Social Media Strategy Implementation Assessment: Nisqually Land Trust

An effective implementation plan must begin with a structure that an organization can build upon. Social media is no different. LePage (2014) identifies six steps for establishing a social media marketing plan. His suggestions work for creating the subsection of such a plan, an implementation strategy. LePage’s six steps include:

• Creating social media goals that align with organizational objectives. Using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) assessment to determine relevance, I identify four goals and how they relate to NLT’s overall strategy and mission.

• Conducting a social media audit. Components of this plan take into account NLT’s existing Facebook Page, as well as its e-mail newsletter campaign and website.

• Creating and/or improving social media accounts. The following plan examines best practices for encouraging engagement and awareness of several social media channels. However, this plan does not delve into best practices for creating the various social media accounts.

• Acquiring social media inspiration from stakeholders (supporters, industry leaders, competitors, etc.). Plan components investigate how to impress online audience members with unique engagement tactics; how to show appreciation to stakeholders for their support and attention; and how to provide reciprocity to audiences, other organizations, industry influencers, and even competitors. NLT staffers should also examine the social media efforts of similar organizations to identify possible tactics.

• Creating a content plan and editorial calendar. This plan’s community management section examines how NLT employees can incorporate content creation into their daily responsibilities and how they can optimize their efforts with an editorial calendar.

• Testing, evaluating, and adjusting the social media plan. The following implementation strategy presents several suggestions for how to best track the progress of social media communities and what to look for in positive engagements. Using this data, NLT should audit and build upon this plan accordingly.

Goals, Targets, and KPIs

I selected four organizational goals, and relevant targets and KPIs, to focus on (see

Appendix A for platform-specific KPIs). These goals and targets include: Increasing volunteer attendance at NLT’s Wednesday and Saturday work parties.

NLT work parties improve the land trust’s various properties by removing invasive species, planting and nurturing native species, and performing similar upkeep and improvement tasks. Presently only two or three non-staff stakeholders attend the Wednesday work parties, while anywhere from 10 to 20 volunteers attend the twice-a-month Saturday work parties. My target for this organizational goal is to double the average number of non-staff attendees at Wednesday work parties. I propose doing this by reaching out to and engaging with existing and potential volunteers within the South Puget Sound area. Two valuable KPIs to track my progress towards this goal and target include:

• The number of new individual followers across all social channels (Reach) • The number of shares/retweets of NLT Requests for Volunteers announcements

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performed across all social channels (Amplification) Increasing brand awareness and engagement with community members and other

stakeholders, especially within the Tacoma and greater Tacoma areas. Upon speaking with Cris Peck, NLT Volunteer Coordinator, I learned that the land trust could improve its engagement with potential stakeholders in the Tacoma area (C. Peck, personal communication, February 26, 2015). I consider this objective of importance because of the shear population size in the Tacoma region and because of the region’s proximity to the Nisqually River watershed and NLT protected properties. An appropriate target for this goal includes identifying and presenting at four or more popular conservation/environmental events held in the Tacoma area each year. These events could include anything from community fairs and conferences, college- and school-based activities, and nonprofit outreach initiatives. Promoting NLT’s attendance at these events must be coordinated across its social media channels beginning at least three to four weeks prior to the event date. Promoting attendance via social media would increase awareness of NLT’s appearance and could improve engagement for the land trust at the actual event. Two related KPIs include tracking:

• The number of engagements (shares, retweets, comments, and likes) for event attendance announcements and promotions (Engagement, Amplification)

• The number of new followers (Facebook and LinkedIn primarily) from the Tacoma area (Reach)

Increasing regional and industry awareness of NLT’s project and initiatives. This

goal coincides with the more general objective to improve NLT brand awareness, as well as the more specific objective to raise awareness of NLT’s Community Forest project. NLT already produces a quarterly newsletter. Now it needs to amplify this newsletter via its various social media channels and, if possible, produce news content on a more regular basis. One target related to this goal is to publicize NLT news, events, and/or projects in at least one to two regional and/or trade media publications every two months. This ensures that NLT receives both community and industry exposure. NLT already maintains a good repertoire with the Thurston County blog ThurstonTalk. Now it must establish a similar relationship with The Olympian newspaper and with other regional newspapers, as well as with trade publications like The Trust for Public Land’s Land&People magazine. Two related KPIs to track for this target include:

• The number of shares, retweets, and likes of media articles regarding NLT across all social media channels (Engagement, Amplification)

• The number of new and existing NLT social media followers from the media and land conservation industries (Reach) Increasing NLT’s overall volunteer and donor populations by targeting (via social

media) youth/young adults and community-based families and property owners. A related target for this goal includes bolstering NLT’s volunteer and/or donor levels by at least 5 to 10 percent over a year. This goal should increase volunteer and donor levels even more if we consider that donors usually become volunteers and visa versa.

• The number of new individual followers across all social media channels (Reach) • The number of engagements by individuals with volunteer- and event-related content

across all social media channels (Engagement, Amplification)

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Communities

Ultimately, NLT should establish presences on four to five social media/sharing platforms in addition to its existing Facebook Page. In the early stages of implementation, the land trust should create profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Wikipedia, with a goal of actively managing its presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. In the latter stages (6 to 12 months out) of social media strategy implementation, NLT should also create profiles on Instagram, YouTube, and a WordPress blog, with a goal of actively posting to Instagram and WordPress.com, the latter of which will feed long-form content to Twitter, LinkedIn, and possibly Facebook. However, during the earliest stages, land trust staff should build communities on and increase engagement across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Community Engagement and Growth Tactics

In creating this implementation assessment, I considered NLT’s small staff of six and limited existing online footprint (a website and Facebook Page). While the former indicates the land trust cannot easily establish and maintain several large online communities, the latter suggests NLT could reap important regional brand awareness benefits just by adding one or two more social communities to its existing online presence. With this in mind, I identified three communities (both existing and planned) where NLT should focus its engagement and growth efforts.

Facebook Page. NLT’s Facebook Page must be maintained because 1) it already exists and connects some 430-plus NLT advocates and 2) it can serve as a catchall for demographically diverse audience members and organizations. Current participants vary and include volunteers and donors, as well as conservation groups and partners, like the Northwest Natural Resource Group, and community organizations, among them the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce.

Growth and engagement tactics. NLT can grow and increase engagement within its Facebook community through a number of tactics. First, NLT needs to share visuals from events, including fundraisers, fieldwork parties, and other in-person activities, and tag any members on Facebook who were involved. In the process of sharing these visuals, the organization must encourage any missed stakeholders to tag themselves (a call to action) and thank everyone for their participation. The land trust should share this type of visual content after every group event.

NLT already promotes its Facebook Page on its website. Next, the land trust must advertise this page on other digital content, such as its quarterly e-newsletters and regular email blasts, and on non-digital resources, including print brochures and event banners. This approach can help take the conversation offline while also promoting the online community.

Business intelligence or campaign ideas. NLT needs to focus on what it does best: sharing (while preserving) the beauty of nature and wilderness. Only on a few occasions have I seen interesting and often visually stunning photos and photo collages on the NLT Facebook Page. However, these posts received as many (if not more) engagements as visuals that showed NLT stakeholders participating in land trust events. NLT staff must take advantage of this by publishing weekly or biweekly nature photos, ideally taken at their properties. The land trust can use these photos to promote a hashtag (#nisquallylandtrust), to overlay with interesting nature or environmental, or to present a clear call-to-action (“Where was this taken?” or “Who went to explore the mountains this weekend?”).

A possible campaign that NLT could implement to both grow its Facebook community and thank its audience for positive engagements (mainly content shares) might involve

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personalized thank-you photos. The land trust could “wow” its audience members by responding to them with a personal message written over part of a digital photo or photo collage (ideally taken by an NLT stakeholder) that shows a nature scene. This approach would show that NLT was listening, show that it cared that people responded and engaged with it, and fit within the vein that the organization operated in – respecting and appreciating our natural wonders. Not only that, but this mini-campaign wouldn’t take much investment, just a basic (or even open-source) photo editor and some time and effort. Furthermore, it would staff, board members, and other stakeholders to go out and take quality photos (preferably of NLT properties) to share with people who engaged with the brand via social media.

Trackable metrics. In the three communities identified within this plan, NLT will want to track specific metrics. I suggest creating a spreadsheet for each community and tracking weekly the metrics listed (see Appendix A for a complete list). To make this process easier and more automated, staff could use a free alerts tool, like SumAll. SumAll can gather and display Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and WordPress metrics all on the same page, however, NLT will need to use another tool for LinkedIn metrics, such as LinkedIn’s in-house Analytics Tab. Once a month, staff should examine the metrics and assure positive growth in the right areas and identify trends in other areas.

With the Facebook Page, staff should track and evaluate the number of new followers, the number of content likes and shares, and the number of click-throughs to the land trust website and to the e-mail newsletter signup form. To ensure the growth of this Facebook Page, staff should aim to add at least 15 to 30 new community members per month. Failing to achieve this level of growth could indicate the need to adjust the social media strategy. Staff should track likes, shares, and even comments to determine which content type audience members prefer and dislike. Lastly, staff must follow the click-through rates to determine whether the Page adds to ROI (perhaps in the form of donations) and awareness.

LinkedIn Company Page. Currently, NLT does not maintain a LinkedIn Company Page. However, a presence on LinkedIn could benefit the land trust greatly by:

• Encouraging brand awareness through a highly visible Home profile, branded graphical header, and website link.

• Allowing NLT to easily connect with numerous other land trusts on LinkedIn, among them Washington-based Skagit Land Trust; with conservation industry employees, advocates, and influencers; and with national land conservation groups, such as the Land Trust Alliance.

• Connecting NLT with local and regional professionals, a target demographic for an organization specifically seeking community support and donations.

Growth and engagement tactics. NLT must promote its LinkedIn Page on its digital

properties, including its website, quarterly e-newsletter, and email blasts, and on printed resources as well. In each instance, the land trust must encourage readers to connect with the organization on LinkedIn (and Twitter and Facebook). Second, NLT must connect with the many other land trusts and land conservation groups operating on LinkedIn and use LinkedIn Groups to bring engaging content to its page followers (Delgado, 2013). NLT maintains certification with the national Land Trust Alliance, which actively manages a LinkedIn page and would serve as an ideal partner to connect with. Similar acts of reciprocity would encourage other land conservation organizations to connect with NLT’s LinkedIn Page and thus increase the land trust’s online audience and awareness.

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A Quick Sprout study (as presented in Patel, 2013) suggests focusing on specific content components when posting to LinkedIn, with linked content receiving the most engagements on the platform, followed by images and videos. NLT should create original content, such as news articles about the organization and stakeholder profiles (for staff, donors, volunteers). The land trust should post this content on its website and share it to its LinkedIn Page. For example, a profile of an NLT staff member with an accompanying headshot posted either directly on the LinkedIn Page (with a link to the land trust’s website), or on the main website or in an e-newsletter, could help drive traffic and increase brand awareness while personalizing the organization. Another article could give a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into protecting and up-keeping NLT’s protected properties.

Trackable metrics. With the NLT LinkedIn Page, staff should track and examine the number of new individual and group connections, the number of post likes and shares, and the number of page views and click-throughs to the website. Just as with the Facebook Page, monthly growth in connections will ensure staff are providing appropriate content and also encouraging reciprocity. Post likes and shares will indicate highly valued content, while page views and click-through rates will indicate contributions to ROI and awareness.

Twitter Business Page. Presently NLT does not maintain a Twitter page. I identify several advantages, both short- and long-term, to establishing an NLT-branded Twitter profile. First, Twitter will give the land trust an easy way to share news articles; quarterly e-newsletters; and, eventually, blog posts with a vast online community. Second, many of the same land trusts and conservation groups on LinkedIn maintain presences on Twitter, thus allowing NLT to establish a healthy and growing community early on. Third, NLT needs to tap into the younger audiences that are exiting Facebook. Twitter, and possibly Instagram in the future, allows the land trust to better engage with demographically younger stakeholders, who often maintain significant presences at the land trust’s volunteer events.

Finally, NLT needs to leverage the power of a highly visual social media platform to share photos and video of its properties and its preservation activities. Twitter is quickly becoming a powerful visual medium through its Twitter Photo Cards and newly revealed embedded video feature. These abilities, coupled with the platform’s extensive reach and easy shareability across Facebook Pages, make it a more versatile tool to use to display NLT visuals and to reach a varied audience base.

Growth and engagement tactics. Growing and building engagement on Twitter requires propagating the NLT Twitter handle across multiple digital and non-digital properties, much like with LinkedIn. However, the platform also presents other opportunities. On Twitter, retweeting represents one of the greatest engagements that audience members can perform because it shares the brand with many other Twitter followers not necessarily connected to the organization. In the past, community managers have personally thanked me for retweeting their brand’s content (even though my own Follower numbers are meager). Such an act was an effective feel-good strategy. NLT should strive to do the same, thanking audience members (especially new members) for sharing the land trust’s tweets with simple messages of “Thanks for the support!” or a similar message.

As stated earlier, NLT should use Twitter to share plenty of visual content. According to an A/B test by Buffer (as presented in Patel, 2014), tweets with images receive significantly more clicks, retweets, and favorites than tweets without images. NLT should tweet its nature photos and photo collages on Twitter and occasionally share them to the Facebook Page as well, thus reducing time spent managing both platforms. However, the managers for these two

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communities should also strive to vary the visual content across both channels as much as possible.

NLT should use hashtags to increase engagement and visibility on Twitter. I suggest NLT begin sharing hashtags affiliated with its brand (i.e. #nisquallylandtrust, #nisquallylt, etc.) and use more general and related hashtags, such as #landtrust, #landconservation, #nisquallyriver, and #mtrainier, with visual and textual tweets. According to Patel (2014), hashtags can double an engagement rate. NLT’s Twitter community manager should not use more than two hashtags per tweet.

Trackable metrics. With Twitter, staff will also want to track metrics monthly. In addition to examining new follows, staff should evaluate the number of monthly un-follows to ensure that the latter does not eclipse the former. Finally, they will want to track reach, with retweets, and engagement, with favorites and comments, and determine which types of content receive the most of each and adjust the strategy accordingly.

Community Management

I advise dividing the day-to-day maintenance of the above three communities among at least three NLT staffers. This will ensure that the channels receive regular attention and allow each employee responsible for the channel to develop expertise in using it and promoting the brand on it. To avoid needing to relearn the maintenance of each channel should one of these staffers leave NLT, each employee could create process sheets that describe what and how they upkeep the channel on a regular basis.

Volunteer coordinator Cris Peck, philanthropy coordinator Candi Tobin, and operations associate Nikki Dizon could assume management of NLT’s three primary social media communities. Peck and Tobin already co-manage the Facebook Page, making them natural fits for building upon their efforts there. Each of the three employees should assume oversight for one of the three communities, thus better dividing the management duties since each staffer will be performing his or her social media management tasks around regular workloads.

Each employee should expect to devote approximately 20 to 30 minutes per day to social media maintenance, depending on his or her schedule. During this time, they will share NLT content (both new and recycled), share content from curated sources, connect with groups and influencers (thus encouraging reciprocity), answer any questions, respond to and encourage other types of engagement, and ensure adherence to their community’s rules. They can optimize their time spent by collaborating to create a social media calendar several weeks in advance.

In dividing up management of the above three social media communities, I suggest that Tobin, as philanthropy coordinator, maintain the LinkedIn channel, giving her a direct line with potential donors. In addition to checking on this community once or twice per day and connecting with other organizations, influencers, and existing NLT donors and volunteers on it, she could create articles on the advantages of contributing to land trusts (“5 Reasons to Donate to a Land Trust”) and commission other contributors to write articles for the channel as well. Obviously, if she creates her own articles, her time spent maintaining the channel will vary each day, however she should at least check on the page once daily.

Since Peck already manages the NLT Facebook Page, he could easily continue in this capacity and build upon his engagement efforts there. The NLT Facebook Page offers an ideal platform to communicate with volunteers and many volunteers already engage with the land trust’s Facebook content. Furthermore, Facebook’s ability to allow photo tagging makes this

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platform even more critical to sharing visuals of volunteers and donors in action. Peck should check this page a couple of times per day and, ideally, post content to it at least every other day. Most importantly, however, he should focus on engagement tactics that increase likes, comments, and shares. Peck currently shares group photos from volunteer events on Facebook, and he should continue and build upon this strategy.

Lastly, Dizon should establish and grow NLT’s Twitter channel. Ideally, she should tweet at least once per day, according to Twitter engagement tactics summarized by Patel (2014). To meet this rigorous schedule, she could use content posted in the other two communities and transform it to better fit the Twitter audience and specifications before tweeting. NLT likely already maintains a library of nature photos, thus giving her plenty of potential content as well. She could also collaborate with NLT Site Steward Charly Kearns, who works in the field and often takes photos from NLT’s conserved sites. Finally, as an operations associate, Dizon likely maintains intimate knowledge of goings-on at the land trust and can easily identify possible content for tweets, whether in the form of recently written articles about NLT (in-house or otherwise) or opportunities to tease upcoming events, quarterly e-newsletters, or website additions. Dizon should check on and promote (through retweets, followings, etc.) the NLT Twitter handle a few times a day and, if possible, once or twice per weekend.

Training Plan

I identify four main NLT stakeholders that will need social media training. These

stakeholders include: employees, board members, select volunteers, and interns. Each group will require training and support depending on the extent of their involvement in NLT’s social media initiatives. Additionally, social media training and policy distribution should support the members of these four groups in promoting the NLT brand within their personal channels and in maintaining responsible and active social media presences (see Appendix B for a proposed social media policy and companion documents).

Members from all four groups should want to support NLT’s social media presence in an unofficial capacity by following, contributing to, and sharing content from the land trust’s channels through their personal accounts. However, only employees, and possibly interns, will administrate and post via the official NLT social media channels (at least early on). All four groups should also expect to help create content for official channels. Furthermore, while board members may start out creating blog editorials and articles to post via the NLT avatar, land trust staff should eventually create individual avatars for the various board members and guest contributors who create posts on a regular or semi-regular basis.

NLT’s six employees will require the most involved and regular training because they will oversee, implement, and manage all facets of the social media plan and its channels. I suggest monthly social media training and brainstorming sessions that 1) share and review possible engagement strategies across all channels, 2) present new trends in social media and discuss incorporating facets of these trends, and 3) review the NLT social media policy, strategies, and training materials and identify possible additions and/or edits to them.

NLT Board members and select NLT volunteers will both require abbreviated training that provides an overview of best social media practices and focuses on the specific channels that they will contribute to. For example, in the future, both board members and select volunteers could conceivably create blog posts and help populate Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook with photos and video content from NLT sites and events. Before serving in such a capacity though,

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members of both groups should receive a copy of the NLT social usage rules (as well as updated versions as needed), access to social media policy and procedural information, and support and guidance from staff. I suggest an online wiki that board members and select volunteers (as well as employees) can access at will when they have questions pertaining to social media establishment and use.

The final group, interns, will also require abbreviated training in the channels that they will contribute to, including Twitter and Facebook. However, given their seasonal involvement, interns must receive training quickly and efficiently. I suggest giving interns a copy of the NLT social media policy and companion documents as part of their onboarding processes, and providing them access to the internal wiki. Training Overview

The official training for all four groups must begin with a review of the NLT social media policies. For employees, interns, and board members, all of whom will contribute in an official capacity to NLT channels, initial training must also briefly examine the advantages of and reasons for instituting a social media plan. Finally, initial training for staff and board members especially should examine one to two case studies of nonprofits (ideally land trusts) that used social media to effectively achieve increases in ROI and brand awareness. Executive staff and board members especially will desire hard facts that show potential social media ROI for the organization. Some initial practical examples could reduce doubt and encourage their support.

Training resources. Instead of delivering a soup-to-nuts social media training program to members from all four groups, I suggest initially reviewing and distributing the NLT social media policy and companion documents, examining NLT’s existing channels and the ways in which staff use them, and summarizing best practices for the various channels. Initial training must also include a brief review of an access-secure wiki, maintained on a site like MediaWiki or PmWiki, where NLT can display its social media policy and companion documents and provide more granular information, like how to establish, organize, and maintain the various social media channels that the land trust uses. This wiki should summarize set up and maintenance information, as well as privacy management, for the various channels that NLT uses so that members of the four groups can, if they desire, establish personal social media accounts and contribute from those accounts to the land trust’s official channels. Additionally, a review of the wiki will serve as a component of the social media training for incoming staff and interns and for board members who want to contribute blog posts and other content. Staff should also recommend to volunteers who wish to engage with official NLT channels that they review the wiki first. Finally, the wiki will serve as an important tool for new staff members and other stakeholders that assume control of the land trust’s social media channels.

Training frequency. I suggest organizing monthly social media training and brainstorming sessions for staff and, if possible, involving any interns at the time in these meetings. The staff’s social media lead could organize and run these hour-long sessions, which should focus on best practices and new technologies that he or she feels most relevant at the time, such as hashtags usage, social media crisis management, and/or engagement strategies. For example, if the lead feels that staff must review privacy settings, he or she could devote 30 to 45 minutes (or whatever time he or she feels is necessary) to using privacy settings on NLT’s various channels. A portion of the meeting must also focus on acquiring feedback regarding NLT’s social media plan, policy, and training documents. The lead should gather these suggested changes and improvements and work with those employees directly responsible for social media

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outreach and engagement to review and, if desired, incorporate and initiate them. Since members of the non-employee groups will play less-active roles in maintaining

NLT’s social media channels, they will receive more informal and less regular training. Board members should receive an initial presentation that reviews the new social media plan, policy, and wiki; covers the advantages of implementing the various social media channels; and outlines best and worst social media practice information. Beyond that, depending on how often the board meets, they could receive similar, though abbreviated, presentations as staff do, as well as updates on NLT plan and policy changes and overviews of social media ROI.

Given the age of the average NLT intern and his or her likely knowledge of social media usage, involving interns in the monthly staff sessions could prove beneficial, both through the increased skill base and the added perspective. Select volunteers who contribute to NLT’s social media channels will largely receive initial training by reviewing the policy, companion documents, and wiki. Beyond that, the social media lead or another member of the staff should notify volunteers of changes to the wiki and distribute to volunteers updated policies and companion documents. Lastly, select volunteers could also receive access to a digital version of the monthly staff presentations, thus regularly exposing them to best social media practices.

Listening Plan

Using social media to promote an organization does not necessarily make that organization a social one. Instead, social enterprises must practice effective engagement and listening tactics to hear what their audiences say and to respond appropriately. As a regional nonprofit in the early days of its social media outreach and engagement methods, NLT needs to listen carefully to its audiences and online stakeholders. The reasons for this include to:

• Build NLT’s online presence and brand reach. • Attract new volunteers and donors. • Encourage positive brand sentiment and support. • Identify what audiences like about the organization and adapt appropriately. • Compete better with other local conservation groups with online presences, among them

Capitol Land Trust.

Good social listening can help NLT accomplish all of these goals. For example, the land trust can find influencers working in local land conservation and connect with them. By listening for conversations regarding land preservation, NLT can make valuable contributions to the discussions and potentially gain followers. NLT can also discover people seeking volunteer opportunities in Yelm or Eatonville, Washington, or in Thurston or Pierce counties, and provide them information on the land trust. See Appendix C for a high-level overview of listening intelligence and methods that NLT should implement. During the early stages of this implementation plan, NLT can use a free HootSuite account to both manage and listen to its social media channels. However, in the future, if the land trust wants to add a Wordpress.com blog to its channels, it should consider purchasing a HootSuite Pro plan, which will allow the organization to manage more than three social media channels from the HootSuite dashboard. HootSuite Pro also offers additional advantages, such as an easier-to-use dashboard, advanced scheduling options, and team collaboration features. NLT staffers should evaluate the functionality of free HootSuite over several months and determine whether or not they could benefit from upgrading the tool.

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Conclusion

I suggest making this implementation plan and any related and companion documentation

into “living documents” and storing them on an accessible database, such as an in-house wiki. As NLT staff and other stakeholders identify what works and what does not in their social media initiatives, they should edit and/or add to the plan. Lastly, I advice continuously following social media technologies and trends and identify any that could potentially contribute to NLT’s outreach efforts. However, before incorporating these potential new tools or methods, land trust staff must ensure that the addition(s) will support NLT’s overall organizational and social media goals.

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References Delgado, M. (2013, April 18). How to Boost Engagement on Your LinkedIn Company Page. SocialMediaExaminer. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-boostengagement-on-your-linkedin-company-page/ Hines, K. (2013, September 5). Why You Should Monitor Your Business on Twitter. SumAll. Retrieved from http://blog.sumall.com/journal/monitor-business-twitter.html LePage, E. (2014, November). How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan In 6 Steps. HootSuite Blog. Retrieved from http://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-marketing-plan/ Patel, N. (2014, August 7). 10 Twitter Tactics to Increase Your Engagement. SocialMediaExaminer. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitter-tactics-toincrease-engagement/ Patel, N. (2013, December 19). How to Increase Your LinkedIn Engagement by 386%. QuickSprout. Retrieved from http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/12/19/how-to-increase-linkedinengagement-by-386/ Social Media Guidelines. (n.d.). Thomson Reuters. Retrieved from http://site.thomsonreuters.com/site/social-media-guidelines/

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Month: May-15 Jun-15 Jul-15Starts: 01-­‐May-­‐15 01-­‐Jun-­‐15 01-­‐Jul-­‐15

Platform  and  KPI  Type Specific  Metrics Subcategories Ends: 29-­‐May-­‐15 30-­‐Jun-­‐15 31-­‐Jul-­‐15Facebook Total  FollowersReach #  of  New  Followers

IndividualsOrganizationsTotalTacoma-­‐based

Amplification #  of  Content  SharesNews  contentEvent  contentVolunt.  contentTotal

Engagement #  of  Content  LikesNews  contentEvent  contentVol.  contentTotal

Engagement #  of  Follower  CommentsEngagement #  of  Newsletter  Signups  (FB)Engagement #  of  CTs  to  NLT  Website  (FB)LinkedIn Total  FollowersEngagement #  of  Profile  ViewsReach #  of  New  Followers

IndividualsOrganizationsTotalTacoma-­‐based

Amplification #  of  Post  Shares

Appendix  A:  Detail  of  Social  Media  Strategy  KPIs    

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Engagement #  of  Post  LikesEngagement #  of  Post  CommentsEngagement #  of  CTs  to  NLT  Website  (FB)Twitter Total  FollowersReach #  of  New  Followers

IndividualsOrganizationsTotal

(-­‐)Reach #  of  UnFollowsAmplification #  of  Content  Retweets

News  contentEvent  contentVolunt.  contentTotal

Engagement #  of  Content  FavoritesNews  contentEvent  contentVolunt.  contentTotal

Instagram Total  FollowersReach #  of  New  FollowersAmplification #  of  Gram  SharesEngagement #  of  Gram  LikesEngagement #  of  Gram  CommentsWordpress Total  Blog  SubscribersReach #  of  New  Subscribers/FollowersAmplification #  of  Post  Shares/ReblogsEngagement #  of  Post  LikesEngagement #  of  Post  CommentsEngagement #  of  CTs  to  NLT  Website  (FB)

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Appendix B: Proposed Social Media Guidelines

NLT’s social media guidelines must reinforce ethical organizational practices and provide instruction for engaging with stakeholders and guidance for using social media on personal accounts. Thomson Reuters’ social media policy (Social Media Guidelines, n.d.) could serve as a model for a similar policy at NLT. Much like the Reuters policy, the NLT policy should identify basic overarching social media usage principles and provide special instruction for using official NLT channels and personal channels. A basic principles section must emphasize the importance of respecting others when engaging in social media communities, of thinking before posting, of considering the audience and bringing value to conversations, and of respecting fair use and copyright rules.

An NLT social media policy should provide special guidelines for using official NLT channels and personal channels. Official NLT channel guidelines must emphasize the importance of representing the land trust in a professional manner when engaging with stakeholders. The personal-usage section should affirm that: 1) social media usage, while allowed at work, must not interfere with work duties, and 2) stakeholders should clarify, when necessary, that their opinions on personal channels do not represent those of the land trust. Finally, as revisions and addendums to the social media policy become available, staff should distribute the updated document(s) to all employees, interns, board members, and any volunteers currently involved in contributing to NLT’s social media channels.

Policy companion documents. I suggest creating and distributing at least three companion documents along with the social media policy. A “Dos and Don’ts List” will provide a succinct, high-level overview of best and worst practices for engaging with stakeholders through social media. Some “dos” that NLT should adopt for this list include:

• Using common sense and courteousness when posting online. • Thinking before posting to ensure that the content adds value.

Some potential adoptable “don’ts” for this list could include:

• Censoring the opinions of stakeholders on social media. • Posting inappropriate and/or embarrassing content for the organization and/or the

stakeholder (i.e. don’t post content that you wouldn’t want your mother or boss to see).

A social media response flowchart would also help members of the various groups to easily determine how and when to respond to social community audience members. Many organizations already use social media response guides. Such a flowchart does not need to provide a channel-specific overview, but a general overview on how to respond to comments and other engagements (i.e. likes, retweets, favorites, etc.). Specifically, this flowchart should address how to respond to: spam and troll-like comments, various types of negative comments, crisis-related comments, positive comments, and re-shares.

Finally, I suggest creating an overview chart of NLT’s various social media channels and the overarching and specific methods staff use to distribute content via these channels. This document, like the NLT social media policy, will serve as a “living” document in that it will receive frequent updates as the plan progresses. I do not think it necessary to redistribute updated copies of this document to all members of each group. Providing an updated hardcopy to newcomers and maintaining this information in an access-secured online wiki should suffice.

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Appendix C: Listening Intelligence and Methodologies

Web Search Keywords Besides establishing Google Alerts and other alerts/notifications for the key phrase

“Nisqually Land Trust”, NLT should build its listening habits and techniques around the following search terms (identified May 2015):

“Land trust”. NLT appears on the first page of organic results and in the map results in Google searches only. These results will likely only appear if someone does this search in the South Puget Sound area though.

“Land trust Olympia wa”. NLT appears on the first page of organic results in Google and on the second page of organic results in Bing. Works the same with terms reversed.

“Land conservation Olympia wa”. NLT appears on the second page of organic results in Google and the NLT Facebook page appears on the first page of organic results in Bing. Works the same with terms reversed.

“Land trust [Thurston or Pierce] county”. Since NLT stakeholders will predominantly come from these two counties, I felt it important to include both. NLT appears in the map results from a Google search for “Land trust Thurston county” and a link to a blog article about NLT appears on the first page of the Bing organic search results. NLT appears in the map results and on the first page of Google organic search results for “land trust Pierce county”. Information on NLT appears on the second page of the Bing organic search results for the same long-tail term.

“Nisqually river”. Although not a long-tail search term nor a closely related search term for the land trust, “Nisqually river” does produce positive search results for NLT. The NLT website appears on the first page of Google’s organic results after searching for “Nisqually river” and on the second page following a similar Bing search.

“Land trust Yelm wa”. I included this last search term because NLT appears in the first position on the organic results pages for searches in both Google and Bing. In searches on both search engines, the first half-dozen links also point to NLT online resources.

Additional terms. Other good search terms that turn up NLT’s website, Facebook page, and/or other resources include “land trust Eatonville wa”, “Nisqually land preservation”, and “Nisqually conservation”. Listening Methods The following identifies the social media channels that NLT should monitor and listen to on a regular basis. Below each channel are suggested listening tools and monitoring methods. The use of HootSuite (either a free or Pro account) will greatly aid in monitoring the three channels below.

Facebook. NLT must monitor and listen to Facebook because the land trust’s Facebook Page currently serves as its only social media channel. Until the organization builds upon other channels, I expect the majority of discussions regarding NLT will occur on Facebook.

Listening tool(s). HootSuite’s Facebook Photos and Search streams. Because of upcoming privacy changes to the Facebook API, NLT will also need to use the Facebook platform’s Search function.

Monitoring methodology. On Facebook, NLT should look for mentions of Nisqually Land Trust and related hashtags (#nisquallylandtrust) in status updates and comments. Additionally, the land trust should monitor likes and shares of its own content via the HootSuite Timeline stream.

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Twitter. NLT should monitor and listen to Twitter because of the social platform’s shareability and easily searchable content. According to Hines (2013), Twitter is one of the easiest networks to monitor because fewer people protect their accounts (compared with Facebook) and users can search through all status updates and do not need to follow people to reply to them.

Listening tool(s). HootSuite’s Mentions, Retweets, and Favorites streams. Use TweetDeck for deeper insight on the activity of NLT and its followers.

Monitoring methodology. NLT can listen to Twitter all from HootSuite or TweetDeck. Both platforms let users search through tweets via keywords and hashtags. They also allow users to view who favorited and retweeted NLT tweets and content. While HootSuite lets users establish monitored keyword/hashtag streams, TweetDeck saves the search keywords/hashtags so they can easily be accessed later.

LinkedIn. NLT should monitor LinkedIn because its professional lean makes it an ideal platform on which to connect with industry influencers, including other land conservation organizations. Listening to LinkedIn can also help NLT find potential board members, partner organizations, and new staffers.

Listening tool(s). HootSuite’s LinkedIn Home and My Updates streams. LinkedIn’s Search function.

Monitoring methodology. NLT can monitor engagement, including likes, shares, and comments, on its own LinkedIn page via HootSuite. To search for brand mentions in posts, groups, and other categories, NLT can use the LinkedIn Search function. Lastly, NLT should monitor who views the land trust’s LinkedIn page and invite those who do to join the page (if they have not already).

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