Social media is a fast-moving channel, which means proper planning is vital to success. Effective social media strategies come from embracing the fact that social media is a two-way communication channel organizations interacting in this space need the resources not only to push messages out but to deal quickly with the messages coming in, too.
Planning is the foundation of success. Here is one method for approaching social media strategically.
5. Create an action plan
Once you have a clear idea of what you want, you can begin compiling an action plan to get there.
This is where you need to make sure that you have created the necessary documents and processes that form the foundation of your plan.
You will need to:
- Decide on the roles and responsibilities of the project team and other stakeholders.
- Determine what social media tools you will make use of.
- Commit to a frequency and volume of activity, as well as how quickly you will respond.
- Develop a conversation plan.
- Create a tone of voice guidelines, frequently asked questions, community guidelines and content plans.
6. Implement
This is the fun part! It’s time to kick off your plans and put all that research and thought into action. Set up your platforms according to the guidelines they specify.
Alert stakeholders that you are starting your engagement plans, and make sure you have tracking in place. Continue to monitor for mentions of your organization, and responses to your messages. Keep to your general plan, but be prepared to adapt.
7. Track, analyze, and optimize
The beautiful thing about digital marketing is that you can track every single user interaction and use this information to learn from and improve your efforts continually. You should track the success of your social media campaigns on an ongoing basis, and set milestones for your team at less frequent intervals (every couple of months or so), when you will sit down and do a more in-depth review.
There are several tools you can use for tracking social media. You will need to build a suite of tools to suit your measurement and reporting requirements.
Platform insights
Facebook, YouTube, and other social media platforms offer analytics and insights. These are a useful starting point for reporting on your social media efforts, from numbers of followers or fans to interactions with the content you share.
Web analytics
If you are using social media channels to send traffic to your own website, you should tag the links so that you can segment that traffic in your website reports. In Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics), you would use campaign tracking parameters.
URL shorteners
URL shortening services such as bit.ly and ow.ly offer usage data that will tell you how many people click on links you share, when they click on them, and where in the world they are from.
Online monitoring software
Online monitoring software is an important measurement investment that you will need to make. It helps you to keep track of all mentions of your brand and to understand the sentiment and influence of those mentions. You should be tracking your reputation for trends and changes over time.
Social media dashboards
There are a number of services that make it easier for you to centralize management of your social media properties, as well as make collaborative management easier. They also integrate analytics data from a number of sources, making reporting easier.
Some services include:
- HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com)
- Spredfast (www.spredfast.com)
- CoTweet (www.cotweet.com)
- Sprout Social (www.sproutsocial.com)
- Socialbakers (www.socialbakers.com)
- Tweet stats (www.tweetstats.com)
