The Importance of Being Social: How Crown Corporations Can Create a

Social Media Strategy to Fit Their Needs

Karin Basaraba Insurance Corporation of British Columbia

Agenda • Social media & corporate strategy • Channel overview • Rules of engagement • How we use Twitter • Response & approvals process • Privacy • Measurement • Examples • Employee guidelines

Our Goal & Objectives

• GOAL: To improve our customers’ experiences and perceptions of us.

• OBJECTIVES: – Improve customer

perception – Improve employee

experience – Maintain financial stability

Social Media & Our Strategy Improve customer

perception

•Improved customer relations

•Speaks to customers in the language they prefer

•Improved awareness of our positive attributes

•Enhanced perception of value

•Speaks to customers in the medium they prefer

•Increased trust through transparency

•Demonstrate willingness to listen and act on complaints and suggestions

Improve employee experience

•Ability to provide positive feedback to staff through iCount cards

•Ability for staff to connect with ICBC in social media

•Guidelines to empowering staff to join conversations in social media as an ICBC staff member

Maintain financial stability

•Reach more people with less effort

•Fewer customer complaints

•Cost effective resolution of customer complaints

•Identify issues with processes

The BIG Three – pros & cons

• Facebook – PROS – Most popular platform – Great for people who already like you – Good for creating conversations – Contests, photos, videos – Easy to share content

• Facebook – CONS – Only engagement is on page – Can be difficult to keep up with

volume

The BIG Three – pros & cons

• Twitter – PROS – Great way to monitor what’s being said – Short, quick messages – Directly connect with customers

• Twitter – CONS – Can be hard to be heard above

the noise – Must be timely – Need to update frequently

The BIG Three – pros & cons

• YouTube – PROS – Second largest search engine in the world – Unique way to get message out – Focus on casual & professional styles – Easy to embed in website

• YouTube – CONS – Videos don’t need to be

professional, but do require a bit of effort

Why Twitter?

• Easy way to test the waters • Free! • Easy to manage & monitor • Easily managed by one person • Set goals & objectives • Low risk • Relation to corporate

strategy

Rules of engagement

• Quick response time • Following followers • Human face • Casual language • Scheduling

What we talk about • Proactive tweets • Solving customer issues • Live tweeting • Crisis communications • Staff compliments

How we do it • Find info that is already on our

website • Use the same approved

messaging as media relations – only shorter

• Go to the subject matter experts • Give customers a real person to

talk to, if need be

Privacy!

• Tweeting personal information

• Terms & conditions • Monitoring • Moving forward

Measurement

• Objective was to increase all measures by 50% – exceeded all – Followers | Objective: 486 | Result: 1,083 |

Current: 3,000+ – Click-throughs | Objective: 336 | Result: 364 – @Replies Of Us | Objective: 12 | Result: 28 – @Replies By Us | Objective: 20 | Result: 36 – Re-tweets | Objective: 14 | Result: 28

Some great examples…

• eighthree: Fuck you ICBC. Your system failed. I showed you my confirmation number and all but you don't even have it in your system.

• icbc: @eighthree Hi Timothy, Sorry to hear you're having difficulty with our system. Which system is it? Maybe I can help sort it out.

The result…

• eighthree: @icbc Woo thanks for that @icbc ;) ~ You rock! Appreciate it a lot!

• icbc: @eighthree Phew! Glad we were able to help!

• eighthree: people that handle @icbc 's twitter GMH.

With the media...

• news1130radio: Despite making 563 million last year, ICBC isn't commenting on whether insurance rates will be lowered for drivers.

• icbc: @news1130radio We did let u know that it's 2 early 2 tell if we can reduce rates. We should have a better idea within the coming mnths :)

The result…

• news1130radio: ICBC profits up in 2009: Strong investment portfolio returns, and lower than expected insurance claims have h... http://bit.ly/bz2KeI #1130

• news1130radio: @icbc Thank you very much, that is what we have reported :)

Going forward

• Social Media Strategy • Beef up existing channels • Facebook page • Corporate blog • Policies & guidelines

• Media Relations • Responding to online news stories • Connecting with reporters directly • Fasting source of breaking news • Enhanced online newsroom

How employees fit in

• Questions added to the Code of Ethics • Employee Social Media Guidelines

– Keep ICBC info confidential – Make it clear you’re speaking for

yourself – Be careful when mixing professional

& personal lives – If you wouldn’t say it at a BBQ,

don’t say it online

Karin’s Top 5 6 Take Aways

• Start small • Be strategic • Measure, measure,

measure • Be true to the

channel • Don’t be a narcissist • Be human

Email: Karin.Basaraba@icbc.com Twitter: @icbc | @K_Bas LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/karinbasaraba