Internal Strategy

Session 2 Overview:

Before you can embark on and external corporate social media campaign, there are several key concerns you will need to flesh out internally. The time you spend on your internal strategy will help strengthen defero for an external launch into the Web 2.0 community. Here are three talking points for Session 2.

1. Involve defero Staff

One of the most important things you can do when you transition from traditional to social media is to get your entire company on board. There are many applications you may want to consider adding internally (delicious accounts being a start). You can start with applications that help you to share all of your observations and research you’ve done in response to Session 1. You may also want to consider using applications that may help defero to feel like like more of a community. For instance, Serena Software in San Mateo, CA has been using Facebook as their corporate intranet. Watch this video for some other great ideas from Kaiser Permanente’s director of Internal Marketing Services, Hilary Weber:

2. Evaluate Legal Matters Related to your Goals

Involve a lawyer early on in your plans. As you may imagine, you may have to work around various legal compliance issues. Here is a great presentation given by Lizzie Schreier from Allstate on how companies can work with their legal counsel to carefully plan a corporate social media strategy and avoid legal pitfalls. You may have concerns about confidentiality and security, for instance. This video will give you a taste of how one company handled these issues. And of course, we will certainly discuss this matter further.

3. Draft Your Goals and Start Scheduling!

After your initial research from Session 1, decide what kinds of things will benefit you best. List some of the ideal ways to reach the type of audience you are aiming for. Have your competitors been successful with social media? Is there anything they have done worth trying yourselves? Have you garnered ideas from bigger players in your field? Brainstorm to what extent you want defero to harness social media to do business.

I will help you draft your initial schedule in Basecamp, a great, inexpensive project management tool. I find it is perfect for small companies like defero. It takes virtually no time to set up, and it is a living schedule and task list. Members of your group will receive emails when tasks are assigned and you can empower your entire team to assign and manage tasks. Reminders are sent before due dates.  It’s a good alternative to a costly Microsoft Project license and the steep learning curve that goes along with it. Eventually, I would like to give the leaders on your team administrative power in this program, so that you may chart your own milestones and assign your own tasks.