Recruiting your thoughts on social media bootcamp

I say boot camp and most people think Maury Povich. You know you’ve watched it. The 13-year-olds who mouth off to their parents too much until they get yelled at by a drill sergeant and shipped off to God knows where — probably just backstage.  Then they come back on a later episode all reformed and apologetic to their parents. Well, I guess now you know I’ve watched it. But that’s not the kind of bootcamp I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about social media bootcamps, which is what we call introductory social media training sessions with new clients. Since I’ve been at FHKC, I’ve customized a presentation and approach for these sessions, but I’m always looking to improve. Teaching, whether it be social media or anything else, is one of the hardest parts of our job. Because we’re trying to get people to change the way they do their jobs. And in these bootcamps, we usually have about 90 minutes to two hours to convince people of the value behind that change.

So, I figured maybe I’ll share the  way I’ve been approaching these sessions and then you can let me know what works best for you. Cool?

My social media bootcamp has a few standard components:

- Convergence of traditional and social media

- Social media 101 (social network stereotypes vs how they are actually used for business)

- Issues management

- Measurement

- Policy and governance

But before I ever get into any of that stuff, I always start with GSOT — Goals, Strategies, Objectives and Tactics. The thought process is simple. At least in my mind. If you jump into the social media pool without your GSOT life jacket, you will sink. Like a rock. I like to remind clients they should never do social media just to do it. There always needs to bed a purpose. Here’s the difference:

1) Company starts a Facebook page because they know they need to be using this social media stuff. How do they know? Their boss told them to. Plus, a friend at a peer organization did one for their brand. They launched it last week  already have 100 likes. You can laugh, but I see this approach frequently. Maybe not this exaggerated. But I see it.

2) Company starts a Facebook page because they know their primary target audience is active on Facebook. They want to engage with this group and hear how they can better serve them. Plus, one of the main projects for the year needs donations from this audience to fund it. Through Facebook, the brand can tell the innovation center story with pics, video and links to blog posts on the topic. Then they can share links back to the website for more content about the project. And the link to donate is part of the content package on the website.

See the difference? To be honest, what I’m seeing that’s kind of scary is that many of the organizations I do these bootcamps for get stumped at this part because they haven’t thought about GSOT. So these bootcamps turn into strategic planning sessions. One the one hand, it’s good because I’d prefer to talk to clients about strategic planning and integrated marketing communications. But on the other hand, it’s very hard to show the value of social without any set goals and objectives.

How do you work goals and objectives into the intro to social media conversation? What are your best practices for presenting social media to people who are new to it? While you think about it, here are some thoughts some smart folks shared via Twitter yesterday:

- I always try to relax them. I’ve seen some recoil at the mention of SM. I ask why they fear it, then try to relax fears (via @JasMollica)

- Stress that social is not one size fits all. It’s best to test things out to see what works best for your brand (via @dferrari)

- I always imagine I’m presenting to my grandmother/mother. Start w/ big picture & steer clear of acronyms (via @JenniferStraub)

- Simply have fun with it until you get used to the rhythms. Then you can “buckle down” if you like (via @annfengshui)

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