1. Social Media Project Charter
Purpose
Use the Social Media Project Charter to establish a clear project scope, decision rights, and
executive sponsorship for the project.
Be sure to customize this template accordingly. When required, delete the sample text
provided and fill in the blanks with information that is directly related to the social
marketing project.
This template has been pre-populated with an example of what a mobile marketing project
charter might look like. Change, delete, or add to the example as required.

2. [Project Name]
Social Media Project Charter
By
[Enter Name Here]
For
[Enter Name Here]
Effective Date:
Document Owner:
Version:
Version Date Revision / Description Author:
Approval:
Approver Title:
Approval Date:

3. Table of Contents
1. Project Overview 4
2. Project Description 4
2.1 Project Purpose
2.2 Background
2.3 Project Scope
2.4 Project Deliverables
2.5 Project Timeframe
2.6 Project Resources & Responsibilities
3. Key Success Factors 9
4. Risk Identification 9
4.1 Risk Categories
4.2 Other Risks
5. Project Stakeholders 13
6. Communication Plan 14
7. Decision Rights 15
8. Approval 15

4. 1 – Project Overview
The following table includes the basic information associated for the social media project.
Please contact the project manager with any additional questions or comments.
Project Title Social Media Initiatives
Project Sponsor Marketing/Sales Director
Project Manager Marketing Manager
Project Manager Contact 1234
Marketing Manager
IT Manager
Project Team Members Sales Manager
Customer Service Manager
Customer Service Representatives
Project Start Date October 1, 2012
2 - Project Description
2.1 Project Purpose Social media is emerging as a key factor in the online opportunities
available for sales, marketing, and customer service. <Insert
Organization Name> needs to develop an official social media strategy
to leverage these opportunities and achieve benefits in the following
areas:
1. Marketing
 Improving brand image
 Increasing mind share
 Gaining customer insights

5. 2. Sales
 Increasing revenue
 Acquiring customers
 Gaining customer insights
3. Customer Service
 Increasing customer retention
 Increasing customer satisfaction
 Reducing cost of service
This project will identify the opportunities available and realistically
achievable, as well as develop a plan to execute a social media strategy
effectively across the major social media channels.
2.2 Background Consumers are rapidly adopting social media, yet adoption of social
media by organizations has lagged. <Insert Organization Name> must
follow customers, prospects and partners into the social media world.
Extended public social media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn, comprise extensive networks of users who are self-
organized into groups and communities. Users also join groups and
communities that are organized around attributes such as products,
lifestyles, entertainment, institutions, politics, and geographic
locations.
Customers will interact via social media whether or not <Insert
Organization Name> is participating; <Insert Organization Name> can
leverage the growth of social media to increase customer
engagement, gauge brand perception, and respond directly to
customer service issues.
<Insert Organization Name> has an opportunity to bring benefits to
sales, marketing, and service by engaging customers in conversation in
the social media sphere.

6. 2.3 Project Scope The scope for the social media project includes:
 Establishing a presence on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and
LinkedIn
 Developing a standard process for maintaining and updating
social media sites
 Developing an acceptable use policy for employees engaged in
social media on behalf of <Insert Organization Name>
 Integrating accounts to leverage content across multiple
channels
 Implementing a strategy for acquiring fans and followers
 Executing a maintainable, scalable plan that is concentrated on
achieving the specific benefits outlined in the Project Purpose
of this document
 Vendor selection and implementation of social media
monitoring tools within our CRM
It is understood that the project will unfold in three phases:
1. One-sided interactions while building a fan/followers base
2. Increased participation and diversification of social media
presence
3. Multi-faceted conversations and CRM integration
2.4 Project 1. Regular, consistent updates to Facebook page and Twitter account
Deliverables  Updating Facebook status, responding to fans, posting
photos and starting discussions; responding to fan
comments promptly and resolving their issues (offline if
required)
 Posting tweets that include company news, open-ended
questions, re-tweets of relevant content, links to our
YouTube and Facebook accounts, and links to our blog
 Monitoring Twitter for mentions of our brand and industry
and responding where appropriate
2. Regular conversations and contributions on LinkedIn

7.  Establish a group for our customers and prospects and
instigate discussions
3. Predictable production of videos
 Posting of product announcement, company news, product
news, informative/educational, and entertaining videos to
our YouTube channel
4. Monthly reporting and analysis
 Report metrics as applicable to specific goals
 Examples include number of fans/followers, discussions
started and participated in, views, re-tweets, links clicked,
brand mentions, sentiment of customer discussions,
anecdotal evidence of increased customer satisfaction
through issue resolution
2.5 Project Timeframe Start date: July 1, 2012
Estimated end date: This is an ongoing initiative which will be
evaluated quarterly
2.6 Project Resources Include roles, responsibilities and estimated time allocation to the
and Responsibilities project:
1. Project Manager
 Oversee all social media efforts and resource allocation
 Collect and reporting project metrics
2. Project Sponsor
 Project approval and executive representation
3. IT Support
 Establish corporate social media accounts
 Install monitoring and/or aggregating software
4. Customer Service Representative

8.  Establish customer service goals and processes to be
used when interacting with customers via social media
 Provide response mechanism and personnel to respond
to customer requests and issues
5. Marketing Representative
 Establish marketing objectives for social media
 Monitor channels for brand mentions and identify
branding opportunities
 Develop strategies for cross-platform promotion
 Harvest customer insight
6. Sales Representative
 Establish sales strategy for social media (e.g. exclusive
discounts, interaction with online store, offline
opportunities)
 Harvest customer insight
7. Staff responsible for manning social media channels
 Publish content via social media accounts
 Participate in online discussion
 Implement cross-platform marketing promotion
 Promote sales initiatives
 Respond to customer comments, questions and issues
 Grow fan/follower base by interacting with customers
and prospects wherever our organization or industry is
mentioned

9. 3 – Key Success Factors
What are the key success factors for the project (i.e. the factors that are a necessary
condition for success of the project)?
 Committed team members
 Adequate resource allocation
 Adequate project time allowance
 Tolerance for intangible benefits
How will success be measured?
 Growth of follower/fan base
 Level of interaction with followers and group members
 Relevance of discussion as gauged by audience participation
 Contact points for customer service opportunities
 Successful implementation and use of monitoring tools
 Adherence to acceptable use policy while attaining objectives
4 – Risk Identification
What are some of the risks that may be encountered during the project? Indicate high
level mitigation strategies. (Note: A risk is defined as anything that could potentially affect
the success of the project).
The following are a few examples of some of the risks the project may experience during a
social media implementation. They may or may not be applicable depending on which
social media opportunities are driving your initiative (sales, marketing, and customer
service).
Add and delete rows and examples as they fit to the organization.

10. 4.1 Risk Categories
Risk Category Probability Risk Mitigation Strategy
Security High Risk of employees  Implement policies that
downloading malware, indicate appropriate conduct
viruses, etc. from social by employees.
media services.
Privacy High Risk of inappropriate  Implement separate social
exchange of information network accounts for
between personal and business purposes.
business contacts.  Train employees to never use
personal accounts to interact
with business contacts and
never use their business
account to interact with
personal contacts.
Inappropriate High Employees representing  Select your social media team
Content the organization on carefully and ensure they are
social media channels fully trained on both official
may post something company policy and social
inappropriate to the media etiquette.
nature of your business.  Ensure consistent monitoring
by business units.
Time Wastage by Medium Use of social media for  Process for accounting for
Employees business purposes is time spent focused on
linked intrinsically to organization objectives must
personal use and time be documented.
spent may not be
optimized to meet
organization goals.

11. Risk Category Probability Risk Mitigation Strategy
Control Over Medium Fully participating in  Train every person charged
Brand Image social media means with interacting with
relying on front-line customers and prospects via
staff for dissemination social media regarding what
of positive branding. constitutes acceptable brand
presentation.
Bandwidth Low An increase in  Plan for any bandwidth
bandwidth requirements requirements with IT
to support social media network staff.
efforts, particularly
when using video social
media such as YouTube.
Competitors Low The ability for a  In a public social network,
Poaching Client competitor to view lists you cannot prevent this.
Lists of clients that have Monitor your own brand as
joined your well as monitor competitors.
organization’s social If client secrecy must be
media groups. maintained, then you should
use a private social network,
not a public network.
(SocialText, Lithium, private
SharePoint site, etc.]
Increased Cost of Low Additional resources  Augment existing customer
Servicing may be allocated to service responsibilities with
Customers social media without social media requests.
seeing immediate ROI.  If a dedicated resource is not
available, dedicate a specific
amount of time per employee
to be spent addressing
customer concerns via social
media.

12. 4.2 Other Risks
Other Risks Probability Risk Mitigation Strategy
Project Team High Competing resources  Ensure personnel have clear
Availability when implementing a directives and are fully
multi-department committed to the project
project can jeopardize before it gets underway
social media success.
Stability of High Evolving medium could  Clarify expectations with
Requirements mean rapid change to content owners (sales,
requirements and on- marketing, customer service)
the-fly adaptation. and social media front-line
staff
Lack of Relevance, Medium Response time is critical  Ensure staff is equipped with
Audience to achieving objectives, adequate monitoring tools
Disinterest particularly in customer and know how to use them.
service.  Develop process for issue
escalation as required.
 Empower social media
representatives to resolve
customer issues with an
adequate level of autonomy.
Lost Opportunities Medium Primary sales objectives  Test offers and integration
due to Dead Ends cannot be met without a with online sales processes
functioning process for before promoting.
conversion.  Offer incentives to social
media staff relative to
conversions.

13. 5 – Project Stakeholders
Project stakeholders are all of the people who have a vested interest in the project, yet are
not involved in the day-to-day operations of the project.
Stakeholder Name Role Project Responsibilities
Defining and evaluating strategy,
communicating with other team members and
Project Manager stakeholders, obtaining metrics and compiling
weekly reports on project status, conducting
meetings.
Project approval, negotiating for resources,
Executive Sponsor reviewing reports, attending quarterly
meetings.
Ensuring adequate IT resources are available for
the duration of the project, providing
IT Manager technology support, managing security, privacy,
archival of content, attending quarterly
meetings.
Defining and promoting integrated sales tactics,
monitoring social media activities for acceptable
Sales Manager
use, reviewing reports, attending monthly
meetings.
Defining and enforcing marketing strategy,
Marketing monitoring social media activities for acceptable
Manager use, reviewing reports, attending monthly
meetings.

14. Defining and enforcing customer service
Customer Service strategy, monitoring social media activities for
Manager acceptable use, reviewing reports, attending
monthly meetings.
Posting social media content on official
Social Media channels, triaging comments and escalating as
Representative(s) required, maintaining a positive brand image at
all times, attending monthly meetings.
6 – Communication Plan
Provide an outline of the high level communications plan. Specific dates are not required.
Stakeholder Frequency Method Purpose
Project Manager Weekly E-mail update  Discuss project progress,
issues, etc.
 Preliminary metrics and
evaluations.
 Rating relative effectiveness.
Project Manager, Monthly Meeting  Provide complete project
Stakeholders update.
 Get feedback from the team.
 Adjust strategy as necessary.
Project Manager, Quarterly Meeting  Outline wins and statistics
Stakeholders, from the previous quarter.
Executive Sponsor  Review roadblocks and
workarounds.
 Evaluate resource allocation.
 Plan for continued initiative.

15. 7 – Decision Rights
To support the timeline of the social media project and respect executive time, the project
manager has decided on the following decision rights procedure:
1. Any e-mail or voicemail sent to executive sponsor or project sponsor that requires a
go or no-go decision will specify a decision date or time within reasonable limits.
2. A non-answer from the executive sponsor or project sponsor by the specified date
or time will imply approval and the project may continue.
3. If the executive sponsor or project sponsor does not agree or requires further
clarification, they must contact the project manager within the specified timeline.
8 – Approval
___________________________________ _______________________________
Project Approver Signature Date
___________________________________ _______________________________
Project Sponsor Signature Date
___________________________________ _______________________________
Project Manager Signature Date