Social Media Strategy

Business Strategy > Marketing Strategy > Communication Strategy > Social Media Strategy

A good social media strategy will not only benefit your organization directly, but will increase your site’s search engine ranking by generating fresh content and creating incoming links. We start with a strategy session where we review your business strategy, and discuss social media goals that are in alignment with your overall business goals. Your existing marketing and communication strategies will be used to create “rules for engagement” to guide your social media tactics.

• What is your main goal: sales, awareness or loyalty?
• What is the brand experience that you want people to have?
• Who is your audience? Where are they already interacting online?
• How will we measure success?
  • Qualitatively (Are we part of our industry’s conversation?)
  • Quantitatively (SEO rank, number of interactions, number of followers, etc.)
• What are our rules of engagement?
  • Proactive or Reactive?
  • How do we deal with negative feedback?
  • Who is the author? Does our audience know who the author is?

Conversation Tracking

We monitor and analyze your organization and industry across the social web, and create a “listening station” to save searches and alerts.

• “Ego” Searches: Who is talking about you, what they are saying, and where the conversations are taking place.
• Competition: What are competitors doing & who is talking about them.
• Industry News: Who are the leaders in your industry, and what are they saying? We monitor the social media content of top influencers in your market.
• Related Topics: What related topics are your audiences talking about? What problems can you help solve?

Conversation Management

Social media is about conversation, not message delivery. Your audience wants to have conversations with you, not about you, so it is important to know how to engage them in a personable way. We know the social web, and we know what’s kosher and what will be considered “spam.” If your audience can trust your content, you can even turn detractors into advocates.

• Responding to Comments: As your online presence grows, you will receive comments on your site content as well as social networks. Some may require responses, and will be answered in a timely manner. Even negative comments can become an asset if they are responded to in a timely and helpful matter.
• Status Updates/Tweets: Twitter and Facebook status updates can be scheduled in advance. By coordinating scheduled updates with daily monitoring, we can monitor response and continue the conversation.
• Leaving Comments: One of the best ways to build recognition and reputation on the social web is to leave intelligent comments on other social media. As with all social media, it is important not to “spam” readers by selling or just linking back to your site.

Content Creation & Promotion

One of the best ways to engage an audience is with engaging content. We can help you create written, audio and video content to inform and entertain your audience.

• Blog Posting: We recommend posting at least weekly, but ideally 3–5 times a week for maximum exposure. Our writers can schedule posts a week or more in advance.
• Repurpose Offline Content: You may have printed materials that have never been published online. If they are still relevant, this can be a great way to start or supplement a blog. Video or audio content may be repurposed in the same way.
• Repurpose Email Content: An existing email newsletter can be cross-posted as blog posts. Similarly, a blog can be made available as an e-newsletter.
• Social Media Outposts: Blogs, videos and podcasts can also be cross-posting to a variety of social networks and directories.
• Post Promotion: Social media content can be promoted on various social bookmarking sites, linked to from Twitter and shared on Facebook to reach a larger audience. A URL shortening service is used to measure clicks. Where possible, a custom URL shortener can be created.
• Event Promotion: Post your events online and allow your guests to invite their friends. Let your fans promote your brand for you.

Social Network Outposts

The tools you use to promote content and interact with your audience will depend largely on what tools your audience is already using. We will map your audience demographics to the social networks they are using most, and use conversation tracking to find niche online communities.

• Username: We help you choose a username that is available on most, if not all of your social networks.
• Profile Setup: Setup includes username registration, email confirmation, upload of photos, bio and all details.
• Profile Customization: We customize your profiles to reflect your brand image where possible, such as the background & colors on your Twitter profile.
• Outpost Setup: Your social media content is cross-posted to your social networking profiles where possible.
• Followers & Friends: We start by adding your existing contacts and employees. We use Twitter search as well as third-party tools to find industry leaders and people who are actively discussing relevant content.

Profile Maintenance

• Content Updates: Changes to photos and profile information are made at a discounted rate for Upgraded SMO clients.
• Contacts Maintenance: Once a week, we update your social network contacts. We use sites like Tweepml and Tweepsearch to find relevant people to follow, and use your updated email contacts to find new contacts on your social networks.

ROI/Conversion Analysis

• Measure ROI on social media efforts using metrics based on the goals we set during our strategy meeting. Receive weekly reports and a two-hour monthly meeting to assess strategy.
• Monthly meetings with Upgraded SMO clients to review strategy & ROI.