SOCIAL MEDIAA guide to building your strategy

“You are not your resume, you are your work. “

Seth Godin 

Strategy

(from Greek "art of troop leader;

office of general, command,

generalship")

is a high level plan to achieve

one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.

Before you start creating you must Start planning!

Ask yourself 3questions…………  1. WHY are you doing it?  2. Who are you doing it to?  3. What do you want to do?

No need to waffle on about how important it is to have a solid strategy and you wouldn’t be here if you thought otherwise so let’s dive right into the steps to creating a successful Social Media Strategy. Along the way there are tools to support your actions and to enable you to get going straight away. We are going to take 10 steps to creating a Social Media Strategy. Some of them you may already have fleshed out and others you may not have thought of – either way run through them and tick them off as you go, it will save a heap of time later.  

 Do you have a Facebook Page already Or Twitter page? If you havent then you have to go to the website page that you want to open and follow the instructions to open an new page – whether Personal or for Business. You will need an email address. If you have already opened business accounts on any social media channels then the best place to start is capture exactly where you are on these channels – reveiew all your activity and write it down. In this way you will have a good idea if your new activities are having effect and meeting your objectives.

Audit Review any existing platforms & performance you may be running.Where are you on social media Have you been active on certain channels. If so open up an excel sheet and start putting in the information – list out the platforms and the current number of followers, fans, pinners ect.

Engagement Rate 

Total number of comments, shares, likes

Total number of likes 

Average engagement rate on Facebook – 2% 

If you already have a few months data then it’s also useful to include engagement and sentiment (get on to www.socialmention.com or create a word cloud with

www.wordle.net. Often by doing this, you’ll find some hidden insights which can be really useful for future planning.

Set benchmarks If you previously set benchmarks e.g. reach increase of fan base, Twitter followers ect, How did you get on? Did you reach those goals, if not, do you know why not. How many goals did you set – enough/too many?

Prioritising any negative sentiment is critical – once your have reviewed sentiment through e.g. www.socialmention.com you many have a negative rating. This needs to be looked into in much more detail – try to mine the data as much as you can and pin point where this negative sentiment is, why it is happening and fix it immediately. There is no point in going any further with any strategy until the negative sentiment is identified and appropriate action put in place to manage and eliminate.

CONTENTS1. Listen2. Identify Share of Voice3. Set Objectives4. Identify Key Influencers5. Identify audience/Avatars6. Define approach for core platforms7. Develop Content strategy8. Engage in conversation9. Measure results

1.LISTEN

• Where are they talking• What are your competitors doing on social • Which sites have the most conversations

Go back onto these sites and find out the following:

Topline overview of where you are on social check out www.topsy.com, www.addictomatic.com.

For more detailed information head for www.socialmention.com & www.hootesuite.com.

If you want to find out more about your competitors then sign up for www.howsociable.com. www.google.co.uk/trends/

What are they saying?

2.IDENTIFY SHARE OF VOICE (SOV)

Now that you have an idea where you are and what people are saying

about you, what’s your share of voice (SOV)?

Go back to www.socialmention.com or your other listening tools and

input your competitors name. You should already have your own positive negative and neutral

mentions, now compare to your competitors

 

3.SET

OBJECTIVES

What are your goals Increase Awareness Increase Traffic Increase Engagement Develop Loyal Fans Generate Leads Grow Business Partnership Improve Sales Clearly define one or two objectives that are both realistic and achievable with the resources and budgets available. Set one or two to begin with focus on achieving and developing in phases rather than all at one time.

Set SMART Goals• SPECIFIC – ensure goals are clearly understood by everyone

involved in the campaign – open the campaign to everyone in the company. Prioritize.

• MEASURABLE – measure success & failure – key milestones • ACHIEVABLE – keep realistic, what resources do you have,

budget • RELEVANT – keep focused on relevant audiences, channels • TIMELY – time bound outcomes, long/short term, fixed or

flexible

4. IDENTIFY

KEY INFLUENCERS

Are you an industry leader? If not, find out who is leading the industry you are inWhat best practices are they putting in place?Do they have a strategic advantage? What is it?

What you’ll find is that Industry leaders have:• A Point of view • Are Credible • Promote themselves as thought leaders• Deliver on promises

Can your products and services do the same, should they be industry leaders? If not, what do you have to do to become one.

5. IDENTIFY

AUDIENCE/AVATARS

Influencers/Advocates can be very powerful and, if managed properly, can greatly speed up your opportunity to market. Currently, Twitter is the channel of choice for Influencers as they can get their message out their quickly and easily.

www.topsy.comwww.twitonomy.com

Look up conferences where they are speaking, events they are running, look across all social channels. START FOLLOWING THEM.

 

6. DEFINE APPROACH

FOR CORE PLATFORMS

Identify key channels – start with one and master each along the way, where are your target audience, which channels are they using? Within each channel segment each target group, develop Avatars/personas for each group and develop your content against each of these personas on then channel.

Facebook – social sharing, shareable content, target adsTwitter – microblogging, post 140 charactersInstagram – share pictures and 15 second videosPinterest – social scrapbook, collections of favourite things LinkedIn – business network, thought leadership

Select Channel/Content

7. DEVELOP CONTENT STRATEGY

Two Main Components CONTENT = Business value

Messaging/StorytellingStructurePEOPLE = Creation workflow

PublishingMaintenance/governance

Content needs to be at the core of the strategy

What does Content do? • Influences customers decisions• Builds trust• Provides purchase path instructions

• Upsells• Solicits feedback

• It makes money......

Content Considerations• Treat content like a critical business asset • Define real goals and success metrics • Understand the type of content required for the channel

selected • Allow time to create valuable, high quality content • Set up regular schedules to create and publish• Start with small articles and build up • Remember time is money – set a budget

Who should owns the content?

• Business, IT, Brand Marketing, Strategic planning, Assign dedicated content advocates

• Understand content’s environment - internal & the existing communications ecosystem, Technology/infrastructure

Go for less content of higher quality, it tends to be: • More user friendly• Better quality• Cheaper to create• Easier to Manage

Content Considerations

Content Formats• Formats • Text• Graphics• Video/demos/animations• Games/Widgets• Audio

Tools to get things done more quickly

• Post Planner Facebook content management tool • Feedly (w/ Buffer) blog content sharing & scheduling tool • Social Oomph “evergreen content” scheduling tool • Opt-In Monster pop-up plugin • WordPress SEO seo plugin

Remember:The Goal

make it useful, usable for the user,

purposeful & profitable for business

8. ENGAGE/

IN CONVERSATIONS

Engage Your Target Audience Hear Consider Try

Live it

Magazine articles –Business Lifestyle writers taking test drivesAd Words advertisingLite micro site development, include survey Brand Facebook page– upload video contentTwitter-account article postingBrand videos on YouTube – webcam activity, fine tune searchBrand LinkedIn – testimonials on display advertising, sponsored storiesPromotion at events, PCI camps, Top Gear, House and Home Show.Build database from sign ups - Twitter, Facebook and Surveys

Push to Micro site, sign-up through Search, online display adsBusiness and lifestyle articles.Micro site Content:

- Testimonials- Celebrity endorsement - Video engagement,

games,- Competitions across

social media.- Chat forums- Opinion pieces

-Develop on going CSR Programme

- Photography - “help design” and learn

about it.- Project information and

help

Trial products & services at event Invite via TwitterCompetition in City CentreGoPro recordings to Vine

VIP Invitations to press & selected VIP list. Focus on influencers, advocates, existing customers. Ensure exclusive event covered by all media including own brand team.

Purchase products and services, supply aftersales service and follow up.

Post purchase:Supply App Initiate push notificationsSales/Service surveyAnnual event

Example

9. MEASURE

RESULTS

Basic Measurement tools

• Howsociable.com• Facebook Insights • Google Alerts • Gorkana • HootSuite • Icerocket • Klout

• Google Analytics• Google Trends • Google Keyword

Research Tool• Google Media Planner• Bing Ad Planner• Google Alerts

CONTACT ME