2009 was a good year for social media. Facebook and Twitter consistently hit the main-stream news channels – a sign that even late adopters are dipping their toe. One forth of the pageviews on the Web were Facebook pages. Twitter was a major source of traffic for millions of websites, big and small. In short, 2009 go down in history as the year that the web got noticed.

The evolving real-time beast

Within the past year web technology also rapidly evolved into a beast armed two new abilities:

1. Give people more real time web – like now.
2. Give people a greater ability to utilize geo-location – like here.

In 2009 we experimented. We responded ad hoc. But with this exponential leap in data (real time search and geo-location),  2010 will be the year we optimize how we manage (and measure) social media.

Your non-profit probably has a couple of marketing folks who deal with everything social media. They respond to YouTube comments, publish and manage a blog, and spread greater awareness of the cause on Twitter and Facebook. This approach will not scale in 2010.

Your new job title

2010 will be the year that your job title changes from “Marketing Manager” to “Traffic Controller”. Scale issues, along with a greater need specialize how social media is used for business (event promotion, donor relationship management, customer service, brand awareness), means you that will need pass greater decision making to your Development Director or, let’s say, a Field Worker.

In other words, the “ownership” of social media will become decentralized. Maybe even to the point where each employee becomes a self-sustaining spokesperson. When that happens, ad hoc will not cut it.

So how will you make sure that each person in your organization knows how to respond in a way that embodies the entire organization? In a voice that conveys your mission and values? Jason Baer suggests you “codify rules of engagement for who and how and why and whether the brand responds to or interacts with consumers”.

What’s in the handbook?

I envision a handbook that’s very positive, very short and very user-friendly. Almost like a manifesto for the web. Like this:

1. Chapter one – Why we need each other (Answers why they’re getting a handbook)
2. Chapter two – Why we trust you (Reminds them they are valued)
3. Chapter three – How we use social media (Shows them the game)
4. Chapter four – How we’ll change the world (Makes them feel part of something bigger)

What would you include?