Strategic Alignment Your Primary Business Goal It’s not about the number of likes or retweets you get. It’s not a popularity contest, it’s about setting measurable goals for your business so that you can achieve change. The trick here is how to align these business goals with specific objectives on social media. You might not know where to start on social media, but you will most definitely know what you want to focus on for your business, and so this is where you should begin. First, define what change you want to see in your business within a specific amount of time. Refer to the recommendations outlined in your research. Rather than thinking about a grand five year plan, think about a one to three month plan. Why? Well, the social media landscape changes quickly and you’ll need to be better at adapting or responding to change. Besides, it’s more feasible to focus on shorter term goals. To make things a bit easier for you, consider the following primary business goals you would like to focus on: Business Research You need to build intelligence to inform your business decisions so that you can minimize risk and design your ideas around what your market desires. Whether you have an idea for an innovation and you need to collect data and insights to help make decisions or you’ve completed a product cycle beyond development and are ready to introduce new offerings to the market, you need to do research. Marketing You have your product offering and need to bring it to the market. You’re focused on building awareness and educating the market about the value your offering brings. Sales The market is now aware of your offerings and you need to create a pipeline to sell them. Product Support The market has bought into your offerings and need support so that you can nurture your relations with them. Doing so will establish your business as a brand they will always trust and choose. Business Development You’ve completed your product offering cycle and looking for ways to scale and introduce new products to the market. You want to better understand the problems your market is experiencing so you can offer something innovative and new that solves their problems. Ask Yourself: Which of these primary business goals would l like to focus on in the next 1 to 3 months? What is the most feasible to accomplish? Your Key Social Media Objectives Now that you’ve established what your business focus will be, you can define your purpose on social media. Your Key Social Media Objectives* should align and support your short-term organizational goals. By defining and aligning goals and objectives, it will make it much easier for you to make decisions about what tools to use, how to use them and know what to measure. This alignment defines your social media strategy. All businesses implementing successful social media strategies focus on the following objectives based on their primary business goals.

1. Strategic Alignment
Your Primary Business Goal
It’s not about the number of likes or retweets you get. It’s not a
popularity contest, it’s about setting
measurable goals for your business so that you can achieve
change. The trick here is how to align these
business goals with specific objectives on social media. You
might not know where to start on social
media, but you will most definitely know what you want to
focus on for your business, and so this is where
you should begin.
First, define what change you want to see in your business
within a specific amount of time. Refer to the
recommendations outlined in your research. Rather than
thinking about a grand five year plan, think about
a one to three month plan. Why? Well, the social media
landscape changes quickly and you’ll need to be
better at adapting or responding to change. Besides, it’s more
feasible to focus on shorter term goals.
To make things a bit easier for you, consider the following
primary business goals you would like to focus
on:
Business Research
You need to build intelligence to inform your business decisions
so that you can minimize risk and
design your ideas around what your market desires. Whether

2. you have an idea for an innovation and
you need to collect data and insights to help make decisions or
you’ve completed a product cycle
beyond development and are ready to introduce new offerings to
the market, you need to do
research.
Marketing
You have your product offering and need to bring it to the
market. You’re focused on building
awareness and educating the market about the value your
offering brings.
Sales
The market is now aware of your offerings and you need to
create a pipeline to sell them.
Product Support
The market has bought into your offerings and need support so
that you can nurture your relations
with them. Doing so will establish your business as a brand
they will always trust and choose.
Business Development
You’ve completed your product offering cycle and looking for
ways to scale and introduce new
products to the market. You want to better understand the
problems your market is experiencing so
you can offer something innovative and new that solves their
problems.
Ask Yourself:
Which of these primary business goals would l like to focus on
in the next 1 to 3 months? What is the most feasible to
accomplish?

3. Your Key Social Media Objectives
Now that you’ve established what your business focus will be,
you can define your purpose on social media.
Your Key Social Media Objectives* should align and support
your short-term organizational goals. By
defining and aligning goals and objectives, it will make it much
easier for you to make decisions about
what tools to use, how to use them and know what to measure.
This alignment defines your social media
strategy.
All businesses implementing successful social media strategies
focus on the following objectives based
on their primary business goals. These Key Social Media
Objectives have been defined by Forrester
Research, Inc. in their book, Groundswell*.
Listening
Ongoing monitoring of your audience’s conversations with each
other, instead of occasional
surveys and focus groups.
Talking
Participating in and stimulating two-way conversations your
audiences have with each other, not
just outbound communications to your customers.
Energizing
Making it possible for your enthusiastic audiences to help move
each other to actions

4. Supporting
Enabling your audiences to support each other
Embracing
Helping your audiences work with each other to come up with
ideas to improve your cause,
programs and services
Each of these objectives align with each of the primary business
goals and creates a framework for
defining your strategy.
Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on
these
objectives
Research Monitoring Campaign Listening
Marketing Engagement Campaign Talking
Sales Rallying Campaign Energizing
Product Support Nurturing Campaign Supporting
Business Development Sustaining Campaign Embracing
Fig. 3.1
Each of the objectives can also be seen as steps or supporting
objectives leading up to a Key Objective
depending on the goal.

5. Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on
these
objectives
Sales > Rallying Campaign > Step 1: Listening (supporting)
Conduct listening and monitoring to
gather insights to know how best to
engage with audience.
Step 2: Talking (supporting)
Create content that will create
conversations among audiences and
the brand to build relations and trust.
Step 3: Energizing (key objective)
Create a campaign that will get
audiences excited about the brand
and it’s offerings so that they will
evangelize across their own networks.
Fig. 3.2
*Li, Charlene, and Josh Bernoff. Groundswell: Winning in a
World Transformed by Social Technologies. Harvard Business
Press, 2011.
__
Strategy Activities
ACTIVITY: Define Your Primary Business Goal
Your social media strategy needs to have a focus, start with
your primary business goal first within

6. a measurable amount of time. Use the following worksheet to
think through what you believe needs
to be the primary focus for your business that social media can
help you achieve.
REVIEW
Take a moment to review the primary business goals. Think
about where you are currently and
where you would like to move your business. Circle the goal
you want to focus on supporting for the
next 1 to 3 months.
REFINE
Now take a moment to refine this goal. What specifically would
you like to see change
(quantitatively and qualitatively) if this goal is achieved?
Example: Support - I would like to see an
increase in product support by 50% and an increase in positive
sentiment on customer support.
MEASURE
Indicate how long you want to focus on this primary goal
through social media. Consider what is
most feasible based on your refined business goal within 1 to 3
months. Example: I’d like to see these
increases within 2 months time during the third quarter of the
year.
BENEFIT
Now define how your business will benefit from achieving this
goal. How might this help you move
to the next step or change your business? Example: By
increasing our support and improving the quality

7. of this support, consumers will want to establish a long-term
relationship with our brand and will be more
willing to participate in developing new offerings in the future.
BUSINESS GOAL REFINED GOAL TIME BENEFIT
Research
Marketing
Sales
Support Example: I would like to see
an increase in product
support by 50% and an
increase in positive
sentiment on customer
support.
Example: I’d like to see
these increases within 2
months time during the
third quarter of the year.
Example: By increasing our
support and improving the

8. quality of this support,
consumers will want to
establish a long-term
relationship with our brand
and will be more willing to
participate in developing
new offerings in the future.
Development
Fig. 3.3
__
ACTIVITY: Establish your Objectives and Key Results
Now that you’ve established the brand’s primary business goal,
let’s align these to your social
media objectives and key steps for your overall strategy. For
each of these steps, we’ll also define
the key results so that we have indications of success that we
can measure before moving forward.
Use the following guide to complete your objectives and steps,
key results, and how they align with
the brand’s goal.
Primary Goal Key Social Media Objective

9. One of the five goals the organization will achieve
Example: Sales
One of the five social media objectives that aligns with the
organization goal
Example: Energize
Fig. 3.4
Supporting and Key Objectives Key Results
Example:
Step 1 Supporting Objective: Listen
Step 2 Supporting Objective: Talk
Key Objective: Energize
Example:
Listening
1. Identify at least 10 social media influencers to
target and engage
2. Identify key values and interests of targeted
audiences
3. Identify the most impactful social channels to
initiate new engagements

10. Talk
1. Create new content targeting audiences and key
influencers
2. Ongoing conversations with at least 5 influencers
with positive sentiment
3. Audience awareness increased by 50% within one
month
Key Objective: Energize
1. Initiate new campaign to promote offering
2. 40% in shared content within two weeks
3. 75% increase in awareness
4. 30% increase in sales
Fig. 3.5
__
ACTIVITY: Align Objectives with Tools and Technology
Now that you have a sense about your basic steps and the
intended results, spend some time
thinking about what tools and technology will be most helpful
for you to accomplish these things.
Don’t just rely on what you are currently working with,
consider adopting new tools or innovations if
necessary. Use the chart below to map your ideas.

11. Objectives & Key Results Required Tools and
Technology
Tactics
Example:
Talking
1. Create new content targeting
audiences and key
influencers
2. Ongoing conversations with
at least 5 influencers with
positive sentiment
3. Audience awareness
increased by 50% within one
month
Example:
Tools we will use:
1. Photo Editor, Photoshop
2. Writing Platform, Google
Docs
3. Social Media Monitoring,
SproutSocial
4. Blog, Medium

12. 5. Instagram
6. Twitter
Example:
1. Use Photoshop to create
compelling visual content
with branded messaging to
share on Instagram and
Twitter
2. Use Google Docs to create
campaign content including
blog posts on Medium
3. Instagram will host a
majority of our photo and
visual content based on the
themes of our blog posts
4. We will use SproutSocial to
monitor audiences and
influencers as well as
relevant content to share
with them.
5. We will also use SproutSocial
to manage content posting
across all of our channels.
6. Sprout Social will also be
used to engage directly, rely,
or initiate conversations with
audiences.

13. Fig. 3.6
__
ACTIVITY: Defining Your Social Media Strategy Statement
A strategy statement is a concise description of your overall
plan. It should be used to help
rationalize the logic of your strategy and provide a clear
understanding of the purpose and intent of
your strategy. It is the thesis of your thinking at this point.
The strategy statement includes the following elements:
Goal
Identifies the organization’s goals and what they want to see
change over time
Target Audiences
Identifies the intended target audiences that will be engaged in
the strategy
Objectives
Establishes the objectives in the strategy as a series of steps
Overall Strategy

14. Describes the overall alignment of the goal and objectives
Benefit
Describes why accomplishing the objectives will benefit the
organization
General Outline:
In order to (business goal), we will be implementing a (social
strategy).
To get there, we will first (supporting objectives) with (target
audience). Then we will
(supporting objectives).
Then finally (key objective).
So that we can (benefit).
Examples:
“In order to support the goal of increasing ticket sales, we will
be implementing a rallying strategy.
To get there, we will first use listening tactics to gain insights
to identify key influencers, talk tactics to
build relations and awareness. Then finally, energize supporters
to share information about ticket
giveaways, so that we can maximize tickets sales across their
networks.”
“In order to help research and understand the market, we will be
implementing a monitoring strategy.

15. We will spend time using Twitter to listen and discover who are
key influencers, what is our current
brand sentiment with them, and identify conversation topics
they are most interested in. By listening,
we will be able to gain insights and information to help make
decisions about how we will approach the
market and build awareness.”
REVIEW
Spend some time reviewing your previous work as well as the
social media strategy framework
below.
Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on
these
objectives
Research Monitoring Campaign Listening
Marketing Engagement Campaign Talking
Sales Rallying Campaign Energizing
Product Support Nurturing Campaign Supporting
Business Development Sustaining Campaign Embracing
Fig. 3.7
WRITE
Use the table below to begin inputting the elements of your

16. strategy statement
Elements Inputs
Business Goal
Key Objective
Supporting Objectives
Strategy
Target Audience
Benefit
Fig. 3.8

17. WRITE
Now use these elements and the outline below to complete a
first draft
In order to (business goal), we will be implementing a (social
strategy).
To get there, we will first (supporting objectives)(target
audience). Then we will (supporting
objectives)(target audience).
Then finally (key objective) (target audience).
So that we can (benefit).
Fig. 3.9
REVIEW AND REFINE
Now begin drafting the narrative or your strategy statement.
The outline is only a guide, use it to
ensure your rationale is clear but also be sure to write it in a
way that it is your own and speaks
clearly to the intended reader.
Complete your statement below:

18. Fig. 3.9.1
__
ACTIVITY: Develop your Strategy Map
A social media strategy map is an overview or sketch of your
plan that provides brief details to help
you make your final decisions more quickly. Whenever
possible, make it visual. It doesn’t have to be
perfect it just has to pull all the key elements of your plan
together in one place.
The map includes the following elements:
1. Organizational Goal
2. Targeted Audiences
3. Social Media Objectives and Basic Steps
4. Description of the Strategy
5. Tools, Technology, and Channels
6. Metrics or Key Results

19. Example for an online video contest
Organizational Goal Targeted Audiences Social Media
Objectives and
Basic Steps
Increase the number of submissions
to the annual video contest
Build brand awareness with younger
audiences
People within current networks online
and on the ground
- Previous contestants
- Previous winners
- Local chapter members
- Volunteers
New younger audiences
- Nonprofit volunteer
organizations
- Young conversational hockey
enthusiasts
- Young video makers with
interest in community
volunteering

20. - Influential bloggers on
hockey, special sports, and
community development
Listen and Monitor
- Discover new audiences to
engage
- Discover new conversations
to follow
- Identify influencers
- Identify conversationalists
- Identify relevant content
Talk and Engage
- Share comments with
relative conversations
- Create blog posts relative to
current and new targeted
audiences
Energize
- Ask people to encourage
others to join
- Promote benefits
- Demonstrate impact
Description of the Strategy Tools, Technology, and

21. Channels
Metrics or Key Results
Rally current followers and other
influencers to promote and share the
video contest
Wordpress Blog
- Create relevant content
- Lead conversations
Listening
- List of effective content,
topics, and conversations
- List of number of influencers
- Build influence and trust
with current audiences
- Frame message with new
audiences on new platforms
- Move people to do actionable
things
Facebook
- Listen to current audiences
- Share messages and call to
actions
- Host the video contest and

22. judging through WooBox app
YouTube
- Monitor relative videos and
conversations
- Engage people by
participating in other
people’s relative
conversations
Twitter
- Monitor conversations,
people and topics by creating
lists
- Share relative content
- Follow new people
- Promote contest and drive
them to Facebook to vote or
submit
- Number of shares
Engagement
- Content effectiveness
- Quantity and quality of
relationships

23. Energizing
- Number of shares by other
people
- Number of clicks to the
contest pages and blogs
- Number of entries
- Number of voters
Fig. 3.9.2
Use the outline below to begin drafting your social media
strategy map
Organizational Goal
Targeted Audiences Social Media Objectives and
Basic Steps
Description of the Strategy

24. Tools, Technology, and
Channels
Metrics or Key Results
Fig. 3.9.3
__
ACTIVITY: Draft Your Social Media Strategy
Mindset
Now pull all of your ideas together from your research to your
strategic framing to compose an
overall strategy for campaigns that will help achieve the
organizational goals.
1. Define the Purpose of this Document
2. Define the problem or challenge
3. Strategy Statement
4. Target Audiences
a. Describe who will be targeted and why
b. Define the call to action

25. c. Describe what we would like them to do
5. Overall Plan
a. Define and describe the concept of the campaign that will be
initiated
b. Provide a narrative explaining how this will be done
c. Define each of the supporting and key objectives and their
key results
d. Define what tools, technology, and channels will be used to
achieve these results
6. Closing Summary
Running Head: AMERICAN FOOTBALL & CTE
1
AMERICAN FOOTBALL & CTE
2
Dr. Barry Shollenberger
November 09, 2018
American football has been attractive to many people in
America. A significant proportion of the American people have
been found to engage in the game in one way or another. The
largest proportion is the fan base the attractiveness of the game
makes the players engage in more serious action to entertain
their fans. The action leads to some injuries on the players, and
they end up being treated from time to time (Daly, 2013
). Cumulative injuries on the head have been associated with the
increased possibility of contracting brain damage and other
conditions such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE which
threatens the life of the players. Many of the American football
players die shortly after their retirement from the games. The
increased deaths raise a question about the cause of their death

26. with some people associating the death with CTE and others
stating different reasons for their death. There is, however, a
concern about the other potential causes of the death of the
American football players making it difficult to align the death
of the players to CTE. The number of players dying from the
spread of CTE is however significant which raises a concern
about the problem and how it could be solved (Omalu, 2014).
Understanding the cause and other associating factors,
therefore, becomes essential to help the victims
. This study, therefore, aims at finding out to what extent could
CTE be linked to the early death of the American football
players after their retirement
.
The worldview which best aligns with the topic of the study is
postpositivism. The strategy aligns best since the topic is not
new to research and some information is known about the topic
. Many speculations have been done concerning the topic, and
several people have studied the content. Based on this finding
the study is, therefore, going to be a continuation trying to
explain a specific context about the topic which will boost the
understanding of concepts learned in the previous studies. In
postpositivism, the study involves capturing something that is
already known and has been studied such that it provides a
background to the study and trying to pass a concept to people
to bring a better understanding (Phillips & Burbules, 2013). The
topic about CTE and American football has been common in the
past which makes this study to concentrate on the contribution
of American football to the CTE deaths.
There has been a previous association of American football to
CTE deaths, and some empirical studies have been done based
on the statistics. The study has been conducted on the American
football players as well as on other areas, and the causes of CTE
have been established as extreme trauma. Through the different
studies, it was discovered that CTE is caused primarily by the
long-term injuries which account for the death of the American

27. football players shortly after their retirement (Daly, 2013). The
discoveries and other studies that were done in the past makes
the worldview of positivism
the most suitable for the context since it does not lead to the
discovery of new knowledge but gives more support to a
particular position regarding what is already known.
The study will involve mixed research methods that comprise of
both quantitative and qualitative study to arrive at a more
informed decision. In the quantitative study there will be a
collection of information from the national football league
website about the players of American football that died and
determine the proportion that died out of CTE. The value will
be used to perform a comparative study between the proportions
that died out of other conditions relative to those that died out
of CTE (Omalu, 2014). The portion of the study will be
important in computing the statistics about CTE and the number
of deaths. The qualitative study will involve a meta-analysis of
the different works that were done by other researchers. The
different levels of similarities in the findings will help in
concluding. The qualitative study will be used to explain the
results that will be obtained from the quantitative study to bring
a better understanding of the concepts
.
Several strategies will be employed in the collection and
analysis of the information. For instance, a collection of
qualitative data will be informed by the credibility of the source
to reduce bias. Documents that are peer-reviewed will be useful
in this section to have information that can be reliable
. The quantitative data, on the other hand, will be collected
from the previous records preserved by the bodies that keep
data on the American football players (Daly, 2013). The data
collected will be analyzed through descriptive statistics which
will inform on the mode, mean, and distribution of the CTE
deaths relative to the deaths resulting from other causes.
The success of this study will be done through a literature

28. review to get the necessary information needed to create a
background that can be used to understand the topic better.
Several topics are important in composing the literature review
that will achieve the intended need of creating a deeper
understanding of the underlying concepts. Some of the
keywords to use during the literature review will include
statistics of death resulting from CTE; CTE causes diagnostic
and treatment, American football and the number of CTE deaths
in the world. Also, there will be information that will bring an
understanding of the relationship between American football
and CTE deaths. There will also need to search for information
on how American football contributes to CTE. The information
collected on the literature review will be helpful in finding
valuable information relating to American football and CTE
linking them together and presenting it as clear as possible to
the target audience
.
References
Daly, C. D. (2013). American football. Minnesota History, 19-
27.
Omalu, B. (2014). A historical foundation of CTE in football
players : before the NFL, there was CTE. Brain Injury, 1116-
1123.
Phillips, D. C., & Burbules, N. C. (2013). Postpositivism and
educational research. Experimental Neurology, 167-189.
Your Rubric Scores for the exercise:
Content

29. 53/60
Spelling, Grammar, Syntax
19/20
APA Format
18/20
Total
90/100
�Excellent Title Page.
�It is required that you provide page numbers for all non-web
citations. This will include every citation in this paper.
�Much of this information belongs elsewhere.
�Your introduction is OK as far as it goes but should be more
fully developed with some items you lack and remove some

30. things there.
�This is where you need to cite the Creswell textbook.
�Creswell?
�I keep waiting to read something about concussion “protocol.”
�Some specific related literature would help here.
�Your paper is just short of the 3-page minimum length
assigned.
�The conclusion of any paper is one (along with the
Introduction) of the most important paragraphs in any
assignment. It should begin with a restatement of the topic
having been discussed and include a brief summary and/or
conclusion of the contents of the paper.
�Not required but I wish you had used at least one web
reference so I could be sure you knew how to cite it.
�You didn’t include the class textbook?