Social Media is not a strategy or tactic on its own. To be successful, it is part of your over all business objectives and marketing plan.

1. Developing Your Social Media
Business Strategy
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
!
NOTE: this is a condensed version of what was presented. For a
complete version, contact TaylorMade Solutions.
Heather MacLean
CMO
TaylorMade Solutions
@MacLeanHeather
@MacLeanHeather

2. Don’t Operate in a Vacuum
!
Social Media is not a Stand-
Alone Strategy

3. Top Mistakes Made
10.No measurement
9. No alignment to business objectives
8. Only doing push communications
7. Not engaging with your customers/
prospects
6. Not listening to brand, competitors,
industry conversations

4. Top 10 Continued
5.Choosing too many channels and
abandoning
4. Not choosing the right channels
3. Resources don’t understand the brand
2. You don’t have the right resources
1. No plan/strategy (lack of management
knowledge/buy-in)

5. Case Studies

6. 3 Companies Doing it Right

7. Starbucks - the challenge
Bricks and mortar
Traditional business
B2C
Rewards system - coffee cards
Tim Hortons really the only coffee
company still relying advertising on TV
!
!
Starbucks wanted something different

8. Starbucks
Early adopter
Consciously thought of the digital experience
Focused on ‘customer experience’
Music
!
!
!
“It really is about connecting with someone in a more intimate,
experiential way that we think will have longer lasting ability
to build affinity than a 30-second TV commercial or an ad.”

9. Facebook

10. Engagement

11. Twitter

12. Old Spice - the Challenge
My father’s aftershave
My grandfather’s aftershave
Not exactly a young/hipster product

13. What Happened
Men versus women
Market to your audience
Change the message
Create a relationship
Humour
Visuals

14. Taco Bell
Lots of noise
Lots of competition (200,000 US locations)
Decreasing profit margins
Increased concerns healthy eating
Lots of variety
Increase in fresh/local options

15. What did they do?
A lot
Reframed the approach
Started communicating
Repurposed Content from TV ads, etc. over to
social
Leveraged user-generated content
Since 2007 almost 8 million Facebook fans
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram
In 2013, Taco Bell ranked as No. 1 on
DigitalCoCo’s Restaurant Social Media Index,
trumping key competitors such as McDonalds and
Starbucks.

16. Twitter

17. Facebook

18. What do they have in common?
1. Clear and defined brand & brand voice
2. Defined audience - Personas
3. Commitment to resources/strategy
A. Channel analysis
B. Listening & Engagement Strategy & Plan
C. Integrated with overall corp objectives
D. Social Media Playbook
4. Avoidance of push communications
5. Had an integrated marketing plan
6. Measure ROI

19. Social Listening
& Engagement
are KEY
components of
the overall
Business
Strategy

20. Why Listen
Listen first!
!
!
People are talking about
you whether you’re
there or not.
!
Ignoring them is like
ignoring a ringing
phone.

21. People are Talking About Your Company

22. How do you Listen?
• paid tools: Hootsuite, Radian6, etc.
• free tools:
– Google Alerts
– Twitter Search
– Google Blog Search
– Social Mention
– BoardTracker and BoardReader
– Hootsuite

23. Social Media Command Centre

24. But…Be Strategic

25. Playbook
• This can be your saving grace
• What to respond to
• What not to respond to
• Workflow
• Post tagging (for reporting)
• Escalation - to whom and when
• Hours
• Team
• Governance
• etc.

26. Engagement Rule #1
Be Authentic
!
Understand your community
before diving in.
!
Speak with a human voice.
!
Engage with your community
person-to-person.
!
Admit when you’ve made
mistakes.
!!!!!
@MacLeanHeather

27. @MacLeanHeather
Be Relevant
!
It’s not about you, it’s
about your
community.
!
Share info that’s
useful for them and
they’ll accept a little
that promotes you.
!
Use 80/20 rule.
!
!
!
!
Engagement Rule #2

28. Engagement Rule #3
@MacLeanHeather
Be Practical
!
Social media is a set of tools,
that is part of a bigger picture.
!!
Despite what some say, it is
not a strategy unto itself.
!
Tie your efforts to existing,
bottom-line business
objectives.
!
Remember your KPIs
!!!!!

29. Engagement Rule #4
Be Patient
!
Building a Community takes time.
!
Like in your personal life,
there are no short-cuts to
building relationships. Keep
that in mind.
!!!!!
@MacLeanHeather
Image courtesy of josephomotayo

30. Engagement Rule #5
@MacLeanHeather
Be Committed - Be
Active
!
Engage regularly with
your audience.
!
Respond quickly when
people engage with
you.
!
Keep your content
fresh.
!
Provide Value
!
!
!

31. Listening for Intent
• 2013
• Complaints happening
• Company ignored
• Continued promoting (push
communications)
• Social media exploded
• Horrible corporate response
• Hit mainstream media
• Stock took hit
• Head eventually quits/president too

32. Channel Selection

34. Best Practices
• Look at your business does and what your
brand is
• Where are your customers/prospects?
• Be selective
• Once you start, stick with it
• Have a plan, including corporate buy-in
• Have patience as you build your network
• Never buy likes or buy Twitter Followers
• Remember to support with other marketing

35. What is your brand/line of business

36. Who/Where are your customers

38. 7 Steps to Measuring Social
Media ROI

39. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
Establish your goals in
advance.
!
If you don't know what
you want to do, you're muc
h more likely to fail. (As in l
ife.)

40. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
Tie them to your
existing business
goals:
!•
leads
• conversions
• web traffic
• customer satisfaction
sentiment
• awareness
• employee satisfaction
recruiting

41. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
Understand that
every department
will have a different
definition
of ROI.

42. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
Decide in
advance how you
will measure
success.
!
What are the
metrics that spell
success for you?

43. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
!
Focus on campaigns.
!
Break your activities down
into manageable chunks.
!!!!!

44. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
Make them trackable
through your web
analytics
!•
Create a unique
landing page
• Create a unique URL
for each social channel
• Use your web analytics
to see where the
traffic came from
!!!!!!!

45. 7 Steps to Measuring Social Media ROI
In the end, ROI is a
formula and you
need all the data to
truly calculate it
!
ROI = gain – cost
cost
!
!
!!!!!!!

47. The 6 Building Blocks of a Social Media Strategy
1.Start listening.
!
2.Find out where your customers/prospects are
engaging.
!
3.Learn what your competitors are doing.
!
4.Get everybody together in the same room/
have a plan.
!
5.Develop a social media policy.
!
6.Determine what works best for you.
!
!

48. Channel Sharing Best Practices

50. Use your own name for your Twitter ID.
Know your audience

51. Twitter Best Practices
!
• Choose your Twitter handle carefully
!
• Use your logo as the avatar and choose a good background
!
• Create your own hashtag associated with your brand
!
• Use only 1 or 2 hashtags at a time. 3 at the most
!
• Be sure to read a linked article before re-tweeting it. It might contain
information that you didn’t intend to share.
!
• Be sure to put context around a link. NEVER just tweet a link.
!
• Tweet no more than 15 times/day
!
• Be human

53. You the Right Imagery

54. Facebook Best Practices
• Know your audience
!
• Be responsive (expectation is 1 hour)
!
• Write for your audience
!
• Use images - Tag people
!
• Use video

55. Facebook Best Practices
!
• Post no more than twice a day
!
• Post every day
!
• Know what day is THE best day for you
!
• Know what time is THE best for you
!
• Ask people to share your post
!
• Have contests to raise your profile

56. Facebook Best Practices
!
• Shorter posts get read (think 140 characters even in
FB)
!
• Speak as a human being, don’t be a robot.
!
• Show humour, have fun, but remember balance
!
• Indicate who your team is and who is posting - use
initials
!
• Remove links from post and let it it stand on its own.

57. Questions
!
!
!

58. Other than my own, the photos in this presentation
were sourced via google search and Flickr, and are
licensed under Creative Commons and Shutter Stock.
!
My sincere thanks & appreciation to everyone who
has had a photo in this presentation.
@MacLeanHeather