Social Advocacy Curator Program

What is Social Advocacy?

Through a social media advocacy program, we are able to provide GitLab team members fresh news and updates about our organization and as well as throughout our industry. By having a tool in place that provides curated content, you’ll be able to build your personal brand, become an expert in your topic, and contribute to the growth of GitLab.

Curators are selected intentionally by the Social Media team to drive our advocacy content strategy. You are responsible for curating stories to be shared by GitLab team members by adding content to the Bambu platform. Each piece of content added to Bambu should benefit your team or your topic. Please take the training and complete the issue you are assigned to. This will certify you as a curator in this program.

🔗 Watch the training here

Watch the training here. You’ll need to be logged into GitLab’s Unfiltered YouTube account in order to access the video.

What can I expect out of the training?

This training is conducted by a Strategic Services Consultant and provides a demonstration to help you navigate the platform, and understand the role of a curator. In this training, you will see the platform from a “reader” perspective, and curator’s. This will help you learn the Bambu lifecycle. You will then learn how to set up a profile, connect your social media accounts, upload content to the platform, and view metrics.

This wasn’t a live session, where can I ask remaining questions that I have?

Following the training, the social media team hosted an AMA so that curators could ask any remaining questions on the platform or the program. Questions and suggestions can still be submitted to the #social-advocacy-curators Slack channel. This channel will also help you stay in touch with the curator program and the latest news. This channel is for team members who are identified as content curators only.

🔗 Watch the AMA

Watch the AMA here. You’ll need to be logged into GitLab’s Unfiltered YouTube account in order to access the video.

Current list of curators

It’s a curators responsibility to make sure that the content they want team members to share is SAFE

When drafting social posts for team members to share, curators should be sure to answer these questions:

• Does this material include any Sensitive or material nonpublic information?
• Is the information Accurate and verifiable?
• Does this information include Financial data, metrics, or predictions?
• Could sharing this information have a harmful Effect on our team members or the business?

Please be sure to review the SAFE Handbook page for detailed information.

Curator Checklist cheat sheet

When you add content into Bambu, consider the following:

• Ensure content is SAFE
• Organize with topic and tag
• Include contributor note as context for why the content is worth sharing and a short CTA: e.g. “This story helps to establish GitLabs all remote philosophy, share it with your communities.”
• Include suggested social post copy
  • 1-2 versions for Twitter
  • 1-2 versions that cover both Facebook and LinkedIn
  • Diversify options: one copy for “professional” use (full words, no emoji, sounds clean and clear) and one copy for “fun” (emoji, exclamation points, light and fun).
• Add start and end date
  • Stories should be available for a minimum of 1 month from publishing (e.g, Sept 28th to Oct 28) however, consider your campaigns and communications focuses - big deal content could go on longer.

Recordings for Curators

Private videos, must be logged into the GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel to view

• Curator Kick off Sept 2021

Topics in Bambu

Topics enable users in all roles to follow and unfollow collections of Stories grouped by an Admin. Admins can manage Topics inside the Topics tab in Company Settings.

• Admins can add Stories to up to two Required Topics that individuals cannot unfollow. For GitLab, we use Company News and Spotlight as the required topics that all team members will follow. This helps us to extend awareness of specific content we believe everyone should see and share.
• Up to three Topics can be applied to a Story.
• Topics can be measured inside Bambu’s Content Report.
• When a new Topic is created, all individuals will automatically follow the Topic, unless it is restricted to a specific Team.
• All new users who register in Bambu will follow all Topics by default.
• Team Members will need to “unsubscribe” from topics that they wish to not see content about.

Tags in Bambu

Tags operate as a reporting mechanism for GitLab. Tags help organize content and allow us to report on similar content in buckets. Tags in Bambu mirror tags in Sprout Social that the social team manages.

Some of these tags are as follows. More tags can be added as we see the need to report against other specifics.

• Video - for any content with a video link
• Campaign: - All Remote Brand anything related to remote content
• DevOps Platform - anything that discusses our DevOps Platform
• Case Study - any customer story
• Link - Owned - any time a link is shared that GitLab owns (our webiste, our blog, a GitLab Unfiltered video, user registration for an event, etc)
• Blog - any time we share a link to GitLab’s blog
• Link - 3rd Party - any time we share a link that is not owned by GitLab (registration to an event that isn’t GitLab’s, links to press, partners, and other pages)
• Press - any media coverage
• Awards - any awards GitLab wins
• Campaign: Annual Dev Survey - related to this specific campaign
• Campaign: Remote Work Report - related to this specific campaign
• Campaign: GitLab Commit - related to this specific campaign/event

Tags can and should be combined. Examples:

• Sid was featured as a “top mind of the pandemic” by Forbes. When curating this article to Bambu, it should have the following tags: Link - 3rd Party, Press
• Cormac wrote a blog about GitLab’s journey to becoming a DevOps Platform. When curating this article to Bambu, it should have the following tags: blog, Link - Owned, and DevOps Platform

Formatting tips for curators

• Always find and use Twitter handles in the copy suggestions for Twitter.
• Never use any handles for copy suggestions for LinkedIn or Facebook, as they will not actually tag pages
• Never start a tweet with @. If you want to mention a handle first, add a ., so it would appear as .@GitLab. Without the period, Twitter will believe this is a response and not a broadcast, so the tweet will not appear on people’s walls, dramatically reducing reach and making the post ineffective.
• When changing an image or story title, these changes will only appear on LinkedIn. The original title of the story and original image will appear on Facebook and Twitter.
• Regarding hashtags, when in doubt, leave it out. Platforms now focus on trends and topics without them. They can be helpful on LinkedIn, where users can follow a hashtag, but they are not required.
• When using hashtags, replace a word in the copy with a hashtag. Sometimes the tense and other elements don’t allow this. Only then should you consider adding hashtags to the end of the copy suggestion.
  • E.g. #MovingToGitLab: This works when we’re using present tense in the copy, Company x is #MovingToGitLab. This won’t work if we’re referencing a move from the past. Where we’d say, Company x migrated to GitLab and here's what they learned. #MovingToGitLab
• Always add a CTA to the internal note: Consider sharing on social, please share on your channels, etc.
• Photo stories are not a priority and are only shareable on Facebook and Twitter, if we’d ever use these.

Manager Tips

Managers in Bambu are able to add content freely without the social team’s involvement. This requires strict adherance to the training and the details on this page. You want to make sure that all content is the best version to share and is ready when linked. Please always:

• Doublecheck that content is SAFE to share
• Confirm that you’ve made Twitter specific copy and used @handles or #hashtags as needed on Twitter (do not try to tag on other channels)
• Share your new Bambu stories in Slack with the team who should share it most. PubSec share in your PubSec channels. All Remote, share in remote topic and whats-happening channels. Your stories need exposure to be shared, just be mindful that you don’t want to flood Slack with the request.

Here’s a copy suggestion when sharing in Slack.

We're promoting [this content] and would appreciate you sharing it on your social media! Check out the story in Bambu here and [post or schedule to post on social today].

(make the “post…today a link to the direct URL of the Bambu story).

Here’s how to share the Bambu story link in Slack. (You’ll need to be logged into GitLab Unfiltered YouTube)

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