Exercises for Workshop 1 on our Mastering Social Media Programme, May 2011

1. Mastering Social Media
‘Stop and Reflect’ Exercises
Workshop 1: Social Media Landscape, Audit and Readiness to Engage
Dr. Jim Hamill
Alan Stevenson
Vincent Hamill
www.energise2-0.com
May, 2011

2. The following exercises will help establish a solid foundation for social media strategy development,
implementation and performance measurement. Please review and complete in your own time:
Exercise 1: Analyze your Social Media Landscape ................................................................................3
Topic 1: Applications ................................................................................................................................. 3
Topic 2: Impact.......................................................................................................................................... 4
Topic 3: Customers ................................................................................................................................... 4
Topic 4: Conversations .............................................................................................................................. 5
Topic 5: Features and Characteristics ....................................................................................................... 6
Exercise 2: Internal Social Media Audit ...............................................................................................7
Topic 1: Progress Made............................................................................................................................. 7
Topic 2: Benchmarked Progress................................................................................................................ 8
Exercise 3: Readiness to Engage..........................................................................................................9
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 2

3. Exercise 1: Analyze your Social Media Landscape
Topic 1: Applications
Use the following template to indicate potentially relevant Applications and Platforms for your business.
Review your answers on completion of the Programme.
Social Media Priority How can these be applied in our
Applications and Platforms (1 to 3) organisation
Feeds and Alerts: Users subscribe to receive
regular updates from favoured web sites, blogs,
online news channels. For example RSS feeds
Review Sites: Review sites exist relevant to
almost any business or industry. For
TripAdvisor.
Publishing: Include Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger)
and Wikis (Wikispaces, Wikimedia).
Microblogging: Sites such as Twitter and
Yammer which allow users to send short ‘tweets’
of 140 characters or less.
Social and Professional Networking: Sites
which allow users to connect with
friends/business associates and engage in
social/professional networking e.g. LinkedIn or
Facebook.
Multimedia Sharing: Sites which allow users to
upload, share and comment on multimedia
content – video and images. For example,
YouTube.
Rich Internet Applications: Mash Ups are
applications created through applying and
combining two or more applications (or APIs).
Flickr images mashed into your site. Podcasts are
multimedia files, distributed over the Internet
using RSS.
Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking sites
like Delicious, Stumbleupon, Diigo and Reddit
allow users to collectively categorise interesting
web content (urls) through notes and tags
(keywords)
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4. Social Media Priority How can these be applied in our
Applications and Platforms (1 to 3) organisation
Mobile and Internet Telephony: mobile
applications, mobile websites and Voip. For
example IPhone apps or Skype
Open Source and Hosted Applications: There
are over 240,000 Open Source (OS) projects. This
includes Linux and OpenOffice.org (both compete
effectively with Microsoft).
Topic 2: Impact
What Impact is Social Media having on your Industry? What are the main opportunities and threats for
your business?
Topic 3: Customers
Where are your customers hanging out on Social Media?
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 4

5. Topic 4: Conversations
Keyword Analysis
Note down relevant keywords for your business or organisation. Think about keywords in terms of:
 customers  the business
 business partners  the organisation
 employees  you and your contacts
 stakeholders  products and services
 competitors  your industries
 brand advocates  geographically, where you operate
Note your Relevant Keywords
Social Media Monitoring
Use some of the Social Media Monitoring Tools listed below to identify where the main conversations
are taking place relevant to your business. List the ‘actionable insights’ delivered.
• Search Facebook (www.facebook.com)
• Search Twitter (www.search.twitter.com)
• Social Mention (www.socialmention.com)
• Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts)
• Topsy (www.topsy.com)
Note any Actionable Insights
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6. Topic 5: Features and Characteristics
Yes / No
Do you now understand the main Features and Characteristics of Social Media?
Comments
The main features and characteristics relevant to your business:
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 6

7. Exercise 2: Internal Social Media Audit
Topic 1: Progress Made
Please complete
a) What progress has been made?
b) What social media channels do
you already use?
c) What is the level of
engagement with each
channel? Fans, Followers,
Network etc.
d) What positive business benefits
have been derived?
e) Where are the main areas for
future improvement?
Yes / No
Do you have a Generic Strategy in place (e.g. agreement on the number of
channels to use and the depth of engagement with each channel)?
Do you have agreed Key Performance Measures already in place?
Add Comments here
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 7

8. Topic 2: Benchmarked Progress
Please complete
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?
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 ‘best practice’?
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 need to be?
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 8

9. Exercise 3: Readiness to Engage
Topic 1: Strengths, Weaknesses, Obstacles and Overcoming them
Please complete
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.
Detail the main obstacles and
barriers for your organisation.
Indicate how barriers will be
overcome, including in-sourcing /
out-sourcing options
Comments
Mastering Social Media Session 1 Page 9