Different strokes for different folks…a checklist for your social media strategy
So many choices...
With statistics, videos and #SMEGs swamping the corporate social media landscape, it can be easy for companies to get caught up in the buzz and excitement around new media opportunities for businesses. What we need to keep in mind is that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, and a branded Facebook page is not necessarily the answer to your company’s marketing woes.
Before jumping online to establish branded presence on every social media platform you can think of, take a step back and examine your existing business goals and take the time to work through a checklist to help form the basis of a strategic approach to your digital communications:
- Determine your company’s short, medium and long term goals based on your business plan.
- Examine how these goals are already being met by existing marketing/communications initiatives as well as how they may be boosted by social media. Don’t forget to determine how you will measure success!
- Assess your current online presence – is your website efficient? SEO up to scratch? E-news database up to date? Directory listings correct?
- LISTEN – take the time to hear what people are already saying about you and your industry. Establish a daily monitoring routine: Google Alerts for company and CEO name, Facebook searches (Booshaka is handy), Twitter searches (you can also use columns on Hootsuite or Tweetdeck), Social Mention, Board Reader for forums and Technorati for blogs. These are all free tools available to anyone – all they’ll cost is your time. If you’re time poor, consider paid monitoring options such as Radian6, which provides a monitoring dashboard with excellent reporting capabilities.
- Based on business goals and conversations you’ve followed, decide your target audience…are you trying to reach new mums or high-end investors (not that they’re mutually exclusive)?
- Let your audience guide your platform presence. Facebook is probably not going to help you reach Fortune 500 CEOs, and by the same token, LinkedIn is not going to be your best bet for teenage girls!
- Develop a content plan – determine tone, frequency, internal vs external content sharing and be sure to include issues-management planning. This is where you can brainstorm ideas for competitions and giveaways, events and community building.
- Write and distribute a social media policy for all employees – a good example to read through is the policy put in place at IBM.
Working through these steps will help you lay a good foundation for your social media strategy and provide you with measurable goals to work towards, and ensure that your strategy complements existing communications tools for your business.
Just remember to keep context – some good points raised by PR Squared and @ozdj: “17 people check into FourSquare every second http://is.gd/elF4O – 6,838,076,849 people do not”.
What additional steps would you add to this checklist?
Elucidation 
Hi Jeff,
Great starting point you’ve provided here for companies wondering how and where to dive in. I’d add to your list that you’ve got to select some metrics to track to at least begin watching your progress within social media. Those metrics might change (really, they probably will), but you need to be measuring your activities and outcomes to establish if what you’re doing is working.
Thanks for the post and for the kind words about Radian6!
Cheers,
Teresa
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Teresa Basich
Community Manager, Radian6
Hi Teresa
Thanks for your comment. I agree with your point about success measurement (I think I touched on it close to the top of the list) but am really keen to stress that numbers of followers/fans etc is not the be all and end all of social media ROI…it is crucial that companies determine their own success metrics based on goals! Quality (engagement) over quantity (numbers) I say!
I’ve had nothing but fantastic experiences with Radian6, keep up the great work 🙂
Cheers,
Jess
And PLEASE forgive me for calling you Jeff rather than Jessie. It’s been a long day over here and I wasn’t being as diligent as I should’ve been in making sure I had your name correct. My sincere apologies.
Haha, no problem – I get mistaken for a middle-aged man all the time *wink*
Very nicely written article Jessie.
My thoughts…
A business plan is static (and probably gathering dust), whilst a business strategy, is dynamic and constantly evolving (hopefully)
Business Strategy should be supported by all the others
BusinessStrategy<MarketingStrategy<SocialMediaStrategy
Your so right on how important listening is! If listening is performed, the results (good or bad) should feed back into the Business Strategy and back through all other internal channels.
Cheers
Chris
Thanks Chris!
Definitely appreciate your comments re Business Plan vs Business Strategy…I might have written myself into a corner there inadvertently!
“written myself into a corner” …not at all, just me being semantic. If writing was easy, I’d be doing it 🙂
Cheers
Nice article Jess, you clever thing!
Listening and responding is important, too many brands out there just simply broadcasting!
I think listening should always be the first step, regardless of whether a brand or business is looking to ‘engage’ as such. I agree that there is too much broadcasting happening, and I think that stems from people jumping in without any strategy or planning, or a proper understanding of how the medium functions!
Thanks for your comment 🙂
Hey Jessie – great post. I came across this wiki that might be a good addition / resource for you and your readers (http://wiki.kenburbary.com/). Cheers, Sarah.
Hi Sarah
Thanks for dropping by, and for your comment. The social media monitoring Wiki is a great resource – thanks for sharing!