JSB Talks Digital is a weekly digital marketing and social media podcast hosted by author, strategist, consultant, speaker and trainer Joanne Sweeney-Burke. Each Friday Joanne shares her digital marketing and social media insights from her work as CEO of Digital Training Institute. 

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This special series of podcasts takes a forensic look at how individuals and organizations are embracing digital transformation.

In this, the sixth in a series of special shows on Digital Transformation, I look at how conservative organizations can embrace social media without fear to manage their reputations. Coming up in today’s episode:

• I have a digital transformation conversation with Lucy Hall, founder of Social Media Day UK.
• In shout-outs: 3 ‘conservative’ organizations using social media to great effect for reputation management.
• In JSB’s column – How to approach social media if you’re afraid of putting your organization out there; and
• Find out what social media tool will help you monitor brand sentiment across the social web.

Interview with Lucy Hall | Founder of Social Media Day UK

I am delighted to be joined on today’s show by Lucy Hall.

Lucy is Co-founder of the UK’s #1 Social Media event for SMEs called Social Day. She is also co-founder of Avviso Media Ltd, a Digital Marketing business based in the South East of England.

With 15 years’ experience in media, sales and marketing, Lucy educates business owners on the use of social media for business.

Be sure to tune in if you want to hear Lucy answer my questions:

Q1: Conservative organizations such as public sector, emergency services and front line responders are fearful of putting themselves and their brands on social media. Do you think they really have a choice in today’s digital age?

Q2: Social media is becoming ever more important for reputation management. What platforms do you think are best for communicating and upholding an organizations and indeed public figure reputations?

Q3: Social media has evolved at such a rapid rate, and as social media marketers, we know all too well how much energy, time and investment is required to keep on top of weekly platform changes. How do you think large organizations can keep on top of everything?

Q4: What social networks important for large organizations with multiple messages to get out and should they segregate their accounts based on audience-type?

Q5: Let’s talk about video, the media type that is dominating most social media conversations. How powerful do you think video is for large organizations and should they be fearful of it?

Q6: Do you think large organizations have an advantage over small businesses or entrepreneurs because they have larger budgets and a more diverse range of in-house skills?

Q7: Finally, what reputation management tips for social media would you give?

If you want to find out more about Lucy, then please log onto her website: http://socialday.co.uk

JSB’s Column | How to approach social media if you’re afraid of putting your organization out there

So how do you approach social media if you’re afraid of putting your organization out there?

The success of a social media marketing strategy can never be measured by the number of followers or ‘likes’ you get on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Rather, it is by achieving organizational objectives.

And these objectives are often aided by creating genuine connections with citizens because at the end of the day, without audience trust your messages will never be heard.

Creating a large social following is great but it isn’t the most important goal when harnessing your organization’s social media potential.

What really matters is how engaged your followers are. Having a large group of unengaged followers is similar to being stood in a crowded room shouting about what you are doing with nobody paying attention.

If you want to have a Digital Transformation conversation with me. Simply drop me an email to [email protected]. Everything starts with a story or a conversation.

Shoutouts | 3 ‘conservative’ organizations using social media to great effect

In this part of the show I give shout-outs to brands, organizations and individuals whose work online is worth talking about. In today’s show I’m sharing three social media case studies from large organizations that are using social to great effect.

HSE for Campaigns

Ireland’s national health service has a range of public information health campaigns that are communicated really well across social media. In fact some of the best social campaigns have an offline element too.

The case study I’m choosing is Quit – a public health campaign to encourage and support people to give up smoking.

Have a look at their digital storytelling on https://www.quit.ie/ and see how seamlessly the messaging transfers to social. They have also built up a significant community of quitters who support each other.

So the peer support element of their campaign is just as important as the messages being pushed out.

Icelandic Police Service

You might think of police forces as being conservative and afraid to embrace social media. But this is certainly not the case. In fact I wrote a whole book on how law enforcement are using social media to great affect.

The Icelandic Police Service are avid users of Instagram and quite often their instaphotos and accompanying hashtags make mainstream news.

Australian Tourist Board

The Australian Tourist Board have nailed digital storytelling on their social networks and are also very gifted at leveraging fan content for greater engagement.

In doing this, they are curating content created by their community and re-sharing it out. This means that they are being relevant in their approach.

Check them out at Australia.com which links to their social profiles.

Public Sector organisations can excel in their communications by embracing social and skipping past the mainstream media to story tell, and engage their fans.

Social Media Tool of the Week: IceRocket

Do you know what people are saying about your organization online?

Are you checking your company’s social mentions on a daily basis? If you’re not then you should be. It’s not enough to simply ignore social conversations as a tactic because this could be detrimental to your organization. But to help you manage this effectively I use a tool called: Ice Rocket

If you want to instantly search blogs, Twitter and Facebook for specific terms, IceRocket is the tool you need.

IceRocket doesn’t require an account and is easy to use. Just type your term(s) in the search box and choose the channel you want to search: blogs, Twitter, Facebook or search all.

IceRocket is a no-hassle way to find information.

What I like about IceRocket is its wide range of filter options that personalize search results. For example, you can search blog posts limited to certain authors or filter Twitter searches by hashtags, text or links.

Log onto icerocket.com

I love feedback

I’d love to know what you think about this episode. So please get in touch by commenting below or tweet me @tweetsbyJSB or send me a snap to jsbsnaps.

Listen: JSB Talks Digital | Episode #38

I would like to thank Eoghan Murphy aka The Galway Gamer for producing my podcast series and to Flirt FM on the campus of NUI, Galway where I am based for the use of their studio.