In November of 2010, just a short 14 months ago, the GPA EDC had a total of 1 tweeter, 1 active Facebook page, 0 live Youtube videos and most of our staff were not even permitted to access social media. It was time for change.
In the political world in which we operate, it is important that process and protocol are followed in order to dive into such an open forum conversation such as social media, so we needed a plan. The following briefly outlines the steps we took to get engaged:
Step 1 – Communication staff were trained in social media
Step 2 – 100% of staff acknowledged the importance of social media
Step 3 – The Communications Team wrote policies, procedures and guidelines for social media use (which have since be utilized by many other organizations) and access was granted to all staff
Step 4 – We switched all of our websites to WordPress (blog formatted sites)
Step 5 – The remainder of the staff were trained (we continue to have once a week learning lunches to continue to train and talk about social media)
Step 6 – Twitter, Facebook and Youtube accounts were set up
Step 7 – All staff were given the tools and the power to use social media
So now, 14 months later, 100% of our staff are active “Tweeters”; we administer 4 Facebook pages and 4 Youtube accounts. And we’re still just getting started in the world of social media.
We have also developed a Portal Page (with the assistance of the talented folks at Studio-N): www.PeterboroughCanada.com which brings all of our social media feeds together into one place which should increase our search engine optimization (pictured above).
And now, as we develop our communications plans for 2012, it is apparent that social media will continue to grow and play a major role in the way that we speak to our markets.
