The First 4 Steps In Your Social Media Effort

Published
by
Matt
on Sep 14, 2009
in social media
. Tags: .

1) Determine if Social Media is the right idea.

This seems to be the tough one for a lot of people. I know there’s a push for marketers and business owners to jump into social, but it’s not always the best idea. Just because “everyone else is doing it” (which they really aren’t) doesn’t mean you should commit time or resources to a social effort. You need to not only understand where your customers are, but where they can/want to interact with you. Sure it makes sense for Mr. Monty and Ford to get going, but your local concrete stamping business? I’m not so sure.

2) Establish your goals.

I agree with the typical rallying cry of “Strategy before Tactics”, but more importantly I believe in Goals before Strategy. Right up front you have to decide what you are aiming for with your initiative. Are you just going for page views? Do you want customer interaction and response? Are you trying to build a viable online community? All these things require different approaches and this needs to be hashed out in advance of the next step.

3) Think strategy first.

“Let’s use Twitter!” is not strategy. This ends up being a hurdle because while many people are familiar with the tools, not many people are used to putting a plan together to use them in a cohesive way. You need to look at your goals and then determine the best way to use the tools available to reach those goals.

4) Determine your tactical approach.

This is the “boots on the ground” part of the effort. In this step you’re going to be determining the practical elements of executing your plan. Things you’ll tackle here are likely going to be similar to “Who is going to handle the Twitter account?”, “How many blog posts per month do we want?”, and “Who in our industry do we need to reach out to?”. Again, all the tactics are based on your overall strategy, which is based on your goals. While it’s easy to say that goals and strategy are the most important, great strategy without execution won’t get you very far.

  • I like how you keep it high level and simple. I typically encourage people to think this way when creating a social media community and networking strategy:

    1.) Chose your AUDIENCE - Be specific. Do I want to engage with retail consumers, doctors, plumbers, working parents?
    2.) Know your GOAL - What exactly do I want to accomplish or measure? What is the desired end result? Again, be specific.
    3.) Set your STRATEGY - How will I accomplish my goal? Who will be involved on my end? Do I have buy-in/committment from all the players on my end? What 3rd parties will be involved.? What is everyone's role?
    4.) Select the TOOLS that fit the strategy - What specific social media tools (when I say "tool" I mean outlets like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon, Bogging, White Label Social Networks, etc) will help me reach my goal?

    Thanks for letting me share :o)
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