The model shown above is designed to illustrate the concept of a proposed system for delivering this ‘list’ of strategic narratives (i.e. key messages, positions or responses) to inform your social media engagement planning function.
The rhetorical and narrative planning is essential because unlike personal communication and participation on social media, where the most you stand to lose are your followers, the consequences are more severe for the organization because it loses ground in terms of public mindshare and credibility.
The model can be divided into four key components:
(1) Collating a list of issues, practices, plans and activities of individual departments that may be of interest to the public.
(2) Putting the list through a sieve - to be worked out internally - to flesh out a shortlist of items that best represent the core principles or positions, and then making this list known the the social media ambassadors. The issues may also pertain to information that can place your company in a position of knowledge leadership in the community/industry.
(3) Continuous environmental monitoring, and forwarding of information, research data and feedback to the various departments to inform their respective decision making processes.
(4) Ongoing review and refreshing of of the list of narratives (weekly, monthly, and in response to sudden contingencies).
Why plan? Here are some things to consider:
How often you're going to publish content. Is it weekly? Fortnightly? Monthly? You've to make sure it's frequent enough to give people a reason to come back to your blog or site. (at least one post a week is a minimum, I'd say...)
The next thing to consider is where your content will come from. Are you going to generate it all by yourself? How about getting other departments to chip in stuff that the public may find interesting or relevant? Stuff that helps them save money would help, for example... or information that tells them the best way to take care of a product your company sells...
Do you have enough to last the distance? Remember that engaging the public with your content isn't a flash in the pan. You'll need to have, depending on your prescribed publication frequency, thought about what you'll be publishing at least three months in advance, and build up from there.
Otherwise, you'll probably find yourself hitting rock bottom in terms of content because, let's face it, some days we do run out of ideas.
Bottom line, and this may be cliched but its true: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.