How to create a basic social media strategy, including goals, success criteria, a tactical plan, and interim measures. Step by step, with specific guidelines and instructions.

1. Six Steps to a Social Media Strategyaka “What does a social media strategy look like?” Neicole M. CrepeauOnline Strategist Website, mobile & social media design specialists

2. We constantly hear the term social media strategy. But what does one look like?

3. Example: Table of Contents Executive Summary Goals, Strategy, and Success Criteria Detailed Criteria and Interim Measures Suggested measurement processes Tactical Plan Phase 1 Tasks Phase 2 Tasks Phase 3 Tasks … Tools and Processes Getting Your Facebook Vanity URL Creating your Badges Day to Day Social Media Work Posting/Tweeting General Monitoring, Measuring, and Reporting Daily Measurement Tasks Weekly Measurement Tasks Monthly Measurement Tasks Quarterly Measurement Tasks Social Network Guidelines Demographic Data Content Recommendations

4. Example: Section

5. The strategy is a living document—built to change.

6. You can plan, you can shape the environment, but you can’t control the outcome.

7. To start, assess your current status. Even if you aren’t doing social media, yet: Where are your customers? Where are you? What’s being said?

8. Step 1:Define Your Goals

9. Your goals are business goals. What do you hope to achieve using social media?

10. Define up to four discrete goals. For example: Drive new registrations Get partners to regularly provide end-user technical content Get users to provide customer support to one another

11. Make your goals: Business-focused Action-oriented Measurable Succinct

12. If you can’t get a goal to one, action-oriented line, it’s too fuzzy or notgranularenough.

13. Step 2:Define Success Criteria

14. Success criteria are a criticalcomponent. They validate goals & drive decisions about measures, tools, and processes.

15. Success criteria should: Define a timeframe Be measurable Include specific values Support a single goal

16. Examples: Six months post-launch of the social strategy, 10% of our new registrations can be traced back to the social channels we are working in. One year after launch, partners are posting an average of twelve articles a month on the wiki. One year after launch, the articles posted on the wiki receive an average three star (out of four) rating from customers.

17. Step 3:Create a High-Level Strategy

18. This is the part consultants get paid for. Why? It’s not easy to do…and requires specific knowledge and skills.

19. Knowledge about social media and the various social networks.

20. Marketing skills.

21. An understanding of your business.

22. Out of the box, creative thinking.

23. List five to ten bullets. Action-oriented. Create enough bullets to cover the goal from beginning to end.

24. Example strategy for the goalDrive new event registrations: Gain social followers from existing online customers Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events Provide incentives for existing customers to promote us online/share info from us with friends/followers Make it easy for new leads to connect socially Participate in communities/subgroups where target customers are Provide social places for existing and potential customers to discuss events/shows Promote awareness among target customers of the event info available through our social channels

25. Step 4:Create the Tactical Plan

26. Now, merge your strategiesinto one, uber-strategy delete any duplicate items

27. Order the strategy logically and chronologically. Break the strategy into phases

28. Example strategy phases:

30. Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels

31. Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events

33. What do you need to dofirst? What doyou need to do next?

34. Need more information? Get it.

35. Need to make decisions? Make them. Or at least plan for making them.

36. Be specific. Be detailed. Capture everything.

37. As you create the tactical plan, hone your strategy. Change it as needed. Click here to see guidelines for building the tactical plan

38. Step 5:Define Interim Measures

39. The hardest part is done. But there’s still more work.

40. Look at your success criteria and your tactical plan How will you know if you’re on track?

41. For each goal, create interim measures add measures for tactics, too.

42. Interim measures should: Be specific Have a timeframe Click here to see guidelines for interim measures

43. Example interim measures: Low-cost method: On a weekly basis, measure @’s mentioning our account and of other mentions, plus the number of new followers gained that week. Monthly, look for trends to find correlations between the number of mentions and follower gain. After three months, use the data to estimate the acquisition rate through existing followers. High-cost method: On a weekly basis, track @’s and mentions by existing followers of our account, including the date they occurred. On a daily basis, track new followers of our account, including the date the become followers and who they are following at that time. Monthly, compile a list of the new followers who were following one of our existing followers upon acquisition, and where the existing follower mentioned us within two days of the new follower joining. Count this a follower acquisition via an existing follower. (Using this method, we could also do a deeper analysis to determine which of our followers is most influential in helping to acquire new followers.)

44. Step 6:List Tools & Processes

45. What do you need in order to execute your strategy? Tools and processes.

46. Review your success criteria and interim measures. What tools will you need to do these measurements?

47. Review your tactical plan. What tools will you need to implement it? What processes?

48. Create a requirements document for your tools, Research tools. Pick them.

49. Create a list of Daily Weekly Monthly Quarterly measurement tasks

50. Ta da! Seem like a lot of work? It is.

51. Want help? Contact us. We’re Coherent Interactive. We do social media strategies.

52. http://www.coherentia.com