines the playing field. Use the thorough process from the Golden Circle to
identify a purpose that extends beyond making money or “because the law says
we must do this.” Identify why the company makes sense to you. Use the Value
Ladder to elevate your communication away from marketing a product and
towards creating value for users.

2. Create relevance for the users. The users will tell you what they want, if you
listen to them. Establish a system where you listen in on conversations on social
media. Discover where you are relevant to users. Use Model 7 to identify your
relevance. Identify which subjects you will contribute to with relevant content
and find your niches.

3. Create great content. This is where it really gets fun. The introductory
exercises must now be put to the test, since you are only really working with
social media once you start to create content. Be clear on how you can use the
three undercurrents – storytelling, emotional communication, and visual
communication – on social media. Then focus on the Content Triangle with
existing content, other people’s content, and new content. Begin with the content
you already have today. Is it suitable for social media? Is it relevant and
engaging for users? Then look at other people’s content. How can you be the
master of content for your niche? Go ahead and make a list of blogs and
websites where you can find great content. Then check to see if you need new
content. The three undercurrents can act as a guide – do we have content that
lives up to the three undercurrents? With good content, you can set the agenda.
 Great content does have an Achilles heel, however – it does not find users on
its own. You must, therefore, have a plan for how to distribute the content
digitally and how you can meet your users. PR and public affairs also happen on
social media, so make sure to implement a PR/PA strategy spanning the digital
and analog initiatives.

4. Plan and measure. You can have so many good plans, but if they are not
implemented they make no difference. With a general framework for your
content, you can have a realistic plan for what needs to be prioritized, where to
allocate resources and, not least of all, how you can become a company that
delivers usable and valuable content in the eyes of the user. With a content plan
and an annual cycle of work, you will be two steps closer to the successful
execution of your content strategy. You now have an idea of how much content
is actually required to be present on social media at a satisfactory level. It also
means you must choose one or more platforms where it makes the most sense to
focus your efforts.
Many people skip the assessment part. It is often the last entry on the to-do
list, so they might think it is not so important. But it certainly is. It is the
undertaking which connects strategy with purpose. How else will you know if
your efforts are leading to the results you want? So find your inner number nerd
or, if you do not have one, ally yourself with a colleague who can help you start
measuring. Start small; you can always build up from there. Measure both hard
values like traffic and ROI, as well as soft values such as satisfaction and
engagement.

5. Involve the organization. You can stir things up on social media without
involving the organization, but if you want to implement a content strategy that
creates lasting value for the company, it must be part of the organization’s daily
routine. As a manager, you can lead the way and motivate the employees. As an
employee, you can build a bridge between departments.
The best resource for collecting and sharing content is sitting right beside
you in the open-plan office. It is your colleagues and employees. When you are
excessively focused on getting fans and creating external relations, you may
forget to involve the organization. The employees can help you create content
and bring it to life. Both the employees and managers have their own personal
brands which can be used for the benefit of both the organization and the
individual. Use the form in Model 19 to focus on your personal content strategy
for social media.

In this book, I focused on how you create good content, since that is what
will drive your presence on social media. And it is here that I see many people
get off on the wrong foot because they do not understand this premise. I hope
that now you do. That you can see the importance of prioritizing your time and
money to make good content. That you see users as your teammates, and not just
as just another click on your website. And that you do not think that choosing a
social media platform in itself constitutes a strategy.
Even though this book is a finished product, I do not consider it the end of
the process. This book has been written with help from all the people who
contributed knowledge, either consciously or otherwise. And luckily, the
conversation does not end here. It continues on social media.









 Thanks To

First and foremost, a big thank-you to all the people I interviewed and who
agreed to talk about their work in this book. And thank you to everyone who
shared great content on social media and offered input along the way. They made
it a pleasure to write this book. A big thank-you to my Danish editors, Mette
Korsgaard and Kasper Juel Gregersen, for believing in this book and for keeping
me on track. And thank you to Pernille Tranberg, Cathrine Gyldensted, Stine
Carsten Kendall and Cathrine Boutrup for valuable coaching in connection with
the English edition. And to Signe Gren for making the publishing process
smooth. Finally, a big thank-you to Oliver Stilling for your invaluable support.

Litterature
Bhargava, Rohit (2011). „The 5 Models of Content Curation“.
Rohitbhargava.com
Boyd, Danah (2008). „Can social networking sites enable political action?“
In Allison Fine, Micah, Sifry, Andrew Rasiej and Josh Levy (Eds.) Rebooting
America.
Bruns, Axel (2005). Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production.
Peter Lang, New York.
Damasio, Antonio R. (2001). Descartes’ Error. Gyldendal/Hans Reitzel.
Gates, Bill (1996). „Content Is King“. Publiched by Craig Bailey 31. maj
2010.
Google. „Our Mobile Planet“. think.withgoogle.com/mobileplanet/
Gottschall, Jonathan (2012). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us
Human. HMH Books.
Halvorsen, Kristina (2009). Content Strategy for the web. New Riders.
Harrysson, Martin, Estelle Métayer, and Hugo Sarrazin (2014). „The strength
of ’weak signals’“. McKinsey Quarterly.
Heath, Chip and Dan Heath (2010). Switch. How To Change Things When
Change Is Hard. Crown Business.
Klastrup, Lisbeth (2013): „Danskerne på Facebook: et globalt eller nationalt
kulturfællesskab?“ i Facebook – fra socialt netværk til metamedie. Jakob
Linaa Jensen and Jesper Tække (red.).
Lazauskas, Joe (2015). „Why ‘Depth Not Breadth’ Will Be the Rallying Cry
of Content Marketing in 2015. Contently.com.
 Liebst, Asger (2012). „Guide til billedboomet i de sociale medier“.
Kommunikationsforum, november 2012.
Lumholt, Karen (2013). Historier der flytter mennesker. L&R Business.
Pew Research (2014). „Facebook’s experiment causes a lot of fuss for little
result“. Pew Research Center, juli 2014.
Rambøll and CBS (2014). CEMindex 2014. CBS/Institut for Afsætning and
Rambøll Management Consulting.
Ries, Eric (2011). The Lean Startup. Crown Publishing Group.
The New York Times. „The Psychology of Sharing: Why do people share
online?“ Customer Insight Group, 2012.