One of the biggest reasons for social media failure is the absence of a strategy.
It’s probably the top issue I encounter when reviewing an organisation’s social media activity. All too often, in-house marketing departments set up social media channels such as a Facebook Page or a Twitter Profile, without having thought about why they’re including them as part of their marketing activity, what they expect social media to achieve or how they are going to build an effective social media community.
Strategy is an important factor in marketing success and is essential in social media
Strategy is an important factor in marketing success and is essential in social media. In the outline below I have summarised the main elements you should include in a social media plan.
Situation analysis
Before you think about channels such as Facebook or Twitter, you need to assess why you want to use social media and how you might benefit by integrating it into your marketing.
A useful place to start is to review best practice examples of social media success especially in your own sector. You will also need to review your current council PR and communications activity to see how you can align with social media and online PR activity.
Objectives
There’s little point investing in a marketing campaign if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. The latest research suggests that common objectives for social media campaigns include market research, customer research, engaging with customers, promoting the brand online, new product launches and growing leads.
Social media shouldn’t be kept in a silo. So it’s always best practice to include all business units in your plans. You might want to have a round table meeting with marketing, sales and customer service to see how each unit can benefit from social media and what they would like to gain from a campaign.
Be careful not to set the bar too high. There’s no harm in selecting a few manageable outcomes rather than being unrealistic.
Channels, tactics, action
Ok, so now the fun part. After you have planned out what you want to achieve, you can set about selecting the actual social media channels. Many companies end up diving in at the deep end and start a Facebook Page or a Twitter profile without having a clear idea how to interact with people.
Instead, you should consider your marketing objectives when choosing your social media channels. In doing so, you might place more emphasis on Linked In, the social networking site for professionals for a B2B company, or make Facebook the main channel if you want to reach a consumer market.
Next, you will want to decide on the actual tactics you will use to engage with your social media community. It’s at this point you will want to think about the types of content you’re going to use to engage and interact with your followers and fans. Again, you need to be realistic.
Social media is certainly an effective marketing tool, but it only works if it engages with a social community that it interested in what you have to say. So you need to look carefully at how you are going to build a community through interaction and sharing interesting content – videos, articles, competitions etc - which will make you relevant and interesting online.
Last, but not least, you need to make the important decision on who will be responsible for social media within your organisation. There has been a lot of debate within the marketing world on who should take ownership of social media. Personally I believe that in-house PR should take the lead with close input from marketing and customer services.
