The Basics of Your Social Media Strategy
We have provided some links to worksheets and presentations that we think are particularly good for your review and use developing your own strategy. There are lots of ways to go about starting your social media efforts. We’d encourage you to both consider the approach we suggest below and take a look at the links to worksheets and frameworks that others have created. You should be able to lock into something that resonates with you! As you find additional resources on your own journey, please share them with us and the rest of the folks using this site by sending us a link to the resources.
Like any good strategy, social media strategy comes down to some very basic questions about what you want to do, for whom and how. The list of key steps below is compiled from the resources listed here and others experiences.
1. Define your audience
The first thing you need to do is to figure out who you’ll be talking to with your social media efforts. What are the social media habits of the people that you are trying to connect with by using these tools. What do they use today?
Talking to your members or customers about their current social media habits is a good first step. Ask the question at your next few member meetings or pick up the phone and call twenty customers and ask a few simple questions about what they are using (if anything), how they are using these tools and what they think is most valuable about them. That will give you a start on what the people you are targeting think about these tools.
For some general information about “who” is using social media, go here: Pew Study: Adults and Social Network Websites
Forrester also provides information on the types of users and you can see how your particular audience breaks down in terms of their Internet use: Social Technology Growth Marches on in 2009, Led by Social Network Sites
2. Define your objectives
Very simply, what is it that you want to accomplish? Why do you care? Why do you want to spend time better understanding and learning how to use these tools? Your answer can be as simple as wanting to keep track of what is going on in your industry, among your competitors or among your members or customers. You could be much more ambitious with a goal of creating you and your organization as the key authority or “go to” in a certain space. Only you can decide what is meaningful and important to your organization with these tools.
The key here is to have a specific objective over a specific timeframe. “Connect with the 50 top people in my industry on LinkedIn over the next year.” “Have 25% of my members following the organization on Facebook within 10 months.” “Create the ability to track all mentions of my chamber in the local media, on blogs and on the web each week.” “Increase event attendance by stay at home mompreneurs in the third quarter.” The specificity of your goals will help you create focus in your efforts.
3. Determine the capacity you have to support your efforts
A goal without a plan is just a dream, right? So, if you identify who you want to reach and figure out what you want to accomplish, you need to figure out who is going to drive the effort to get there. In many cases it may just be you, but that’s ok. Do you have staff that use these tools personally? If so, they’d be a great complement and resource to the work you are doing here. In fact, staying power for social media efforts is often linked to whether or not an organization’s key supporter of the efforts is also personally using the tools deployed.
Do you have business advisors, members, friends or others that are very active on these tools? How can you can them involved to support your strategies? Can they provide content? Be a guest editor? Lead the presence for you? Provide moral support? Be realistic about how much time you can spend on this work. You should plan a minimum of 5 hours to be active—listening, periodic posts, status updates, network expansion, searches and exploration. If you are going to be an active blogger or manage a community of interest you should plan on 2-3 times as much time on your efforts.
4. Decide on the tools that you’ll use to manage your presence
There are a plethora of social media tools out there for you to use. Because you are just starting out, we recommend you pick one or two and focus on those. Further, we’d recommend you narrow your options for participating to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. These have the largest user communities, provide a good place to start and will allow for you to begin to quickly “listen” and get involved in conversation.
We’ve covered your “listening tools” like Google Alerts, RSS feeds and Tweetbeep.com elsewhere in this site. If you want to really jump in and get going, add a blog to your list. TypePad is probably the best starting point for you. For more information on these tools, go to Listening.
5. Think about how you’ll measure success against your objectives
It’s not just about the numbers, there are a number of ways you can assess the value of your social media efforts. From followers to recognition of your brand to customer “loyalty” or share or mind, there are a lot of different ways to think about valuing your efforts. You do need to pick some metrics that are important to you, however and hold yourself accountable for getting to those goals.
Regular review (at least monthly) in some systematic way of how you are doing vs. goals will help you track your progress – and the value – you are creating with your efforts. Thinking about ROI for the social web is non-traditional. The links below may help you frame your own views about measuring success.
6. Review and Recreate
Strategies aren’t static! Review your efforts and your progress every three months and make changes as you feel are necessary to continue to focus and hone your social media efforts. It’s okay to make course corrections as you go along – and probably to be expected!
Additional Resources:
Why every non-profit needs a social media strategy (You might also be interested in downloading their Ten Steps to a Social Media Strategy presentation that is also accessible from this link).
Creating Your Social Media Strategy Map: A great resource from Beth Kantor, who does a lot of non profit social media work. Walks you through developing a strategy and provides some focused questions for determining how to approach social media.
Social Media Strategy Map Worksheet: Remixed from the strategy map material above by Aids.gov
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