Hello to all: My name is Brian Proffitt, a social media and community analyst with Red Hat. The main focus of my work is to assist free and open source software projects with which Red Hat is involved to improve their social media planning and execution. CentOS has a broad and diverse social media implementation, which I believe could be improved using a coordinated set of guidelines regarding content discovery and delivery, as well as engagement with the different audiences found in various social media channels. To that end, I would like to begin a conversation here with interested members of the CentOS community and its Moderators Group to see what resources are needed, what improvements could be made, and how CentOS' social media could become an even more powerful tool within and without the CentOS community. The information attached is a first-step proposal to get such a conversation started. I look forward to the discussion! Peace, Brian Proffitt -- Principal Community Analyst Open Source and Standards bkp at redhat.com +1.574.383.9BKP -------------- next part -------------- # Introduction Information and communication in the open source ecosystem has become increasingly more social, if such a thing is possible. It is increasingly important use social media tools to connect to users, contributors, and allies within the broad open source community. Understanding who is reaching out to CentOS is the first step in building a social media strategy. Is it users? Developers? How do they interact with our online presence? How is the CentOS brand perceived and discussed? As CentOS listens, it will also be in the process of sharing its own voice with the community, building conversations and content that can keep people engaged and listening to what CentOS has to say. This will strengthening existing relationships or building new ones. This social media plan is meant to codify the plan to converse and listen to the people CentOS wants to reach. Like any relationship, it will take time to build the ties CentOS want to achieve. But with careful planning and execution, positive and measurable results will be achieved. # Strategy The social media strategy for CentOS should be two-fold. First, a concerted effort to engage people on existing social media channels should be undertaken. This has the immediate benefit of raising the chatter about CentOS on those social media channels and increasing our exposure overall. Second, content should be produced on a CentOS Community site that will be shared and commented upon within the various social media channels with the ultimate intention of driving traffic back to the CentOS Community site. This site could be seven.centos.org or a revamped centos.org site, as the community decides. Getting traffic to a CentOS Community site enables CentOS to better measure the impact its projects and content pages have on its audience and affords CentOS prime opportunities to directly connect with visitors. These direct connections could better direct existing users to help and engage potential new users. # Goals and Objectives The goals and objectives of the CentOS social media plan will be: * Increase awareness of CentOS (the project and the distribution) * Establish members of the CentOS as thought leaders in their respective fields * Build rapport and interest among members of the media * Drive traffic to a CentOS Community site to increase awareness of how all projects work together # Tactics To deliver on these goals and objectives, a broad approach to social media and content generation will be undertaken, through a variety of outlets. ## Channels Channels should be managed by various members of the CentOS community, using the guidelines outlined here. * Community Site. The main CentOS Community site will be a major destination for anyone interested in CentOS. Besides a blog, it will feature a CentOS events calendar and perhaps metrics from the CentOS community. * Twitter. The microblogging site will be a core component of CentOS' social media outreach. The audience will be the most varied, and because of the responsiveness of the messaging platform, a lot of conversations can be held on Twitter. * Facebook. Though it waned in popularity as a social media outlet for technologists, increasing effort should be expended on Facebook outreach. The audience is mostly community members and users. * Google+. This channel is still growing and currently its future is uncertain. But, it has the potential of being a great touch point to the technically minded and development audiences. Should G+ continue, it could become a general-audience platform that will rival or surpass Facebook in importance. Also of note, it is planned that we will make further use of the Google Hangouts feature to generate video content that will be cross-posted to the YouTube channel. * YouTube. We are currently under-utilizing this channel, and it is hoped the injection of new original content will help get more traffic on this channel. * Podcasts. CentOS should produce (at least) a monthly series of podcasts related to the areas of interest for CentOS. ## Content Content will include original content, to be hosted on the Community site, and will include blogs, technical articles, and success stories, as well as multimedia content. Links back to this content will be posted on the appropriate social media channels. Other content of interest will include original content from community members' blogs; notification and advertisement of global CentOS events; and updates on special projects (i.e., Google Summer of Code, Outreachy). ## Metrics To measure the impact of the success of this plan, a variety of metrics will be measured to determine the quantity and the quality of communications within the channels. A monthly report will be delivered to the CentOS community that will identify where things are working and where they are not. As the plan matures, areas of needed concentration will be identified in the report, with ideas of how to improve. Starred (*) metrics are better indicators of quality, as they signify interactivity with listeners, a highly desired goal. Blogs Cadence Visits Unique visitors (*)Comments (*)Jumps to CentOS-related pages Incoming Traffic from Social (Twitter, Google+, Facebook) Twitter Tweets: Aggregated Tweets: Original Followers (*)Mentions (*)Retweets (*)Retweets with comments Facebook Likes (*)Shares (*)Comments (*)Shares with Comments Google+ (Pages/Communities) Circled [Pages] Participants [Communities] +1s (*)Comments (*)Shared (*)Hangouts YouTube Video Posting Cadence Views (*)Comments