Leveraging a Contact Center for Facebook Community Management

Lakshmi Grama, M.A., M.L.SSenior Digital Content Strategist

Deborah Pearson, MPHPublic Health AdvisorNational Cancer Institute

Outline

• NCI’s Social media strategy• How Facebook fits in• Challenges of community

management• Leveraging NCI’s Cancer

Information Service in support of community management

National Cancer Institute

• Part of the National Institutes of Health

• Nation’s premier cancer research agency

• Legislative mandate to communicate the results of research

NCI’s Communications Strategy

• Reach the cancer community wherever they are, via the channels that they choose, with information that is reliable, accurate, and appropriate– Web– Facebook– Twitter– YouTube– LinkedIn

Goals for NCI’s Engagement with the Facebook Community

• Reach out to those who may want to know about how cancer research is progressing

• Support patients, family members, caregivers who may have questions about different aspects of cancer

• Enhance public trust in the science that we fund and support

Challenges in Facebook Community Management

• Personal questions about cancer and its treatment – privacy issues

• Activists who may “hijack” the conversation

• People selling “cures”• Timeliness of response• Resources required to do this

NCI’s Cancer Information Service1-800-4-CANCER

Our Community Management Playbook

• Post messages/content that is timely, educational, helpful

• Have a clear comment policy• Monitor posts carefully• Be responsive• Allow people to express their opinions

even if they are critical of us and our research

• Weigh in with evidence-based information even on controversial issues but don’t carry on a dialog that will go nowhere

Question about HPV Vaccines

Care for a Child with Cancer

Commemorating Health Observances

Questions About Funding

Challenging Issues

• Dr. Burzynski video campaign

• XMRV study

Antineoplastons and Dr. Burzynski

Some Metrics

• 8,100 Friends/Fans for English and Spanish pages combined

• For English, 60% are from the US • For Spanish, majority are from

outside the US• More clicks than likes, fewer

comments• Majority of referrals from social

media sites to Web site are from Facebook

Feedback that Makes our Day

In Spanish As Well

Thank you

Lakshmi Gramalgrama@mail.nih.gov

http://www.linkedin.com/in/lgrama

Deborah Pearsondeborah.pearson@nih.gov

http://www.linkedin.com/in/debpearsonmph