Motivating Your Team

Social media teams are particularly prone to burnout, especially during exciting online events or during stressful, such as when one of your monitoring tools just changed how it works. Keep in mind that you need to take every opportunity to reinforce a sense of camaraderie and purpose within the team. That’s why goals are important. These people aren’t just babysitting a brand online. They’re contributing to something larger than themselves that improves your world in some way.

Defining guidelines for behavior

You may want to reach out to the PR department for more help in communicating what kinds of messages are okay (and not so okay) in keeping with your brand. I tell you more about working with your PR department (if you have one) in Chapter 4. If you are part of a smaller organization, please consider the following:

People have a tendency to say and do things online that they would never say or do in person. Your team needs to be aware of this, and understand that rude language, harsh remarks, angry criticisms, or even threats usually aren’t personal and shouldn’t be taken that way.

Some social media hangouts, blogs, and forums foster a “keeping it real” sort of tone that can quickly degrade into just being rude in the name of “authenticity.” Don’t be snowed or intimidated. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you may just be dealing with somebody who’s abusing her relative anonymity online to be abusive.

Have no fear. I show you strategies to deal with people who are being rude in Chapters 14 and 15.

Reinforcing a culture of trust

Fostering a culture based on earning and maintaining trust among your social media team members makes your work much easier. Listening to people over a variety of social networks, non-stop via monitoring platforms, and then responding to their seemingly endless questions and comments can be pretty draining. A team that believes you are trustworthy and that they can depend on each other is much better able to deal with situations as they arise. As you create the environment they will be working in, ask yourself the following questions to see if you’re on the right track:

Are your team members set up to feel like winners or losers at the end of the day? Setting clear, achievable goals (such as customer satisfaction expressed) helps with this and gives you a frame of reference for evaluating their performance.

Can your team members express their doubts and concerns without fear of reprisal? If not, collaborate on an appropriate way for them to be able to do this comfortably.

Do your members fear failure or are they confident that if they don’t have the right response that there’s willing backup?

Training your team

In today’s constantly evolving, continuously growing world of online interaction, you can never have too much training for your team.

It’s essential for you to provide them with opportunities for ongoing technical training. Many companies provide instruction free of charge, so there’s no reason not to embrace the process. Do your best to keep your team on top of

Aggregators: Aggregator applications learn what people are saying about you, your brand, and your industry online because they pull together streams of updates from major social networks into one service. I tell you more about these in Chapters 5 and 7.

The latest Facebook tips: Facebook changes almost constantly. Sometimes those changes will dramatically affect engagement and your organization’s goal setting. Keeping your people informed is crucial to their sense of well-being and success.

Trending topics on Twitter that affect your brand: It’s a great idea to teach your team how to check out trends and use the attention being given to that topic to educate your potential (and existing) customers about your brand (see Chapter 5 for more detail).

YouTube: There is an entirely different art and science to working with YouTube because its search algorithms are very different from Google’s. For example, you can educate your team on how to search YouTube more effectively and fill in video descriptions more effectively.

Memes: Memes are basically private jokes passed around for all to see on the Internet. They are often funny, and used judiciously can be useful in promoting awareness for your brand.

Keeping your team fresh and savvy with ongoing social media training pays off big-time for you and your brand. Here are some things you can do:

Check up on their activity periodically

Find things to sincerely praise

Suggest clear alternative tactics for weak spots

Stay positive so you build loyalty for when it really counts, such as during a crisis when people need to pitch in some overtime to meet the need:

• Keeping it pleasantly objective

• Retaining their enthusiastic support

• Focusing on what should be done, versus making it a personality issue