It's time for your last ever social media spring-clean ??

Get ready to put on your metaphorical social media marigolds.

Knowing what social media accounts you have, what they’re being used for, and who is managing them. It sounds like a ‘low bar’ for governance, right? However, many large enterprises would struggle to answer these simple questions.

It’s time to tidy things up once and for all, and prevent the problem returning.

Due to their size and nature, large organisations tend to have many social media accounts. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but all too often there’s a hotch-potch (technical term ??) of global, local market, service/product line, customer service (and other) accounts.

Some are active, some are dormant, some use an old logo, some are verified, most aren’t.

When I’m?starting work with a new client,?my first step is always to get a sense of their social media footprint. Much is revealed by simply looking at the structure of their accounts – including the ones they aren't aware of!

Why are we here?

Firstly, there are no real barriers to creating an account if you don’t have any governance in place. Of course, in 99.9% of cases these accounts were set up with the best of intentions, but often:

• A single person was the driving force, and they’ve left
• A new account was created to support a short-term objective/ campaign with no longer-range view of purpose, or budget to support
• Each part of the business wants representation (even if that doesn’t reflect how customers see the business)

So why haven’t they already been cleaned up?

• The power of ‘legacy’ accounts is strong… "that’s the way it’s always been"
• There’s a sense of sunk cost, especially in respect of building up followers
• There’s no social media governance role in place; social media managers are busy churning through the day-to-day
• It just feels like a lot of work

Does it really matter?

If these accounts have been hanging around without a problem, is this really a priority? I’d argue a strong?yes:

• You strive to present your organisation in a consistent, high quality manner elsewhere… so why should social media be any different?
• Every extra account requires some form of comment moderation and management
• Are you sure it’s not causing a problem… there aren’t any questions sitting there unanswered for 18 months?
• These days, there’s more scrutiny on having verified profiles
• People are increasingly using social media in more of a search capacity, which means your accounts might pop up in these results

Best practice

At the other end of the spectrum, organisations with best practice governance have a strong hand on their social media account tiller. They have set:

• A clear architecture and structure for social media accounts
• Procedures for launching new accounts
• Tight processes for removing anything that doesn’t comply
• A social media management platform to oversee everything in one place
• People responsible for the above

Time to spring-clean and make it happen?

This isn’t an overnight process. It will take time to fathom out exactly what is where, and more time to find and engage the relevant people.

But a simple list is all you need to get started on your journey to social media account order!?

• Every account on every social media platform
• The purpose and target audience(s) of each account
• The owner
• The number of posts in the last 3 months
• The use of paid ads in the last 3 months

With this information in hand you’re set to properly assess what you have, what you need and what to dispense with.

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Message me if you'd like to talk about your social media account architecture. Marigolds are at the ready.