(Originally written for MarketingProfs Daily Fix)
It’s fantastic that interest in social media is so high, but I’m alarmed at the number of brands and agencies that are ready to jump into social media to take “advantage” of audience concentration in Facebook, Twitter, and other fast-growth outposts. What’s lacking in most social media programs is an actual strategy. If you don’t know precisely why you’re in social media, with whom you want to engage, and how you’re going to measure success, you’re not ready to start.
I use a 7-step Social Media Strategy Worksheet to create a framework that governs what the initiative aims to accomplish. (You can download the Social Media Strategy Workshop as a PDF here, and use it as much as you like, with attribution).
Step One: Describe the Business
Sounds basic, but if you can’t describe the precise value proposition of the brand in a sentence (without a bunch of mission statement crap-ola), you need to figure that out first.
Step Two: Business Goal
Trying to do too much in social media muddles your message and confuses your fans. You can focus on one goal for a while, and then change objectives later, but don’t try to tackle multiple goals simultaneously. There are only 3 realistic business goals for a social media effort. So pick one of these.
Step Three: Where Is the Audience Cyclically?
Huge segments of your customers and prospects have wholly different relationships with your brand. Some have never heard of you. Others are raving fans. Which are you trying to reach in this program? You need to be specific here because what your target audience already knows about you dictates what you can credibly have a conversation about in social media. Pick no more than two of these:
Step 4: How Does the Audience Use Social Media?
Rolling out a social media program that features a customer photo contest is going to fail spectacularly if your audience isn’t prone to content creation. Using the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder, determine how your audience behaves within social media. You may have to guess on this one a bit, but better yet how about surveying your customers via email and ASKING THEM how they use social media? Pick one or two from among these: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators
Step 5: The One Thing
To be successful in social media, you need to distill your brand into the one thing that’s truly interesting, and in most cases it’s not product related. Figure out your one thing, and bring it to life in social media. Social media may be word of mouth on steroids (says Gary Vaynerchuk), but if you don’t give people something intriguing to talk about, they’ll never open their mouths.
Step 6: How Will You Humanize the Brand
Why do consumers love social media? Because it puts them on a more equal footing with brands that have been historically shrouded, impersonal and aloof. If your social media strategy doesn’t put a literal or figurative face on your brand in one or many ways, you’re missing the point.
Step 7: How Will You Measure Success?
Pick three metrics that matter to your company, and measure them consistently and well. Ideally, establish a baseline before your social media program starts. If your business goal is loyalty, you can measure true ROI by focusing on churn metrics. For brand enthusiasm, you can focus on repeat purchases. If you want to get more granular, there are dozens of potential success metrics like share of voice in social media, blog posts and tweets, comments, fans/friends in your social media outposts, etc. I’ll leave those details for another post or experts like KD Paine, but please pick only 3 success metrics. Nobody wants a 27-item results report or dashboard.
Download Social Media Strategy Worksheet
(photo by The Pug Father)
Jason, Very good post.
I’d like to suggest an additional step between #6 and #7.
This NEW 7th step I would call: Create an Integrated Social Media Flow Chart.
This step is important since it builds on the observations and data collected from the first 6 steps
As you evaluate your findings from the steps 1-6 it then becomes important to develop a draft “Integrated Social Media Flowchart”. This flowchart consists of what social media tools / properties you intend to use along with how they may interact, integrate and leverage your interactions with one another.
You see, there are so many great Social Media tools out there that this step of any sound strategy is necessary before moving into implementation.
The key to keep in mind is “INTEGRATION” so when you interact with one social media property, you are also updating, leveraging or reusing that interaction on other social media formats / forums. Turning Social Media into less of a burden and into more of an “efficient power tool”.
Keep in mind, Integration need not be absolute, you may choose to keep two social media forums separated if your audiences are drastically different – but at least in a flow chart, you know where it fits, and WHY you keep them separate.
Then, with this flowchart in hand, it becomes easier to to move onto to step 8, “Measuring Success” since it not only helps to determine WHAT metrics to measure, but also WHERE you will measure them from.
As a Social Media Strategist, I have seen many clients gravitate to the social media flow-charts that I create for them as their most valued deliverable. Implementation and execution of a social media campaign becomes much easier with an Integrated Social Media Flowchart document there to follow as a guide.
Thanks again Jason,
Allan Sabo
Chief Success Advisor
FastForward Marketing Braintrust
:: The Marketing Advisory Board for Small Business ::
http://www.ffphx.com/as
http://www.twitter.com/mediamanx
Great post Jason. I’ve seen plenty of people diving into SM because it’s there without giving any thought as to why they are doing it (apart from Facebook has heaps of people, Youtube has heaps of viewers etc).
As an addendum for Step 6 there is also the massive opportunity SM gives brands/companies without huge budgets to gain exposure by adding value rather than trying to compete on media spend. To me this is one of the most exciting things about SM – it’s more of a media meritocracy.
Paul Baiguerra’s last blog post..What is Social Media?
[...] Baer has a great post over at Convince and Convert called the 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy. The post is brilliant for the small business owner wanting to get more involved in social [...]
A great reference for Step 5 is Ben Mack’s book “Think Two Products Ahead”. Distilling the brand into one succinct and interesting “thing” is tough for any company.
It is also very difficult to get clients to see the value in tailoring a social media campaign around “one good thing”.
Ben’s book provides very practical, actionable advice that a consultant could share with the client to help them understand why and how to do it.
Deeter’s last blog post..Should You Pay For Traffic to Your Business Blog?
Very nice article..
Alex
I really like the elements of your post. Actually, I totally agree with the elements.
In practice, however, I think that the middle sections may need to be iterative – not linear. I’d be interested in your thoughts on this point – what influences what!?
I have a couple of other thoughts. 1) If time warrants, you may want to consider using the customer value propostion from Norton/Kaplan Strategy Map or an abbreviated version of the fac tors of differentiation from Blue Ocean Strategy to decribe the business, and 2) you may want to consider integrating the idea of “social objects” popularized by Hugh MacLeod instead of the “one thing most compelling about the brand”. I believe that there may be many social objects that could be used based on context. I’d be interested in your thoughts on these two considerations.
We’ve tried a similar approach with smaller companies but they really struggle with the brand definition and differentiation aspects of the puzzle!
[...] about the four customer types of social media which was a piggy back post off of Jason Baer’s 7 Critical Elements of your Social Strategy. I wanted to start focusing more in-depth on each customer [...]
[...] 7 critical elements of your social media strategy – Convince and Convert/Jason Baer (Jason has been on fire this week) [...]
[...] in your market. Find and connect with others in your industry who have been successful, and define a strategy with measurable [...]
[...] you believe that the core of a successful social media strategy is making your company more like a person and less like a machine? Do you believe that it’s about [...]
[...] Baer has a great post over at Convince and Convert called the 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy. The post is brilliant for the small business owner wanting to get more involved in social [...]
Twitter Comment
Link: 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy (by @jaybaer, via @kyleplacy) [link to post] (via @awgentry)
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Link: 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy (by @jaybaer, via @kyleplacy) http://tr.im/rTJn (via @awgentry)
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RT @tweetmeme 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy [link to post]
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RT @tweetmeme 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy http://bit.ly/kFb4J
RT @tweetmeme 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy http://bit.ly/kFb4J
Reading: 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy | Integrated Marketing and Media http://bit.ly/kFb4J RT @tweetmeme
7 Critical Elements of Your #SocialMedia #Strategy http://ow.ly/EoK8
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7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy [link to post] a good review
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7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy http://bit.ly/4KYwfp a good review
Are these 7 Crucial Elements in Your Social Media Strategy http://ow.ly/KmxT
RT @jaybaer 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy | Integrated Marketing & Media http://bit.ly/h0y7b #dostream
Blue ocean strategy is your friend. I think it is better to create new market space or a blue ocean rather than competing in the existing market
Hi Jason.
First of all, thanks for all those articles weeks after weeks. Very inspiring
Would it be possible for you to reactivate the download of your “Social Media Strategy Worksheet” ? It would be great. Thanks in advance. Erwan
RE: @jaybaer Hi Jason.
First of all, thanks for all those articles weeks after weeks. Very inspiring
Would it be po… http://disq.us/azhkk
7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy | Integrated Marketing and Media | Social Media Consulting – .. http://bit.ly/ap5cIk
Sorry for the confusion on that. You should be able to get it in the Free Social Media Tools section in the top navigation.
7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy http://tr.im/2rco great find, using it to write a proposal for a client
7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy http://ow.ly/1Xh6j #in
7 Critical Elements of your Social Media Strategy http://dld.bz/pCeU – an older post that still has great value from @jaybaer