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What is a social media strategy, anyway?

A Marketing Framework for Social Media

There are unique characteristics for planning and executing a social media marketing strategy, but the most important thing to understand is that a social media marketing strategy involves the same business requirements as any marketing strategy. You should start with a business framework before you spend any time considering how you will customize your company’s facebook fan page.

It takes time and resources which means that there are costs associated with your social program. To move forward with your social strategy, you will have to add it to your plate or stop something else. It also takes commitment. A single campaign is unlikely to generate any meaningful results. Embracing a social strategy means creating a new culture for your company and your customers.

What are some of the benefits of social media marketing?
Transform your customers into passionate marketers that promote your brand.
Engage your brand’s stakeholders where they prefer to interact with your company.
Make it easy for your passionate customers to influence others
Create closer, more “human” connection (people to people) with your brand
Source new ideas for product enhancements or even new products
Reduce costs to service your customers
Improve search rankings
Improve overall sentiment about your brand
If you’re not listening, you’re not participating

Listening is a critical component of any conversation. Listening is an analytical and diagnostic process of researching how your organization interacts with its customers on and offline. Your strategy should include understanding the wants and needs of different stakeholders and the number of current, relevant and potential conversations in your competitive industry.

You need to define your goals and business intent

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What are the trends and needs in your business that need to be addressed and how will your social strategy fit in to these overall objectives?

Generate leads
Introduce a new product
Transform public opinion
Improve customer satisfaction
Improve customer service
Be recognized as a knowledge leader within your industry
Set Benchmarks for Comparison and Measurement

The only way that you will know if you are successful or not is to understand how you are performing today or how other advertising channels are performing. Ultimately, the question you want to answer is — How have things changed since I started my social media strategy? Without benchmarks, you have no basis for comparison and little ability to estimate a return on investment.

Current rate of new leads
Costs of aquiring a new customer
Number of customers you lose (churn) every month
Number of referrals, by channel
Average transaction value
Number of transactions
Number of current customers

You can compare how you are performing today and tomorrow and have an objective measure of the difference your social strategy is making.

Match Intent to the right social media platform

You need to select the right content, customization and social media platform integration strategy based on your business objectives and the opportunities to engage specific groups of users. All social media channels are not created equal.

Focus on Soft (Media) and Hard (Financial) Metrics

There are 4 strategic categories that can be measured by social platform. Your objectives should be tied to these categories of potential interactions. For each category you can measure media (how many followers) and financial measures (cost per lead). If you would like more comprehensive information about all of the potential measures, please contact me.

Awareness: Are your users aware of your social platform? There’s no point even moving forward if they’re not aware that you exist.
Action: Call-to-action responses such as clicking through to your website or reqesting marketing information.
Advocacy: Are they telling others about you through social media?
Appreciation: Are they commenting and engaging with your social experience?
Apply the same business scrutiny that you would for any other marketing investment

By investing in a structured and measurable marketing framework for your social strategy, you increase the likelihood that you will be successful without taking resources away from other positively-performing programs.

Credits: IAB Framework

Google Tech Talks June 10, 2008 ABSTRACT The disruptive technology of new media is far more accessible than most realize. The impact of new media is far more impressive than most report. The mavericks of new media are slowly taking over – quietly, but with a shadow that dramatically changes the Internet’s role in media (delivery, creation and consumption). At this point in time, these mavericks aren’t effectively in anyone’s index. Will that ever change? Speaker: Paul Colligan Paul Colligan is CEO of Colligan.com Inc. and manages several popular Internet properties that include Podcast Secrets, Automate Sales, FrontPage World, and PremiumCast.com. Paul produces a number of Podcasts that include (but are not limited to) Marketing Online Live, Podcast Tools Weekly Update, Paul’s Profitable Podcasting Podcast, Electronic Marketing Interviews, and Big Seminar Live. He is also the author of many books and magazine articles about Internet marketing and is co-author of The Business Podcasting Bible with Alex Mandossian. Mr. Colligan has played a key role in the launch of dozens of successful Web sites and Internet marketing strategies that have seen tens of millions of visitors and millions of dollars in revenue. Previous projects have included work with Peak Potentials, Heritage House Publications, InternetMCI, the Oregon Multimedia Alliance, Rubicon International, Microsoft, the Electronics Boutique, and Pearson Education. He is also a popular speaker on Internet technology …

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