how to create a comprehensive communications plan

Creating a 21st Century Communications Plan

Facilitators:

Andrew Krzmarzick, GovLoop Community Manager

Don Stanley, Owner of 3Rhino Media / Faculty, UW-Madison

Government 1.0

Town Halls Constituent Meetings

These are still important

Government 1.5

Streaming / Recorded Video

Updated Websites

Improved access for more people

Government 2.0

Mobile Apps

Engage them on-the-go

Social Media

"Our children should learn the general framework of their government…where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else's business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important…for the smooth running of the entire machine."

Our Time Together Today

•  Introductions •  21st Century Communications •  Approaches •  Examples •  Ideas

•  Your Challenges •  Your Solutions •  How-To Demos?

Introductions

•  Name

•  State

•  Title / Role

•  Biggest Challenges

The 7 P’s of 21st Century Communications

Purpose

People

Plan

Produce

Promote

Participate

Progress

Purpose

• What is your mission?

• What is your passion?

• What are your values?

• What impact stories inspire you?

Why do you do what

you do?

• Mission: “Connect government to improve government”

• Passion: “Helping people do their jobs better”

• Values: Hustle Smart, Creativity, Entrepreneurial, Service, Humility

•  Impact Stories: Next page

Purpose:

Recently, Facebook stripped our administrator rights from the City of Ankeny's Facebook page. With it, our custom URL was also removed. We can no longer access our Insight's page and we cannot post as the City of Ankeny on other Facebook pages.

Facebook says that we cannot identify ourselves as the City of Ankeny because it is their policy that users may not manage pages about towns, cities or states. Use of "City of" in our name is too generic.

Has anyone else run into this problem with Facebook?

37 comments è Facebook response

Purpose:

Impact Stories:

“My constituents' access to state government is often through me.

Certainly being a public policy maker is a big part of that.

But my role is also as an educator, to help my constituents

feel part of the democratic process.”

- Colorado Legislative Leader, 1996

Source: http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/trust/communication-between-representatives-and-their-co.aspx

Purpose:

People

• Who do you deliver value to?

• What value do you deliver to each?

• What internal resources do you have?

• What external resources can you leverage?

People:

Deliver value to:

Type of value: Content and Community

People:

Internal resources:

External resources:

People: Who Do You Serve?

People:

Internal resources: External resources:

Outcomes

Plan

What are your (really)?

Comments? Fans? Retweets? +1’s? Pageviews? Phone Calls?

Feedback? Volunteers? Actions? People Helped? Responses? Impact Stories?

or

Plan

Never mistake this… …for this!

(Your Purpose!)

Plan

Feedback? Volunteers? Actions? People Helped? Responses? Impact Stories?

Never start here. Start here!

Donations Volunteers Subscribers Evangelists Stories

(Your Purpose!)

Plan

For each specific outcome:

•  What do you need people to do?

•  Why are they going to do it?

•  How will you know when an outcome is achieved?

•  What points of engagement lead to the outcome?

What signify success for you?

Plan

How will you know when are achieved?

Plan

Where are your stakeholders? The ones you know? •  Your current websites

•  Lists: Events, email, snail mail, cell phone numbers

•  Memberships: associations, professional groups

•  Social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

The ones you need to meet? •  Identify primary keywords for search engines – how do you rank?

•  Search engines and alerts: news sites, forums, blogs, associations

•  Social media / websites: similar organizations, trending topics, etc.

Plan

Plan:

= Engage and empower 100,000 awesome people who want to make government better.

Where are they?

Plan:

Plan:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LAHouseofReps and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Louisiana-House-of-Representatives/266297327897?v=wall

Plan:

Produce

What content will you create / share?

•  Newsletters?

•  Interviews?

•  Publications?

•  Videos?

•  Photos?

•  Podcasts?

•  Announcements?

•  Stories?

•  Press Releases?

•  Resources?

•  Stats/Data?

•  Opinions?

Produce | Reproduce | Repurpose (Yours and Others!*)

* With attribution, of course

Produce

Who is going to create / share it?

Staff?

•  Senior Leader(s)?

•  Communications?

•  Frontline?

•  Interns?

Consultants?

•  PR Firms?

•  Media?

Volunteers?

•  Constituents?

•  Students?

•  Fans?

•  Followers?

Produce

What makes for great content (online)?

Credit: http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/networked-ngo-in-india-day-2

1.   Variety

2.   Short

3.   Images

4.   Action

5.   Milestones

6.   Topic du Jour

Produce:

What makes for great content (online)?

Title

Image

Format

Produce:

12 minutes

Side Note: Go Big Red!

Produce:

Produce:

Side Note: Go Cyclones!

Produce:

Promote

Where are you going to share it?

•  Traditional

▫  Website

▫  Newsletters

�  Email, PDF, Print

▫  Press Release

▫  Events

•  Social Media

▫  Facebook

▫  Twitter

▫  Google+

▫  LinkedIn

▫  Video Sharing

▫  Niche Networks

•  Mobile

▫  Text (SMS)

▫  Apps

Population: 140 million It would be bigger than Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan

If Twitter was a country

Population: 1 billion active users It would be the world’s 3rd largest country

Bigger than North and South America combined

If Facebook was a country

It Covers Continents It would be an empire: 2.9 Billion users

If Email Was a Country

Promote: eNewsletters 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Promote

When are you going to share it?

•  Day of Week

▫  Weekdays?

▫  Weekends?

•  Time of Day

▫  AM or PM?

▫  Breaks?

•  Target Dates

▫  Events?

▫  Milestones?

•  Frequency

▫  Daily (once or many times a day)?

▫  Weekly?

Promote:

GovLoop Schedule and Staffing for Social Promotion

Where: Newsletter Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+

When: Daily AM Ad Hoc Varies (Best = T, Th)

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = T, W)

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = M)

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = T, W)

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = ?)

Who: Rotate Staff / Fellows Rotate Fellows

What: Daily Themes Product Push Fun, Quotes Core

Content Discussions, Content

Discussions, Content

Promote:

1.   Calls to action are key •  People want to do something

•  Tell them what to do!

2.   Location, location, location •  Your website

•  Social media

How are you going to share it?

Being Fantastic on

1.   Human voice

2.   Effective use of photos

3.   Relevant, local information

4.   Diverse information

5.   Blend of fun and serious

6.   Frequent posting

7.   Open forum

Being Twemendous on

1.   Human voice

2.   Lots of @s

3.   Responsive

4.   Blend of fun and serious

5.   Timed posting

Promote:

Promote:

Promote:

Promote:

Promote:

Promote:

Promote:

Where are you going to engage?

•  Traditional

▫  Website

▫  Newsletters

�  Email, PDF, Print

▫  Press Release

▫  Events

•  Social Media

▫  Facebook

▫  Twitter

▫  Google+

▫  LinkedIn

▫  Video Sharing

▫  Niche Networks

•  Mobile

▫  Text (SMS)

▫  Apps

Participate

When are you going to engage?

•  Day of Week

▫  Weekdays?

▫  Weekends?

•  Time of Day

▫  AM or PM?

▫  Breaks?

•  Target Dates

▫  Events?

▫  Milestones?

•  Frequency

▫  Daily (once or many times a day)?

▫  Weekly?

Participate

Participate:

GovLoop Schedule and Staffing for Engagement

Where: Community Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+

When: Daily AM Ad Hoc Varies

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = T, W)

Ad Hoc Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = T, W)

Daily 8a, 12p, 4p (Best = ?)

Who: Staff / Fellows Rotate Fellows

What: Comments and Sharing Comment @ Replies

Comment, Share to GovLoop

Comment

Participate:

Participate:

Invited: 1,500 Going: 51 Maybe: 27 Total: ~5% Comments = 44 Participants = 15 Total = 1%

Progress

How are you doing? •  Statistics

▫  Opens/Clicks

▫  Views/Visits

▫  Likes/RTs

▫  Referral Sources

▫  Sign-Ups

▫  $$$

•  Stories

▫  Impact

▫  Change

▫  Actions

▫  Sharing 1. Test 2. Learn 3. Iterate

Focus on Actionable Information

Progress

How are you checking?

•  Google Analytics and Alerts

•  Trackur, Radian 6, Other?

•  Facebook Insights?

•  Bit.ly?

•  Google Alerts?

•  Hootsuite

How often?

•  Real-time

•  Daily

•  Weekly

•  Monthly

Progress

Progress

Where can we improve?

•  Mission focus?

•  Project Scope?

•  More / better outcomes?

•  Stakeholder engagement?

•  Engagement points?

•  Engagement vehicles?

•  Monitoring systems?

Progress

Testing to increase action likelihood: •  Recommend changes to landing pages and action funnels

•  Launch the test, wait, analyze

•  If it works, double down; If not, try again (or stop)

Feedback systems and methods: •  A-B element testing, funnel path, offers and incentives

•  Friends, co-workers, clients, partners

•  SurveyMonkey / SurveyGizmo

Progress

Building effective campaign pages: •  More bullseye: focus on the outcome

•  An effective page: has what I need, tells me how to get it / why it’s good, gives me a reason to take action, feels safe and easy

•  Headlines: speak to user’s primary interest

•  Calls to action: roughly same place on every page

•  Contact information: should be on every page

•  Contextual calls to action: top and bottom of every page

•  ALWAYS BE IMPROVING!

Campaigns

1.   Set short deadlines - adds a sense of urgency;

2.  Create an ongoing sense of community.

3.  Humanize: let constituents see other people they are helping and the progress that is being made.

4.  Maintain a sense of humor.

5.   Measure engagement as well as your ultimate goal.

Campaigns

1.   Win-Win: Members for us, $$ for them

2. Friendly Competition: Mobilize their supporters to get most clicks

3. Short Deadline: only 10 days

4. Made it Easy: Special blog posts, custom URLs http://bit.ly/govloopgivesygl http://bit.ly/govloopgivestofew

Progress:

Source: http://www.devex.com/en/news/add-value-listen-inspire-samaritan-s-purse-social/76145

Community: Monthly reports along a spectrum: •  Discover (New Visits) •  Consume (Return Visitors) •  Search (New Members) •  Commit (Top Pages) •  Participate (Comments, etc.) •  Contribute (Blogs, Forums) •  Lead (Profile Views) •  Evangelize (Referral Source)

Newsletter: Weekly Reports on Opens (Subject Line)

and Clicks (Content / Placement) Social Media: Weekly Reports on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+

The 7 P’s of World-Changing, Digital Engagement

Purpose

People

Plan

Produce

Promote

Participate

Progress

Now it’s your turn!

Activity: Step 1 (5-10 minutes)

Now it’s your turn!

At your tables or in groups of 3-4:

•  Identify a common communications challenge

•  Turn it into a scenario:

There is new legislation on education reform being proposed and we have to educate the public about it. Not only that, we want to get their opinions in a constructive way, avoiding partisan language.

Activity: Step 2 (15 minutes)

Now it’s your turn!

Give your scenario to another table / group:

•  Use the handout to walk through the 21st Century Communications Approach.

•  Fill it out as completely as you can

•  Prepare a briefing to the large group

Activity: Step 3

Now it’s your turn!

•  Report Out

•  Large Group Feedback and Ideas

What Other Challenges Do You Face?

Any Tools That You’d Like to Learn?

Online community of government colleagues

helping each other to do their jobs better.

Mission: “Connect government to improve government”

~60,000 Members

“Knowledge Network”

1. Learn from each other online.

“Knowledge Network”

2. Learn from each other in person.

“Knowledge Network”

3. Learn from each other one-on-one.

“Knowledge Network”

4. Learn from experts via webinars.

“Knowledge Network”

5. Learn from experts via podcasts.

“Knowledge Network”

6. Learn from experts / each other via guides.

Partners With:

“Knowledge Network”

7. Teach citizens that government works.

Andrew@GovLoop.com LinkedIn.com/in/AndrewKrzmarzick 202-352-1806 @krazykriz