Getting started withsocial media strategy

Women Who WineFebruary 22, 2011

Sorel Denholtz

Quick answers to the most common obstacles

“What if someone says something bad about us?”

If they are going to, then they probably already are.

The difference is that now you will be there to respond and participate in the conversation.

“No one has time.” Or, “it’s not a priority right now.”

Spend a few hours searching Twitter, Facebook, etc for your brand and your competitors.

Any missed leads? Unheard complaints? Positive engagement for competitors?

A well-planned social media campaign doesn’t have to require huge time commitments.

Get the lay of the land.

What are your peers or competitors doing?

In search of AWESOME: What can you dream of doing?

Why do you want to participate in social media?

“Because everyone else is.”X

Better answer: “to build relationships with customers.”

Whom do you want to connect with? What kind of relationship do you want to have with them? What do you hope to accomplish through this relationship?

Step 1. Identify your audience segments

Step 2. Articulate your objectives: What relationship do you want to have with each audience?

Step 3. Select platforms, tools and technologies

Step 4. Benchmarks & metrics

Developing your strategy

Step 1. Understand your audience

Segment your audience into affinity groups. Example: for California Academy of Sciences, we identified Science Enthusiasts, Members, Travel Professionals, Donors, 20-Somethings.

Identify your 3-5 top audiences based on business priorities and how they use social media.

Are they creators, heavily using YouTube, WordPress and Instagram to share what they create?

Do they curate their online world, saving shoes to Wanelo or news to Digg?

Are they simply spectators, reading reviews and viewing videos, but not actively participating?

Source: Forrester Research

Step 2. Articulate your objectives for

each audience

Objective: Market Research What is being said about you,

your peers, your competitors, and your category?

This should be part of any social media strategy.

Sharing content and answering questions on social media networks and blogs can establish you as

expert in your category.

Objective: Establish expertise

Corporate blog engages and establishes expertise.

What is shared, where, and how can all support building brand awareness.

Objective: Branding

Youtube campaign went instantly viral.

Encouraging brand advocates to share content about your brand can build excitement.

Objective: Energize a community

Short-term campaign for PEANUTS to demonstrate relevancy of the brand in 2010

Facilitated sharing of (adorable) PEANUTS content. 3300 shares per day.

Encourage your fans to create content for you promoting your brand. Use brand ambassadors to build excitement.

Objective: Drive attendance

NightLife Insiders: brand ambassadors created and shared content

Blog posts, videos and reviews. Always transparently.

Social media can be an excellent customer service channel. Your customers can support one another.

Objective: Customer support

Best Buy uses Twitter for customer service.

Apple encourages users to help one another.

Location-based offers drive foot traffic.Professional networking builds business.

Objective: Lead-generation

For B2B, LinkedIn excels for building relationships and generating leads.

Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook all offer location-based deals.

Step 3. Select platforms, tools and

technologies

Audience + Objectives will tell you which to select. Stay focused!

Source: Spredfast

Don’t forget your web site!

Sharing tools are critical to encourage distribution of your content.

Step 4. Benchmarks & Metrics

Metrics & calculating ROI...Still a hot topic!

Track everything you can and share what you learn. Plan on doing regular reporting.

Track both follower count and engagement. Don’t forget your web site analytics.

Be sure to include your web analytics. (Above: HootSuite integrates google analytics with tweets.)

Facebook (below) provides interaction

metrics.

Listen. Respond.Share.

And remember -- it’s not all about you.

When you start out...

sorel@tincanassociates.comhttp://www.slideshare.net/SorelDenholtz

Thank you!