Getting to know your peeps on social media

Hey there,

So this is a new year's resolution I would put out there for all arts organizations, this year. Get to know your people better on social media, not just your audience, donors, etc., but even closer to your work: your artists, staff, and board.

Sure, you probably know what social media platforms some of them use anecdotally,  but I mean intentionally and comprehensively. And it doesn't have to be extensive. I used Google Drive's Form option to set one up for my own personal use.

In my work as Social Media Coordinator at Dance Place, we primarily use Facebook and Twitter. We've dabbled a bit with Google+, but the relevant community isn't at critical mass yet for spending too much time there.

So with Facebook if they respond to the first question saying they're on it, I ask what their URL is, what the privacy setting is of their profile, if they use Facebook to check-in, and how active they are on it, using a 7 point scale, from 1 being "not that much" to 7 being "very much".

With Twitter, if they're on it, I ask for their handle, if their tweets are protected, and, again, how would they rate how active they are on a 7 point scale, like above.

I have the lead in question to each send them to a different page, depending on whether they answered yes or no. And after Twitter, I just have a final page of inquiries, with a number of other social media platforms listed which a survey participant can check off, and then a large text box for them to include any of their profiles' handles or urls.

Part of this effort, getting to re-know those in an organization in terms of how much or how little they have a presence on social media, is because I've often found that social media managers concentrate so much on connecting externally first, myself included. But within organizations I've been involved with on multiple levels, staff, member, board, etc., we often come back to the fact that we don't only need buy-in, internally, but we need participation from as many people directly involved in the work of the organization as we can.

And knowing exactly where and how active people are, regarding social media, can add a lot of context to policy, strategy, and implementation, as well as provide insight in terms of mobilizing your existing social resources to help actualize it all.

Want to check out my survey, maybe even fill it out? I only ask that you do so once, and do so truthfully.

You can find it here. Are you with an organization that has already done this? Please leave a comment about how it's affected and informed your social media work, if at all. If your organization hasn't, do you think this might be something you'll want to do?

Let me know what you think,

JR