The document outlines a comprehensive guide for developing a social media strategy, emphasizing the importance of planning and defining objectives. Key steps include auditing existing platforms, setting benchmarks, identifying key influencers, and developing a content strategy tailored for different channels. The ultimate goal is to engage audiences effectively, measure results, and adapt strategies to achieve desired outcomes.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
A guide to building your strategy

2. “You are not your resume,
you are your work. “
Seth Godin

3. Strategy
(from Greek "art of
troop leader; office
of general,
command,
generalship")
is a high level plan
to achieve one or
more goals under
conditions of
uncertainty.
Before you start creating you must
Start planning!
Ask yourself 3
questions…………
1. WHY are you doing it?
2. Who are you doing it to?
3. What do you want to do?

4. No need to waffle on about how
important it is to have a solid strategy
and you wouldn’t be here if you
thought otherwise so let’s dive right
into the steps to creating a successful
Social Media Strategy. Along the
way there are tools to support your
actions and to enable you to get
going straight away.
We are going to take 10 steps to
creating a Social Media Strategy.
Some of them you may already have
fleshed out and others you may not
have thought of – either way run
through them and tick them off as
you go, it will save a heap of time
later.
Do you have a Facebook Page
already Or Twitter page? If you
havent then you have to go to the
website page that you want to open
and follow the instructions to open
an new page – whether Personal or
for Business. You will need an
email address. If you have already
opened business accounts on any
social media channels then the
best place to start is capture
exactly where you are on these
channels – reveiew all your activity
and write it down. In this way you
will have a good idea if your new
activities are having effect and
meeting your objectives.

5. Audit
Review any existing platforms & performance you may be running.
Where are you on social media Have you been active on certain channels. If so open up an
excel sheet and start putting in the information – list out the platforms and the current number of
followers, fans, pinners ect.
Engagement Rate
Total number of comments, shares,
likes
Total number of likes
Average engagement rate on Facebook – 2%
If you already have a few months data then it’s also useful to include engagement and sentiment
(get on to www.socialmention.com or create a word cloud with www.wordle.net. Often by doing
this, you’ll find some hidden insights which can be really useful for future planning.

6. Set benchmarks
If you previously set benchmarks e.g. reach increase of fan base, Twitter followers
ect, How did you get on? Did you reach those goals, if not, do you know why not.
How many goals did you set – enough/too many?
Prioritising any negative sentiment is critical – once your have reviewed sentiment

7. CONTENTS
1. Listen
2. Identify Share of Voice
3. Set Objectives
4. Identify Key Influencers
5. Identify audience/Avatars
6. Define approach for core platforms
7. Develop Content strategy
8. Engage in conversation
9. Measure results

8. 1.
LISTEN

9. • Where are they talking
• What are your competitors doing on social
• Which sites have the most conversations
Go back onto these sites and find out the following:
Topline overview of where you are on social check out www.topsy.com,
www.addictomatic.com.
For more detailed information head for www.socialmention.com &
www.hootesuite.com.
If you want to find out more about your competitors then sign up for
www.howsociable.com. www.google.co.uk/trends/
What are they saying?

10. 2.
IDENTIFY
SHARE OF
VOICE (SOV)

11. Now that you have an idea where you are
and what people are saying about you,
what’s your share of voice (SOV)?
Go back to www.socialmention.com or
your other listening tools and input your
competitors name. You should already
have your own positive negative and
neutral mentions, now compare to your
competitors

12. 3.
SET
OBJECTIVES

13. What are your goals
 Increase Awareness
 Increase Traffic
 Increase Engagement
 Develop Loyal Fans
 Generate Leads
 Grow Business Partnership
 Improve Sales
Clearly define one or two objectives that are both realistic and
achievable with the resources and budgets available. Set one or
two to begin with focus on achieving and developing in phases
rather than all at one time.

14. Set SMART Goals
• SPECIFIC – ensure goals are clearly understood by everyone involved
in the campaign – open the campaign to everyone in the company.
Prioritize.
• MEASURABLE – measure success & failure – key milestones
• ACHIEVABLE – keep realistic, what resources do you have, budget
• RELEVANT – keep focused on relevant audiences, channels
• TIMELY – time bound outcomes, long/short term, fixed or flexible

15. 4.
IDENTIFY
KEY
INFLUENCERS

16. Are you an industry leader?
If not, find out who is leading the industry you are in
What best practices are they putting in place?
Do they have a strategic advantage? What is it?
What you’ll find is that Industry leaders have:
• A Point of view
• Are Credible
• Promote themselves as thought leaders
• Deliver on promises
Can your products and services do the same, should they be
industry leaders? If not, what do you have to do to become one.

17. 5.
IDENTIFY
AUDIENCE/
AVATARS

18. Influencers/Advocates can be very powerful and, if
managed properly, can greatly speed up your opportunity
to market. Currently, Twitter is the channel of choice for
Influencers as they can get their message out their
quickly and easily.
www.topsy.com
www.twitonomy.com
Look up conferences where they are speaking, events
they are running, look across all social channels. START
FOLLOWING THEM.

19. 6.
DEFINE APPROACH
FOR
CORE PLATFORMS

20. Identify key channels – start with one and master each
along the way, where are your target audience, which
channels are they using? Within each channel segment
each target group, develop Avatars/personas for each
group and develop your content against each of these
personas on then channel.
Facebook – social sharing, shareable content, target ads
Twitter – microblogging, post 140 characters
Instagram – share pictures and 15 second videos
Pinterest – social scrapbook, collections of favourite things
LinkedIn – business network, thought leadership
Select Channel/Content

21. 7.
DEVELOP
CONTENT
STRATEGY

22. Two Main Components
CONTENT = Business value
Messaging/Storytelling Structure
PEOPLE = Creation workflow
Publishing Maintenance/governance

23. Content needs to be at the core of
the strategy

24. What does Content do?
• Influences customers decisions
• Builds trust
• Provides purchase path instructions
• Upsells
• Solicits feedback
• It makes money......

25. Content Considerations
• Treat content like a critical business asset
• Define real goals and success metrics
• Understand the type of content required for the channel selected
• Allow time to create valuable, high quality content
• Set up regular schedules to create and publish
• Start with small articles and build up
• Remember time is money – set a budget

26. Who should owns the content?
• Business, IT, Brand Marketing, Strategic planning, Assign dedicated
content advocates
• Understand content’s environment - internal & the existing
communications ecosystem, Technology/infrastructure
Go for less content of higher quality, it tends to be:
• More user friendly
• Better quality
• Cheaper to create
• Easier to Manage
Content Considerations

27. Content Formats
• Formats
• Text
• Graphics
• Video/demos/animations
• Games/Widgets
• Audio

28. Tools to get things done more quickly
• Post Planner Facebook content management tool
• Feedly (w/ Buffer) blog content sharing & scheduling tool
• Social Oomph “evergreen content” scheduling tool
• Opt-In Monster pop-up plugin
• WordPress SEO seo plugin

29. Remember:
The Goal
make it useful,
usable for the user,
purposeful & profitable for business

30. 8.
ENGAGE/
IN
CONVERSATIONS

31. Engage Your Target Audience
Hear Consider Try Live it
Magazine articles –Business
Lifestyle writers taking test
drives
Ad Words advertising
Lite micro site development,
include survey
Brand Facebook page– upload
video content
Twitter-account article posting
Brand videos on YouTube –
webcam activity, fine tune
search
Brand LinkedIn – testimonials on
display advertising, sponsored
stories
Promotion at events, PCI
camps, Top Gear, House and
Home Show.
Build database from sign ups -
Twitter, Facebook and Surveys
Push to Micro site, sign-up through
Search, online display ads
Business and lifestyle articles.
Micro site Content:
-Testimonials
-Celebrity endorsement
-Video engagement, games,
-Competitions across social
media.
-Chat forums
-Opinion pieces
-Develop on going CSR Programme
-Photography
-“help design” and learn
about it.
-Project information and help
Trial products & services at
event
Invite via Twitter
Competition in City Centre
GoPro recordings to Vine
VIP Invitations to press &
selected VIP list. Focus on
influencers, advocates, existing
customers. Ensure exclusive
event covered by all media
including own brand team.
Purchase products and services,
supply aftersales service and
follow up.
Post purchase:
Supply App
Initiate push notifications
Sales/Service survey
Annual event
Example

32. 9.
MEASURE
RESULTS

33. Basic Measurement tools
• Howsociable.com
• Facebook Insights
• Google Alerts
• Gorkana
• HootSuite
• Icerocket
• Klout
• Google Analytics
• Google Trends
• Google Keyword Research
Tool
• Google Media Planner
• Bing Ad Planner
• Google Alerts

34. CONTACT ME