This document outlines 5 steps for developing an effective social media plan: 1. Monitor brand mentions and identify influencers to understand current conversations. 2. Define objectives, goals, strategies and tactics aligned with target audiences and corporate goals around awareness, sales, and customer support. 3. Decide on appropriate content for national brands versus local affiliates to scale the plan locally. 4. Create social media policies and guidelines and provide training to ensure proper implementation. 5. Determine key performance metrics to evaluate the success of social media programs against business objectives.

1. Step 1: Listen & Learn – Monitor conversations, track brand mentions &
identify influencers
• Find out what’s being said online about your brand and your competitors, who is saying it, and where the
discussion happens (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.).“Listening tools”that can help you with this include:
Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, SocialMention and Twitter Search.
• Find out if any of your brand affiliates are already engaging in social media. Who is doing it well? What is and
isn’t working?
Step 2: Create a Plan – Define objectives, goals, strategies & tactics.
Map them to target audience(s).
Be sure your social media objectives support your corporate objectives. Objectives often fall into 3 categories
• Brand Awareness/Thought Leadership – e.g. Increase or improve brand awareness/product reputation;
increase website traffic; increase search engine rankings
• Sales/Lead Generation – e.g. increase leads; increase sales revenue; reduce customer acquisition costs
• Customer Support/Advocacy – e.g. Improve quality and timeliness of customer support; reduce support
costs; build customer loyalty
Decide which strategies and tactics will help you achieve your objectives. Determine which social media networks will
work best. For example, to increase sales you might use Facebook and Twitter for promotions and coupon offerings.
Step 3: Decide on Content Mix – National Brand vs. Local Responsibilities
Social media programs will be much more successful for national brands when local affiliates are actively involved. In
order to scale to the local level, brands must decide on the right mix of content and who will be responsible for it.
• Content controlled by the brand might include new product launches, national contests/sweepstakes, and
sponsorships.
• Content controlled by affiliates could include local promotions, commentary on local events, staff info, and
customer testimonials.
• Brands can create a library of social media content to which local affiliates can subscribe to keep pages fresh.
Step 4: Create a Social Media Policy,Guidelines & Training Program
It’s important to create a social media policy and guidelines that affiliates and brand employees can refer to for
direction. With the proper infrastructure and training, brands can more comfortably relinquish local marketing and
advocacy activities to affiliates.
Step 5: Measure
Determine which metrics will allow you to gauge the performance of your social media programs against your business
objectives. For Twitter it might be the number of followers, downstream followers or tweets. For Facebook, you might
measure number of fans, profile information (demographics) on community members or referrals.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLANNING TOOL
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