There was plenty of buzz around the Social Media Command Center (SMCC), powered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud, during Dreamforce 2012, with one of the most commonly-asked questions being, “How can we get one of these for ourselves?” Having had first-hand experience working in the SMCC, I'll share how you can create one of your own.

First, consider the strategy behind our Social Media Command Center, including how we managed the buzz, engaged enthusiastically, and provided helpful, relevant information in real-time, around a conference with 90,000 registered attendees.

How it worked:

• Instituted a tiered social mention response process (more on that below)
• Had presenters share how the command center works every 15 minutes throughout the event
• 100 employees participated in the process
• Salesforce Social Hub instantly categorized and routed posts for faster resolution
• Employees routed social mentions and engagement was handled by our community team
• Played up proactive community building (refresh packs, gift cards, “good luck during your session” tweets)

How it succeeded:

• Created a huge buzz around Salesforce and the Marketing Cloud suite. We gathered over 700 leads
• The Command Center concept was easily understood and resulted in 800+ social mentions of the SMCC
• Engaged and responded to over 1,300 social mentions
• Managed (sorted, routed, closed) over 160,000 social mentions

Using Salesforce Marketing Cloud for monitoring and engaging, we looked at the data around Dreamforce (#DF12) in real-time, pulling in insights, sharing metrics and demographics and publishing our most popular tweets. Additionally, we displayed customized Twitter and Chatter towers allowing attendees to see their conversations in real-time. Whether you're a large corporation or a small business, you can have a command center.

This is completely scalable to your needs. Here's how:

1. Use a social media monitoring platform to pull in relevant keywords around your brand: Think about event hashtags, speakers, participants and influencers.

2. Determine the 3 Ws: Who will be responding on behalf of your brand? What hours will you be engaging? Where will your command center be located? It’s important to create a schedule to ensure your hours of engagement are properly covered.

3. Categorize posts: Be prepared to categorize content into tiers such as Tier One for items requiring an immediate response, Tier Two for mentions that need a response but aren’t urgent in nature, and Tier Three for items that need no reply, and then route them accordingly.

4. Create a playbook: This is a handy, quick-reference guide that details the processes around your command center for your team.

5. Be flexible: Be prepared to toss it all out at a moment's notice and change things up to adapt to any situation that may arise.

6. Have fun: Most importantly, have a good time engaging with your community. If you’re enjoying yourself,  it will certainly come through in your engagement, and provide a more pleasant experience for your community.

This post was coauthored by Trish Forant.


Check out the features available to Command Center customers in this video, starting with how to pinpoint where conversations are happening on a regional map. And for a look at creating your own social media engagement playbook, be sure to download our ebook, What the Heck is a Social Media Playbook, and Why do I Need One?