In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Hard Rock International's Sebastian Quinn teaches a class on leading a social media engagement strategy. He talks about building a scalable, effective plan to engage customers, fans, and critics in social conversations.

1. SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016
Lead a social media engagement
strategy
SEBASTIAN QUINN
HARD ROCK INTERNATIONAL

2. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Sebastian Quinn
Digital Marketing Manager
Hard Rock International
Sebastian_Quinn@HardRock.com
@Quinnnuts

3. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Each business will have unique
goals to track and measure
against in their social media
engagement strategy
 What are you trying to achieve
with social media?
 How can your conversations
achieve this?
Step #1 - Define Goals & Objectives

4. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Understand the goals of your
company’s social media content
delivery to help you develop a
more attainable strategy.
 Know what to measure.
 End goals dictate the
measurement metric
 Beef Up Content Strategy w/
Big-Brand Mindset
Step #2 - Align Content Marketing Goals w/ Social

5. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 What is your existing tone and
how does that translate?
 What is your Company Culture
and how does that translate?
 How do you communicate on
other digital or traditional
channels?
 What do your customers want
and expect?
Step #3 - Find & Define Your Voice

6. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
4 ways to stay updated on social
media platform changes:
1. Updates directly from the
platforms
2. Industry reports and news
updates.
3. Google Alerts
4. Social Media & Tech Experts
Step #4 – Follow Social Platform Changes

7. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Know your team/company’s ability
& Set expectations
 Start small if necessary
 Find internal advocates that
understand your company
 Equip your Community managers
to be spokespeople
 Team Must Be – Collaborative,
Multitask on Deadline, Great
Writers & Internal Evangelists
Step #5 – Get the Right People on the Bus

8. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Decide what you want to
achieve.
 Don’t spread yourself too thin.
 Keep some social media in-
house.
 Send some social media to a
consultant.
 Don’t let the shortage of
internal resources hamper your
online capabilities.
Step #6 – Outsource Content Dev as Needed

9. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Listen & research
 Understand what folks are
talking about
 What are the pain points? What
are people saying about your
company?
 List of words/phrases not to use
 Keep records – connect
Step #7 – Know & Understand Your Audience

10. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
6 practical ways you can use social
data to benefit your business:
1. Gauge the real-time market
mood.
2. Identify relevant issues and
content.
3. Determine user interests.
4. Provide internal operational
metrics.
5. Execute competitive research.
6. Explore social data with an
actionable plan in mind.
Step #8 – Use Social Media Channel Data

11. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Social media
engagement relies on
daily interactions
among users to survive.
 Auto posting tools can
be helpful but engage
your audience with real
conversations
Step #9 – Engage in Real Interactions

12. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Questions are a good example of
engaging content:
1. Pure fan engagement questions
to help tap into the interests
2. Market and competitive analysis
questions to generate
conversations and engage with
possible leads
3. Product/service feedback
questions that can serve as a
fast focus group
Step #10 – Question Readers for More Engagement

13. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 What is working/not
working for them?
 How are the innovating
and changing
conversations?
 Understand your share
of voice, keeps ‘hot’
issues in perspective.
Step #11 – Know & Understand Your Competition

14. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
4 Key Pillars:
 Building a Campaign
 Monitoring
 Engagement &
Conservations
 Measure, Analyze,
Optimize & REPEAT
Step #13 – Creating Your Engagement Strategy

15. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Heavily regulated industries:
financial, healthcare,
transportation
 Understand and train your
community managers or what is
allowed and what is not.
 Accident/incident or fare sale
regulations.
 Employee Social Media policy
development and execution.
Step #12 – Know Laws & Industry Policies

16. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
 Brainstorm EVERYTHING that could
go wrong with your
company/industry and create a plan
for how to address
 Social will drive the conversation,
news coverage, and perception of
your company so make sure you’re
prepared ahead of time
 Everything should be approved and
agreed upon ahead of time
Step #14 – Crisis Planning

17. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Step #15 – Be Yourself & Have Fun

18. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
1. Listen First - Your fans will guide
your strategy
2. Be Present – A presence isn’t the
same as being present.
3. Be Human – Brands are faceless
and easy to dislike, but genuine
people aren’t.
4. Have a Purpose – Conversations
should be intentional. Provide REAL
value.
5. Be Authentic - Deliver on your
brand promise.
Tips #1-5

19. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
6. Stay Unique – Give your fans the
personal response they deserve
7. Advertising – A smart paid media
strategy is essential to amplifying your
content.
8. Customer Service is Crucial – Answer
customer questions in a timely manner.
9. Be a Thought Leader - Share great
content that establishes you as an expert
10. Build Partnerships - Share content from
partners and mention them.
Tips #6-10

20. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
11. Consistent Brand Identity – Replicate
from Platform to Platform
12. Use a Conversational Tone to Engage
Readers - Explore your culture,
community and conversation
13. Define your engagement strategy – Use
the tactics you know that work to
establish a plan. Don’t just wing-it!
14. Prepare for Crisis - Something bad will
happen, have a process that the business
commits to.
15. Don’t feed the trolls! - People will always
be people!
Tips #11-15

21. How To Lead a Social Media Engagement Strategy
Now.. it’s YOUR TURN

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SOCIALMEDIA.ORG/SUMMIT2016ORLANDOJANUARY 25–27, 2016