The document discusses developing a successful social media strategy for businesses. It recommends evaluating the social media landscape, conducting an internal readiness assessment, developing a strategic plan with objectives and key performance indicators, implementing the plan professionally, and ongoing monitoring and measurement of performance and return on investment. It emphasizes engaging customers through dialogue rather than one-way broadcasting to build relationships and leverage social media for business goals.

1. ‘ Creating the Buzz’ Social Media for Sustained Business Growth FSB Dr. Jim Hamill Alan Stevenson www.energise2-0.com March, 2011

2. SM Opportunities and Progress Made Used effectively, social media can lead to the following business benefits for SMEs Market/customer knowledge & insight through customer feedback and the use of social media monitoring tools Low cost brand awareness and reputation management Increase sales/repeat sales Build strong online community/ quality customer base of high value, high growth potential customers Engage and energise Enhanced customer experience and loyalty Sales/marketing effectiveness, efficiency and ROI Operational / internal process efficiency (open source and hosted apps)

3. SM Opportunities and Progress Made Interest and enthusiasm among SMEs is growing rapidly - channels are being set up SMEs fall into three main groups in terms of progress made Progressive Adopters Cautious/ Experimental Adopters Non Adopters

4. SM Opportunities and Progress Made While some good progress is being made, there is a need for a more ‘strategic’ approach Clear social media vision and strategy, agreed objectives, KPIs, targets, ROI and on-going performance measurement More attention needs to be paid to organization, people, resource issues critical to on-going SM success Social Media Planning Pays

5. Key issues in developing, implementing and managing a successful social media strategy

6. Workshop - Overview The key strategic, management and organizational challenges involved in planning, implementing and managing an effective social media strategy ‘ Social Media Planning Pays’……. SM success requires sound planning and the application of professional project management procedures …. but not paralysis by analysis A key objective is to ensure that your SM Strategy is fully aligned behind and supportive of your core business/marcoms goals and objectives

7. Key Questions To Address What social media channels should you engage with and how deep should your level of engagement be? How can social media best help you to achieve your overall strategic goals and objectives? What resource should you commit to social media? What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should you use and how can Return on Investment be measured?

8. Key Questions To Address How open should your organization become? What new ‘mindsets’ are required? What new skills, knowledge and staff training are required? Action plans for successful channel development

9. Workshop Overview What is social media? - a recap Key things to remember ; social media in action - examples ‘ Social Media Planning Pays’: Key Steps in Developing, Implementing and Managing a Successful Social Media Strategy The Social Media Development Cycle External Analysis: Evaluate Your Social Media Landscape Internal Analysis: Evaluate Your ‘Readiness to Engage’ Develop Your Social Media Strategy and Action Plans Evaluate Your Social Media Performance and ROI Organization, People and Resource Issues ‘ Getting There’ – Next Steps

10. A conversation rather than one-way broadcast

11. What is Social Media?

14. What is Social Media? The three main components: Applications Features and characteristics Business impact

15. Web 2.0/Social Media Web 2.0 Applications Open source Online Applications/ Web Services Social Network Sites Social Content – Social Bookmarking Blogs or Weblogs Wikis Podcasts/ Vodcasts Virtual Realities Mash Ups RSS Feeds Mobile Web; Internet Telephony Twitter Characteristics Communities and Networks Openness Sharing Peering Hosted Services – online applications; the Internet as the platform Interactivity Social Element Mass Collaboration Empowerment Global Business Impact Mindset Business Intelligence Customer Insight and Understanding Customer Interaction Enhanced Customer Experience – Rich Internet Applications Reputation Management Sales and Marketing Product Development and R&D e.g. engage and co-create IT/Software/Applications Operations, Internal Processes and HRM

16. How Big Is It?

17. Business Impact?

18. Key Things to Remember about Social Media

19. Key Things to Remember It’s social A key feature is online democracy – with content being provided by the network for the network – represents a fundamental and revolutionary change in online behaviour, expectations and the online customer experience. The end of the ‘read only’ internet Conversations are taking place relevant to your business Power shift Social media empowers customers, empowers the network. Recognizing this shift is the cornerstone of future success Especially true in information intense industries Declining effectiveness of traditional approaches Does anyone listen to sales/brand messages anymore?

20. Source: The Future of Advertising, APA, 17/02/09 as published on Slideshare ( www.slideshare.com )

22. Key Things to Remember Pull v push Consumers/users decide what information they wish to access New ‘mindsets’ are required Marketing as a conversation with your customers/network– dialogue not broadcasting But this is something that most of us are not very good at doing. We prefer ‘telling’ people SM ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ ‘ Winners’ will be those organisations who fully utilise the interactive power of Web 2.0 technology for engaging with and energising customer and network relationships

25. Key Things to Remember New performance measures Requires new performance measures Quality of your network Relationship strength Ability to leverage Social media monitoring tools The need for new business/marketing models

26. Performance Measurement Involvement – network/community numbers/quality, time spent, frequency, geography Interaction – actions they take – read, post, comment, reviews, recommendations Intimacy – affection or aversion to the brand ; community sentiments, opinions expressed etc Influence – advocacy, viral forwards, referrals and recommendations, social bookmarking Insight – customer insight Impact – business impact Social Media Monitoring Tools –Audit, Assess, Impact

27. The ‘6Is’ Approach

28. Key Things to Remember The need for new business/marketing models Traditional approach: Product development – Differentiate – Market and Promote - Sell New model based on: Communities, networks, openness, peering, sharing, collaboration, customer empowerment, ‘think and act’ globally Engage and energise ‘ Create the Buzz’

29. Some examples

30. Social Media in Action Quick Examples

31. In a Web 2.0 Era, the Brand Becomes the Customer Experience of the Brand A quick ‘personal experience’ Dubai Hotel

37. From the web site This 5-star hotel and residence offers European hospitality with an unmistakable French touch. The hotel consists of 318 beautifully appointed guest rooms/suites, while the residence offers 112 fully furnished and equipped deluxe Studios and 1-3 bedroom apartments. The ultimate in comfort, we offer 318 luxuriously elegant rooms and suites. Take a trip. Escape. Go and visit somewhere new and see if we are there… Give in to that irresistible wanderlust. Discovering and staying in the most exceptional hotels in the world has become the modern-day Graal, a game, a quest…

38. The Customer Experience of the Brand Tripadvisor

39. From Tripadvisor It's getting old, the rooms are unappealing and it will never be more than a business hotel Being a Sofitel hotel we expected something quite 'flashy' unfortunately we were let down. The rooms, although comfortable and clean, were not of the standard we expected and were definately not what we expected after looking at the photos on the hotel's website. Booking my stay via the Sofitel website after a pleasant experience at several other Sofitel locations over the past 2 years with my new job I was looking forward to a 5 star luxury stay after a stressful business trip. My expectations were reasonable, however certainly not met by this hotel.

42. Will It Blend? - iPad

43. 5.7 Million Views

44. United Breaks Guitars

45. 9 Million Views

46. Visitor Attraction Case Example New York Museum of Modern Art

47. The Web Site

48. Links to RSS Feed, Facebook, Twitter

49. RSS Feed

50. MoMA on Facebook

51. Two way dialogue and engagement

52. 346,466 twitter followers

53. Dialogue not just broadcasting

54. MoMA Youtube Channel

55. Over 200 Videos

56. 3,565,427 views, 12,413 subscribers

57. 12,080 on foursquare

58. Dialogue

59. Dialogue

60. MoMA Blog

61. Links to other SM channels

62. MoMA on flickr – 4,108 images

63. MoMA on iTunes

64. ‘ Social Media Planning Pays’ Key Steps in Developing, Implementing and Managing a Successful Social Media Strategy

65. Social Media Development Cycle

66. SM Development Cycle

67. Ten Key Steps EVALUATE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE Applications, impact, customers, conversations, features and characteristics AGREE YOUR GENERIC SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY Channels and depth of engagement KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS Measuring success INTERNAL SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT Progress benchmarking READINESS TO ENGAGE Are you ready to engage?

68. Ten Key Steps SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Vision, strategy, objectives, targets, customers, key initiatives and actions CHANNEL ACTION PLANS “ Getting there” ORGANISATION, RESOURCE AND PEOPLE ISSUES The key pillars of social media success IMPLEMENTATION Professional project management for social media success MONITOR AND MEASURE On-going performance measurement

69. Each Step is being covered in detail on our blog at www.energise2-0.com

70. Five Key Areas External Analysis: Evaluate Your Social Media Landscape Internal Analysis: Evaluate Your ‘Readiness to Engage’ Develop Your Social Media Strategy and Action Plans for ‘Getting There’ Evaluate Your Social Media Performance and ROI Organization, People and Resource Issues

71. External Analysis Evaluate Your Social Media Landscape

72. Evaluate Your SM Landscape The social media landscape and range of applications available is extremely broad and diverse – too wide The starting point in developing a social media engagement strategy is to monitor and evaluate the social media landscape for your business Social media landscaping will help you decide the best generic strategy to follow i.e. the main channels to use and your depth of engagement in each channel. Avoids the ‘we must use it because it is there’ syndrome

73. Diversity of Social Media

74. Key Questions to Address Applications what social media applications are most relevant to our business? Impact what impact is social media having on our industry, how important has it become? Customers how are our customers using social media? What impact is it having on customer behaviour ?

75. Key Questions to Address Conversations what online conversations are taking place relevant to our business; who is saying what about our brand/ industry where on the Internet and how should we respond? A wide range of Social Media Monitoring Tools are available (see later) Features and characteristics what are the key features and characteristics of social media that you need to understand i.e. social media culture? These questions help you to decide the generic social media strategy to adopt

76. Your G e neric Social Media Strategy Generic SM Strategy Matrix High Industry Impact Low High industry impact/ Low strategic importance Strategic priority High industry impact/ High strategic importance High engagement strategy Low industry impact/ Low strategic importance Passive approach Low industry impact/ High strategic importance Industry leader Low High Strategic Importance

77. ‘ Be Customer Led’ Three key questions: Who are our customers, who do we wish to engage with? Where do we find them ‘hanging out’ on social media? How can we best engage and energise them?

78. www.mashable.com

79. Monitor the Conversations Use Social Media Monitoring Tools to monitor online conversations relevant to your brand No or low cost tools such as Google Alerts, Yahoo Pipes, Social Mention, IceRocket, Blogscope, Blogpulse and ViralHeat More expensive and sophisticated tools such as Radian6, Alterian SM2, Sysomos Heartbeat and Infegy SocialRadar

80. An Example

81. The Beetles

82. Previous Slides on Key Things to Remember about Social Media

83. Internal Analysis Progress Audit and Evaluate Your ‘Readiness to Engage’

84. Progress Audit Evaluate progress made, benchmarked against agreed criteria: What progress has been made? What social media channels do we already use? What is the level of engagement with each channel? Where are the main areas for future improvement? Benchmarking is a key element of the Internal Audit and should be undertaken at five main levels…..

85. SM Benchmarking Social Media Landscape what progress has been made benchmarked against the opportunities presented by your social media landscape? Generic Strategy the level of progress made benchmarked against your generic social media strategy KPIs what progress has been made benchmarked against agreed KPIs?

86. SM Benchmarking Industry ‘Best Practice’ the level of progress made benchmarked against industry ‘best practice’? How does your current level of SM engagement compare with the industry average? What lessons can be learned from industry ‘leaders’? Strategic Gap Analysis based on the above, what is the ‘Strategic Gap’ that exists between the ‘current’ and ‘ideal’ scenarios; between where you are and where you should be? The ‘Strategic Gap’ provides a very strong basis for future social media strategy development

87. Readiness to Engage Evaluate your readiness to engage with social media Social media strengths and weaknesses; the main barriers and obstacles to be overcome

88. Readiness to Engage Strengths Weaknesses List here the main SM strengths of your organisation e.g. strong brand, quality customer base, customers already active in Social Media etc. List here the main SM weaknesses of your organisation e.g. limited staff knowledge and understanding, resource issues, organizational mindset, influence/attitude of the IT Dept etc. Obstacles/Barriers Overcome Detail the main obstacles and barriers for your organisation. Indicate how barriers will be overcome, including in-sourcing / out-sourcing options

89. Develop Your Social Media Strategy and Action Plans for ‘Getting There’

90. Use a Simplified Balanced Scorecard Will ensure that the social media actions and initiatives you take are fully aligned with and supportive of your overall business goals and objectives; that KPIs are agreed for monitoring and evaluating social media performance, business impact and ROI; and all key success factors are considered, especially the organization, people and resource aspects critical to successful strategy implementation A Scorecard approach can also be very useful for internal and external communications – a simple framework to present social media goals, objectives, key actions and initiatives to colleagues, partners and other stakeholders

91. Social Media Balanced Scorecard Not ‘paralysis by analysis’. By providing an agreed framework to follow, the Balanced Scorecard considerably speeds up strategy development and implementation The steps involved can be captured in a Social Media Strategy Map Five key questions to address……

92. Social Media Balanced Scorecard What is the overall social media vision for your organization? What are the key objectives and targets to be achieved? Who are your customers? Key Actions and Initiatives (including participation in ‘external’ social media channels) Organisation, Resource and People Issues

93. Social Media Strategy Map

94. Channel Action Plans Apply Professional Project Management Procedures to Ensure Successful Social Media Strategy Implementation

95. Channel Action Plans Once your Social Media Strategy has been agreed, Action Plans should be developed for each priority SM channel Cascade the Balanced Scorecard approach to each priority channel e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, use of ‘External’ SM ‘hubs’ The Action Plan for each channel should include a clear statement of…….

96. Channel Action Plans The overall objectives for that channel The KPIs to be used Specific targets Customers Key channel actions/tasks for ‘getting there’ Performance measurement Organisation and people

97. Some Key Decisions Channel Set-Up Design, Layout, Configuration, Profile Content, Use of Management Apps, Agree Domain Integration Options Web/Blog/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Flickr/LinkedIn/TripAdvisor Content Plan Tone and Style, Themes and Messages, Post Frequency, Sources of Inspiration

98. Some Key Decisions Customers (Building the Community) Invitation and Existing Contacts Marketing on Owned Channels Marketing on External Channels Referral and Influencers Conversations Encourage, Response Policy, e-WOM, Cross-fertilise Conversions Enquiries, Sales, Visits, Recommendations

99. Some Key Decisions Performance Measurement Tools, Alerts, Reports, Report Frequency Organisation and People Responsibilities (Who), Commitment, Training, Project Management

100. A Successful Channel

101. High Engagement

102. Two Way Dialogue

103. But Then.......

104. 48% Down on New 'Likes'

105. Post Views (-80%); Feedback (-60%)

106. Monitor and Measure

107. Monitor and Measure To ensure that your SM strategy delivers a return on investment, it is important to monitor and evaluate on-going performance benchmarked against agreed objectives, KPIs and targets Performance evaluation should be undertaken at three main levels using the ‘6Is’ approach….

108. Performance Measurement Involvement – network/community numbers/quality, time spent, frequency, geography Interaction – actions they take – read, post, comment, reviews, recommendations Intimacy – affection or aversion to the brand ; community sentiments, opinions expressed etc Influence – advocacy, viral forwards, referrals and recommendations, social bookmarking Insight – customer insight Impact – business impact Social Media Monitoring Tools –Audit, Assess, Impact

109. The ‘6Is’ Approach

110. Monitor and Measure Individual Channel Performance the effectiveness/success of each channel benchmarked against agreed targets for the ‘6Is’ i.e. Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy, Influence, Insight, Impact most channels provide easy to access statistics for measuring each ‘I’ to a very high degree of accuracy

111. Monitor and Measure Wider Social Media Performance monthly or quarterly reporting of the overall ‘buzz’ created by your SM activities using appropriate Social Media Monitoring tools this will show the impact of your SM activities on others and other channels it measures the volume of mentions, trends over time, which channels are driving your buzz, who is taking your message further, through which channels, and what affection or affinity they are showing, and so on

112. Merchant City, Glasgow

113. Monitor and Measure Underlying Business Performance the performance of each social media channel and the overall ‘buzz’ created are ‘lead’ rather than ‘lag’ measures in a social media era, they are the main ‘drivers’ of future business performance the final level of performance monitoring, therefore, is linking your social media activity to overall business goals and objectives e.g. enquiries, sales or customer loyalty. Is social media achieving your ultimate business objectives i.e. ‘lag’ measures?

114. Organization, Resource and People Issues

115. Organization, Resource and People Organisation, resource and people issues sit at the bottom of your SM Balanced Scorecard NOT because they are the least important issues to address. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The success of your social media strategy is very much dependent upon appropriate decisions being made in the areas listed below ….. Your ‘Social Media Strategy Document’ should contain a section that covers the following issues…..

116. Organization, Resource and People Roles, responsibilities and resources In-source roles and responsibilities Out-source roles and responsibilities Role of the Social Media champion Social media decision-making and control structures Resource plans Organizational culture and ‘mindset’ Policies and guidelines Social Media Proper Use Policy Social Media Content Guidelines Social Media Channel Guidelines Customer Response Policy and Guidelines Employee Response Policy and Guidelines Legal aspects to the above

117. Next Steps

118. Bob Dylan Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And don’t criticise What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin‘ Then you better start swimmin’ Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’

119. Continue the discussion at www.tourism2-0.co.uk www.energise2-0.com

120. Thank You Questions