Money for nothing?
When I saw Preston City Council’s ‘Social Media Toolkit’ my reaction was two-fold. Firstly I was impressed at the resourcefulness of charging £200 for a PDF at a time when UK Councils are severely cash strapped, and secondly I was wryly amused.
The reason I laughed is that the first thing to know about social media is that everything you need to know is out there for free. Specifically for local government there are excellent free resources from committed and knowledgable bloggers such as Dave Briggs (who also has a post on this subject).
Free is pretty much the key word and ethos of social media.
The giants of the game, such as Twitter and Facebook, operate a business model whereby they are free to the user. There are first class apps and widgets you can download to interface with them and these also are free.
I should make it clear that I have not read the toolkit and it is probably a useful document, but I would suggest that you can save yourself £200 by judicious use of a search engine and/or common sense.
Some key things I can tell you, for free, are:
1) Social media are online resources that foster user content creation and interaction. They are not ends in themselves, they are a means. You need to work out how they fit in with your existing communications strategy.
2) Lots of people will tell you that social media strategy is about ‘joining the conversation’. What this means is that you can use it to connect with your customers/users and respond to criticism and praise directly. You need to consider whether this ‘chatty’ dynamic is appropriate to you and your organisation and adapt accordingly. See point 1.
3) The phrase ‘social media’ is something of a buzzword that refers to the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Digital is no different from any other tool available to you. Intelligent use of it will bring benefits to your organisation and foolish use will damage it.
One final piece of advice that seems apposite: I would also suggest to you that if you see an advert in a newspaper that reads ‘I got rich, send me £200 to find out my secret’, what you will get in response is the single phrase: ‘I put an advert in the paper that reads I got rich, send me £200 to find out my secret’.
