When contributing, consider the following:

• Does the contribution meet your goals, or is a response appropriate? See your plan or this response assessment flowchart.
• Be nice. Ensure comments are respectful and useful. If you are expressing personal opinion or are not the subject matter expert, don’t post on behalf of your employer.
• Make sure no protected or personal information is included. If you use photo(s), make sure you have necessary releases.
• Ensure your posts are accurate. If you can’t prove it, don’t say it. Double check facts, dates, times, links, attributions and releases.
• Always pause and think before posting. If the issue has potential to escalate or you have any doubt about what you are about to post, talk to your supervisor.
• Paste into a word processing application and proofread.
• Monitor contribution or set appropriate notifications.

While the opportunity exists to build awareness, strengthen relationships, improve services and more, building a social media presence takes time and effort. With simple planning, you can determine what, if any, social media site(s) fit your business need.

Plan

Consider the following when planning and reviewing your social media presence:

• What are the goals of the page/feed/blog?  Why do this?
• Who are your audiences? Who will choose to consume your content?
• What value are you providing? Why would someone subscribe/follow/like?
• Who will manage the presence, and what is the review process?
• How will you reach and engage your targeted audiences? Resources?
• What are the norms for each channel (tone, frequency, etc.)? Check comparators.
• How will you measure results?
• How will you evaluate and adapt?

I had the chance to see Carolyn Porco recently. Not only was she fantastic, but I had the chance to look at some amazing pictures from the Cassini mission. She distributes the images through CICLOPS.

It’s a challenge to precisely and compellingly compress complexity, but I enjoyed writing this description.

Cassini images trace coastal shores along Titan’s liquid hydrocarbon seas; others depict an icy plume erupting from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. The mission’s visually stunning images and crucial data not only give scientists perspective into the nature of the planetary system, they demonstrate that conditions for life may be more abundant than once believed.