Thread: All about Social Media Strategy? Any Idea on Social Media Strategy :)

All about Social Media Strategy? Any Idea on Social Media Strategy

The 7 Steps to Creating a Social Media Strategy

Before you begin, commit to worrying about social media tools last, not first. Why? Because tools will change. They always do. There was a time when Netscape seemed invincible. Yahoo, too. Myspace also. If you fall in love with tools, you’ll constantly be changing directions, with no real plan to guide your way.

1. What’s Your Pitch?
The elevator pitch is dead. Can you describe what your company does in 120 characters or less?

2. What’s the Point?
What type of program is this? Awareness, Sales, or Loyalty? Pick one.

3. What’s Your Relationship with Your Audience?
What does your audience know about you today?

* Nothing
* Aware of you, but never acted
* Acted once
* Repeat actions/enthusiasts
* Advocates

Pick up to two of these segments to focus upon, but make sure they are adjacent on this scale. It’s too confusing to have a strategy that targets advocates AND people that have never heard of you. That would be two strategies, not one.

4. How Does Your Audience Use Social Media?
Using the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder, understand how your target audience (as defined by gender, age, and geography) uses social media. If your audience skews older, you may not want to engage in a lot of “make a video” contests, since that segment indexes low on the “Creator” scale.

You can play with the Social Technographics Ladder data right here:

5. What’s Your One Thing?
What’s the soul of your brand. What’s the one thing that defines you – and it’s not features and benefits. Volvo = Safety. Apple = Innovation. Disney = Magic. What’s on the other side of your = sign?

Note: This is not easy to figure out. You may need to engage in some brand anthropology, and have an agency help you find your one thing.

6. How Will You Be Human?
Social media is about people, not logos. How will you let down your guard? If you’re a small company, congratulations, this should be pretty easy. If you’re a big company, how can you act small again?

7. How Will You Measure Success?
Lots of ways to measure social media success, so make sure you determine your key metrics BEFORE you get started. I recommend picking three solid metrics to track. Appropriate metrics differ based on what your objective is for the program. See the slide deck for details. Also, see amazing stuff from Olivier Blanchard, and a killer Webinar from Beth Harte.

Now, you can worry about tools, and outposts, and social media tactics.

To help you figure all this out, you might want to download my free social media strategy worksheet.

nice post. informative one.

Really nice 7 steps here. Thanks for sharing.

Social media strategy involves building some trust with your followers or fans, before sending them to your website, else it might just back fire, and your account may be banned

thanks for this nice informative post. social media strategy is all about building relationship and through that relationship you earn trust. and those followers/fans might visit our site and become our customers.

Social media is the best way to get good traffic
but its too hard