The Internet is the new leading medium. 95 percent of Germans use the Net regularly. This means it has overtaken free-to-air television (86 percent). So there is no way around digital communication. But how are companies and institutions supposed to navigate the exploding amount of content? The inundation with news and information offers everywhere leads to self-seeking isolation. Most users hang out on Threema or in WhatsApp groups, exchanging photos, appointments, thoughts and links there. On Facebook and Twitter, active usage is declining.
Online, the target groups are increasingly difficult to reach. It’s not that they stroll less in the digital world, consume less information, or communicate less. They are becoming more selective and no longer let every offer of information get to them. The hurdle for communicators has thus become higher – when a good portion of companies have not yet really arrived in the virtual world. The situation is reminiscent of the rabbit and hedgehog game. The hare makes every effort to catch up; the hedgehog is already there. This race cannot be won with pure actionism alone, without a strategic approach to social media communication. Companies with a well-defined social media strategy achieve their goals online much more frequently than those that operate without a strategy. However, it is not enough to formulate a strategy “from the gut”.
This book highlights the 12 success factors for social media strategies, providing communicators with useful guidance for their own strategy development. Two best practice articles from VORDENKERN in social media strategy – Deutsche Bahn and Microsoft – offer helpful insights into practice.

About the author and other contributors

Jörg Forthmann is a graduate industrial engineer and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist for the Hamburger Abendblatt and as a PR consultant in Hamburg, among others. He then worked in the press and public relations department of Nestlé Deutschland AG. His scope of work included corporate, brand and crisis communications. From 1999 to 2002, he was head of corporate communications at Mummert Consulting AG. In 2003, Jörg Forthmann founded Mummert Communications, now Faktenkontor, together with Dr. Roland Heintze. At Faktenkontor, Jörg Forthmann is responsible for analysis and in-house editing. He is also Faktenkontor’s expert for crisis PR. Jörg Forthmann sees the integration of a business perspective into press and public relations work as particularly important for modern, successful PR. Because PR can influence more than only the picture of a company in the reporting by integration of economic bases a professional PR work can promote also directly the selling, win new customers and increase so the paragraph of products and services purposefully and comprehensibly. Such a business approach, including a well-founded performance review, also strengthens PR departments within their own companies, because those who can prove that and how much they contribute to the operating result have a much stronger position in budget negotiations.

Dr. Roland Heintze is a political scientist and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. He studied political science and history at the University of Hamburg until 1999, when he received a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to support young journalists. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist, among others for Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag and Financial Times Deutschland. He worked as a freelance PR consultant for TOPAdvice Heintze & Partner before becoming press spokesman for Mummert Consulting AG from 2000 to 2003. In 2003, Dr. Roland Heintze founded today’s Faktenkontor together with Jörg Forthmann. At Faktenkontor, Dr. Roland Heintze is now responsible for strategy, sales and consulting. Faktenkontor consultants develop customized communication concepts for clients and implement them unerringly in campaigns. Dr. Roland Heintze sees the ability to understand not only the goals of one’s own company but also the view and working methods of editorial offices and journalists and to serve them with the appropriate content as a key competence for successful PR work. A press release only has a chance of being picked up by the media if it not only represents the interests of the sender, but also meets the needs of the readers and this is also quickly and clearly recognizable to the editor. The best means to achieve this are facts that are relevant and resilient from the editorial point of view. Dr. Roland Heintze is also an expert in reputation management, PR campaigns and social media concepts. In his blog Reputation Professionals, he regularly addresses how companies and managers can nurture and protect their reputations. In addition to his work for Faktenkontor and numerous voluntary commitments, Dr. Roland Heintze was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from 2004 to 2015, where he chaired the Budget Committee from November 2009 to March 2011 and served as deputy parliamentary group chairman from 2011 to 2015. Today he is CDU state chairman.