Looking at the basics involved in crafting a social media strategy. This will help to maximise audience engagement and optimise social media outreach.

1. Social Media Strategy
2014
Jodie King
Content Marketing Manager

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
BLOG
SOCIAL NETWORKS
VIDEO
IMAGERY
PRESENTATION
What should you do first?
•Assign ownership for each platform/medium
•Train everyone involved in correct social media practice
•Create a social media framework and make sure everyone understands it
•Encourage creativity and enthusiasm –be active

3. BLOGGING
Objectives: Increase brand awareness, become a voice/leader within your industry, encourage comments and engagement, generate leads, external linking.
Plan of Action:
1.Choose a blogging platform
2.Create a plan for employees to contribute blogs daily/weekly/monthly?
3.Add social sharing icons and automate them for when blog goes live
4.Measure results weekly/monthly –see what is creating engagement
5.Decide on a social sharing chain of events to make sure colleagues share, like, +1, comment and favourite according to a planned sequence or checklist
What should your blog about?
•Industry specific topics that you find engaging/interesting
•Anything that is trending/in the media. Put your industry spin on it to make it relevant

4. SOCIAL NETWORKS
Objectives: Brand awareness and engagement, lead generation, sharing relevant links, blog posts, engaging content, use a variety of mediums (image, video, text, links), promote future events and engage with industry leaders.
Plan of action:
1.Make someone responsible for Facebook postings and engagement
2.Set up a monitoring strategy to keep tabs on post strength
3.Choose a social media management platform (check out our next blog to get a list of useful social media tools and aps out there)
4.Refine and develop a social media voice that is in tune with company ethos as well as the humanity and creativity of staff
5.Decide on a social sharing chain of events amongst colleagues
6.Decide on number of posts per day and the type (entertaining/informative)
Does it pay to pay?
With Facebook you have the option to pay for ads. This can be targeted to audiences you wish to reach and is a powerful advertising option. You can control the budget and push posts for more audience reach and engagement.

5. SOCIAL NETWORKS
LinkedIn
Objectives: Brand awareness and engagement, lead generation, share links, blogs, relevant content, promote future events and engage with industry leaders.
Plan of Action:
1.Decide on when to post
2.Join relevant groups and plan in time to comment/add to discussion
3.Monitor Q+A sessions and plan when to contribute
Twitter
Objectives: As above with the addition of –create lists of top influencers and companies/people you can reach out to, listen and respond to relevant conversations, build a following and reputation.
Plan of Action:
1.Retweet and favourite great content
2.Use hashtags properly so you are commenting on trending topics/common tweet topics and on events as they happen
3.Know your @ for clients/competitors/industry leaders/potential clients

6. SOCIAL NETWORKS
Pinterest
Objectives: Brand awareness and engagement, lead generation, share images that are either brand related, eye-catching, or simply fun.
Plan of Action:
1.Create boards that have a industry specific theme
2.Follow other businesses, industry leaders, clients and partners
3.Choose someone to manage Pinterest with a photography background or interest
Google+
Objectives: All of the above as well as -contribute to communities and think of setting up your own.
Plan of Action:
1.Spend time customising for SEO purposes –google authorship
2.Utilise Google+ hangouts
3.Spend time +1 and sharing others content to build relationships

7. YouTube
•Links to your Google+ profile
•Unlimited length of video
•Subscriber options
•Build a YouTube company page
•1 Billion+ users
Instagram
•Open an Instagram account
•Post regularly from your mobile – smartphone focused experience
•Amateur video emphasis -shot real-time –in the moment
•15 second format (video length)
•200 million monthly active users
Twitter Vine
•Download the twitter vine app and sign in with twitter account
•Or @twittervinevideos to post on twitter
•6 second format (video length)
•40 million+ users
VIDEO
Why is video a standalone platform?
With YouTube, Twitter Vine and Instagram to
choose from video is no longer a tag on
strategy it is many companies core strategy!
The Objectives are consistent across the platforms but they each have their strengths/nuances.
Objectives: Brand awareness and engagement, visual sharing, show/demo company culture, post product videos/how- tos, cultivate a video series that audiences can opt into.
Plan of action:
•Plan video strategy for filming/content
•Choose a video production agency/in- house
•Decide which platform the video is being made for and how it will be delivered

8. PHOTO SHARING
Tumblr, Flickr, Snapchat, Instagram
Objectives: Brand awareness, engagement with visual assets, showcase products, company ethos and upcoming marketing events.
Plan of action:
•Decide on branding for images
•Choose one or more platforms to build a following on
•Be strong in one theme/area/sector
•Encourage contribution from employees
•S
Any specifics I need to know?
Instagram and Tumblr are all about the #hashtag so make sure you use it and promote your image to your target audience within their niche.
Flickr is more for the photography connoisseur and snapchatis instant and geared towards a younger audience.

9. PRESENTATIONS
Slideshareis a popular platform to share presentations on, giving audiences more detail in an attractive bitesizeformat. They are not as heavy in detail as pdfs and rely on imagery and short quality segments of advice to deliver something engaging to an audience. Just like the one you are reading…hopefully!
Objectives: Brand awareness, engagement with visual content, lead generation, good quality text for SEO optimisation, generate additional views on other content.
Plan of Action
•Decide on the frequency and content of slideshare
•Be consistent with working on quality presentations to make yourselves experts within your field
•Choose an agency to design the slidedeckmaking it visually eye catching
•Make sure your slideshareis synced to your social media and any other content sharing platforms

10. Thank you for reading
Hopefully you have loads of ideas to go and implement now
Good luck!
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