six steps to a social media strategy
DESCRIPTION
How to create a basic social media strategy, including goals, success criteria, a tactical plan, and interim measures. Step by step, with specific guidelines and instructions.TRANSCRIPT
Six Steps to a Social Media
Strategy
aka “What does a social media strategy look like?”
Neicole M. CrepeauOnline Strategist Website, mobile & social media design specialists
We constantly hear the term social media strategy.
But what does one look like?
Example: Table of ContentsExecutive SummaryGoals, Strategy, and Success Criteria
Detailed Criteria and Interim MeasuresSuggested measurement processes
Tactical Plan Phase 1 TasksPhase 2 TasksPhase 3 Tasks…
Tools and ProcessesGetting Your Facebook Vanity URLCreating your BadgesDay to Day Social Media WorkPosting/TweetingGeneral Monitoring, Measuring, and Reporting
Daily Measurement TasksWeekly Measurement TasksMonthly Measurement TasksQuarterly Measurement Tasks
Social Network GuidelinesDemographic DataContent Recommendations
The strategy is a living document—built to change.
You can plan, you can shape the environment, but you can’t control
the outcome.
To start,assess your current status.
Even if you aren’t doing social media, yet:
Where are your customers? Where are you?
What’s being said?
Your goals arebusiness goals.
What do you hope to achieve using social
media?
Define up to fourdiscrete goals. For example:
• Drive new registrations
• Get partners to regularly provide end-user technical content
• Get users to provide customer support to one another
If you can’t get a goal to one,
action-oriented line,
it’s too fuzzy or not granular enough.
Success criteria are a critical
component.
They validate goals & drive decisions
about measures, tools, and processes.
Success criteria should:
•Define a timeframe• Be measurable• Include specific values• Support a single goal
Examples:
• Six months post-launch of the social strategy, 10% of our new registrations can be traced back to the social channels we are working in.
• One year after launch, partners are posting an average of twelve articles a month on the wiki.
• One year after launch, the articles posted on the wiki receive an average three star (out of four) rating from customers.
This is the part consultants get paid for.
Why?
It’s not easy to do…and requires specific knowledge and skills.
List five to ten bullets.
Action-oriented.
Create enough bullets to cover the goal from beginning to end.
Example strategy for the goal Drive new event registrations:
• Gain social followers from existing online customers• Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels• Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events• Provide incentives for existing customers to promote us online/share info
from us with friends/followers• Make it easy for new leads to connect socially• Participate in communities/subgroups where target customers are • Provide social places for existing and potential customers to discuss
events/shows • Promote awareness among target customers of the event info available
through our social channels
Now, merge your strategies into one, uber-strategy
delete any duplicate items
Order the strategylogicallyand chronologically.
Break the strategy into phases
Example strategy phases:
Connect online
Cross-promote
Provide info & incentives
Enable and encourage sharing
Example strategy for a phase:
• Gain social followers from existing online customers• Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels• Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events• Provide incentives for existing customers to promote us online/share
info from us with friends/followers
Connect online
For each bulletgo deep
create a to-do list.
List every task required to implement that piece
of the strategy.
What do you need to dofirst?
What do you need
to do next?
Need more information? Get it.
Be specific.Be detailed.
Capture everything.
As you create the tactical plan,
hone your strategy.
Change it as needed.
Click here to see guidelines for building the tactical plan
Look at your success criteria
and your tactical plan
How will you know if you’re on track?
For each goal,
create interim measuresadd measures for tactics,
too.
Interim measures should:
Be specific
Have a timeframe
Click here to see guidelines for interim measures
Example interim measures:• Low-cost method: On a weekly basis, measure @’s mentioning our account and of
other mentions, plus the number of new followers gained that week. Monthly, look for trends to find correlations between the number of mentions and follower gain. After three months, use the data to estimate the acquisition rate through existing followers.
• High-cost method: On a weekly basis, track @’s and mentions by existing followers of our account, including the date they occurred. On a daily basis, track new followers of our account, including the date the become followers and who they are following at that time. Monthly, compile a list of the new followers who were following one of our existing followers upon acquisition, and where the existing follower mentioned us within two days of the new follower joining. Count this a follower acquisition via an existing follower. (Using this method, we could also do a deeper analysis to determine which of our followers is most influential in helping to acquire new followers.)
What do you needin order to execute your
strategy?
Tools and processes.
Review your success criteria and interim measures.
What tools will you need to do these
measurements?
Review your tactical plan.
What tools will you need to implement it?What processes?
Create a requirements document for your tools,
Research tools.Pick them.
Want help?
Contact us.
We’re Coherent Interactive.
We do social media strategies.
