Royal Flying Doctor Service Digital Help Desk

All social media posts are to be made through Agora Pulse for the national social media channels, with the exception of geo-targeted posts for Facebook/LinkedIn, and for Instagram stories/carousels.    

Best practice for social media messaging and communications is at least 1 week scheduled in advance  – and ideally we work towards having the majority of posts scheduled for a month in advance (bar Twitter). 

We are not in the business of posting on social just to “get something out”.  Social channels are specifically for engaging with our communities and audiences, not shouting out to the general populace. Any post on national social channels should have an express purpose and should align with brand and business need.

All posts to national social channels will be reviewed by Federation Office prior to posting. This is automatically set-up by Agora Pulse and is not done to cause slows. Lana Mitchell at Federation Office will be reviewing all scheduled posts minimally twice a day (morning and night). Twitter posts will go out instantly, but all other channels must have posts reviewed. Please provide at least 24 hours notice for a scheduled post to ensure there are no slows or missed posts. Harassing last minute phone calls and texts to Federation Office to review last minute posts won’t be accepted.

Federation Office reserves the right to change wording, timing, tags, labels and messaging of any social posts on national channels, to align with national messaging, with ongoing brand strategy, and to align with other posts from other RFDS companies.

On all national social channels, except Twitter, there is a maximum of 2 national posts per day and 1 geo-targeted post per day. This is a cumulative tally of all RFDS posts through a specific channel.

Geo-Targeting:

Facebook geo-targeting is not yet available through Agora Pulse and the use of geo-targeting in recent months through the native FB channel has not been workable as posts are limited or expanded in reach by Facebook algorithms, regardless of geo-coding.  This means that state boundaries are not black and white and geo-targeting has become increasingly grey in terms of which audiences are receiving what posts.

The solution for this is three-fold:

1. Facebook Groups have been approved for Sections/Operations to build a local, state-based audience that they can engage with as much or as little as they wish – particularly for fundraising, local events and clinical need. This bypasses any need for geo-targeting. It will take time to build these groups up in numbers, but with a concerted marketing effort these groups will become vital to digital activities for each Section/Operation.
2. National Facebook posts are generally going to be encouraged to be national even if they have state-specific content – so they get a national reach and communicate a national brand message, while giving detail of a state-specific event. As an example  photos of a local field day where training was done on snake bite will have national wording giving details of where the field event was held, what was done, and how RFDS field days are held across the RFDS service footprint.
3. One geo-targeted post can be made on FB daily (across all RFDS companies). You may make this post through the Facebook or LinkedIn platform – but in advance please post a simple placeholder in Agora Pulse and assign to “Placeholder” (instead of Lana Mitchell) and this will have it show up on the scheduling calendar for all to see and plan around.

All advertising and fundraising must be geo-targeted to the service area of the Section/Operation. Ideally fundraising is done through Ads Manager to select audiences in the needed state/s.  It does not belong on national social media channels as a direct ask.

Queue: 

At this time please do not use the queue function of Agora Pulse and instead schedule your posts, remembering that there are a maximum of 2 national posts and 1 geotargeted post, per channel, per day. If there are already scheduled posts, please schedule for coming days so as to not overwhelm our national audiences with too many posts in a given day.

Inbox / Listening:

Agora Pulse provides tools for managing the national social media account Inboxes. Any incoming messaging that are Section/Ops-specific will be assigned to that Section/Ops digital team for answering and follow up. Federation Office will be monitoring the Inbox daily and responding to any general enquiries while assigning any specific enquiries to the needed Section/Ops.  The platform allows us to ensure the Inbox is regularly cleared to zero across all channels.  With specific enquiries assigned to Sections/Ops, please respond to the public through Agora Pulse (not in email back to Federation Office).

Sections/Ops are responsible for following up with all engagement in their Facebook group. Agora Pulse enables us to schedule outgoing posts to FB groups but there is no API from Facebook at this point to respond to comments and responses without doing this directly through the Facebook Group page, which each Section/Operation is expected to do. Work arounds will be coordinated with each Section/Operation individually. 

Labels:

The use of labels within Agora Pulse is vital as it enables us to best use the reporting and analytics of the platform. We can use these labels to see who is best engaging, which RFDS company is getting best results on social, and what audiences/messaging is getting the best results. There are three types of labels:

1. Publishing Labels – used to designate what RFDS company the post has emanated from, and what brand content pillar it falls under.
2. Inbox/Listening Labels – used to label the conversations, comments, mentions we are receiving. 
3. Audience Labels – these are for categorising the people who are engaged with us on social media.

It is up to every user to ensure that their posts are adequately labelled before they are submitted. To prevent duplication and confusion the Federation Office has created the basic labelling system for use. Select as many as apply for an outgoing post. Users are encouraged to use labels when using the listening tools and Inbox of Agora Pulse.

Live Videos 

Live videos cannot be done through AgoraPulse. If you want to do a live video you must request permission from Federation Office in advance and include a placeholder in the AgoraPulse calendar. 

Time Zones

The Content schedule is managed in Eastern Standard Time. You can view the calendar in your local time zone if you want to see the local time your post will go out.