PLAN
We have all heard the old adage "Fail to plan and plan to fail". This couldn't be further from the truth in developing and implementing a social media strategy. Here are a few items to consider during the planning process:
- Developing a Policy - As with any new business strategy, developing a policy which outlines the "whats", "whens" and "wheres" are central to ensuring that your company will have a unified online voice and message.
- Scheduling Posts - While there is no science for how often an organization should post on social media platforms, it is important to ensure that your followers aren't overwhelmed by your postings. Consistency is important, but posting too much may turn listeners off to your message. Scheduling your posts gives you more control over your strategy. For example, your international coffee company is based in California and would like to post to Western Europeans as they begin their day. Scheduling posts for midnight local time would ensure that your message raving about your delicious coffees will be consistently delivered in the early European morning hours! Brilliant!
- Assigning Content Creation - Delegating content creation responsibilities has the potential of growing your company's content collection exponentially. In addition, sharing the responsibility of content creation fosters a sense of community, which in itself can get the creative juices flowing!!!
- Calendering - Consolidating your business' social media activity on a community calendar can assist with tracking and managing your online presence. The calendar can be a valuable tool by providing metrics for performance indicator reports.
- Curating and Categorizing Content - Creating a system for storing your curated content can help to create a singular voice for your brand. It also provides a "campfire" for discussing acceptable content. Categories for storing content can also assist in determining your posting time. Going back to the example above, content stored in a "Coffee" category can be linked with posts to be completed during the morning hours, and so on.
ENGAGE
- Targeting Specific Audiences - Unlike traditional marketing, social media platforms provide you with tools to more narrowly target your desired audience. Attributes such as age, gender, education, location, and career can serve as criteria when deploying your social media campaigns.
- Responding to Comments - There is no greater social currency than the response. Engaging with your target audience by responding to their comments shows that you are willing to address issues. It also gives your target audience a preview of what to expect if they should decide to do business with you. Lastly, it removes the shroud of uncertainty that is often associated with online information.
- Commenting on External Posts - Not only is commenting on external posts a great opportunity to get to know your target audience, it creates a direct connection between your business and your target audience. This tactic shows prospects that you are interested in subject matters outside of your own interests, further building the trust required to be effective on social media.
- Creating Content vs Sharing Content Ratio - Depending on the social media platform, it's perfectly normal to post more than 10 times per day (i.e., Twitter) while only sharing 1 or 2 posts per day. Other platforms (i.e., Facebook, Google+) provide an environment more conducive to engaging, as each has features that allow ongoing commenting on posts. While there is no exact science for posting, typically a 12:1 (you to them) ratio is about average for social media platforms without the commenting feature, while a 1:4 ratio may be more suitable for platforms which allow commenting on posts.
MEASURE
- Aggregating Engagement Data - Let's face it, the only way to determine if your social media efforts are working is to measure the results. Developing a system for measuring your level of success will be dependent on your goals and objectives. Whether you're reporting at the brand, regional, or departmental levels, reporting is a key activity for measuring social media success.
- Measuring Progress - Measuring progress against preset goals is the an effective way to determine if benchmarks are being met. Use web analytics to help understand the progress of your campaign as well as the effectiveness of your message.
- Monetizing Engagements - If possible, develop a system which ties specific types of engagements to a dollar amount. This will put an additional layer of metrics to measure your social media performance.
Lastly, HAVE FUN! Social media was designed to increase our level of engagement with one another through education and entertainment. Let's keep it fun, light and SOCIAL!!!
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