Creating a Social Media Strategy

How many businesses have a Social Media strategy as opposed to using Social Media tactically? Not surprisingly its low, in the UK is only 17% of businesses and these are predominantly led by the larger Corporations. Employment in dedicated Social Media teams in the US on the other hand is on the increase, up from 20 in 2010 to 49 in 2013 but again this is the largest Corporations (VentureBeat).

So why should you consider a strategy in this area, what business benefits are there likely to be as a consequence of this investment?

Well the results are interesting. In the Altimeters group report “The state of social business 2013″ the following were reported

45% reported an increase in brand awareness
45% reported an improvement in customer experience
24% reported an increase in revenue generation

It doesn’t have to cost the earth and you don’t need a massive team, you just need to follow these simple principles to make a start and improve your reach.

Start with your business. Its pointless trying to engage in Social Media externally if you haven’t even got an internal policy or worst still you don’t have the correct approvals for viewing results. I know to many businesses whose internal systems block Social Media sites, this is not only counter intuitive but hypocritical. Agree in your business the boundaries and approved activities across the Social Media networks and use this as your platform for your external strategy.
Communicate Internally and Externally. Tell people that you are embarking on a Social Media strategy, why?, well, when you do your customers and others will look out for you on their own networks, this makes going live easier. Equally from an employee perspective, let them see how serious you are in developing this strategy.
Define the activities. Start off with understanding the resource required, link it in to the Marketing team and write a plan as to the platforms and timeline to role the strategy out. Understand which are the most appropriate platforms, which are relevant to your target audience and which are the up and coming platforms, so that once you are established you can take first mover advantage.
Develop your people. Once you have your champions, allow them to train and develop their skills, Social Media is like any management tool, its constantly developing and its a life long learning experience.
Contribute regularly. Once you have your platforms identified, make sure that relevant content is loaded on a regular basis. If you want to raise your brand profile, grow sales and deliver on your goals for your Social Media strategy, then regular posting is essential.
Measure and Refine. Once you are live take regular soundings from your followers, make sure that the team report monthly on KPI’s agreed by the business. Look at which posts and which platforms respond best, measure your success in terms of brand awareness surveys and as with any other strategy, refine your offering accordingly to hit the right optimisation.
Don’t be a back seat driver. As part of the strategy, you need to be engaged. You need to follow, watch, learn and engage with Social Media influencers. Influencers are your critics, if they like what they see they may promote it, if not then at best they will unfollow you. Watch and learn, integrate and respond to comments, take them on-board and feed them back to the team so that you measure and define what works best.
Listen and Learn. Your team should be using tools to measure the success of your strategy but equally as important is to listen to the platform and understand what is happening, both on your pages but also across the wider audience. A lack of or a reduction in followers or likes is a sign that your content might no longer be relevant, but it might also mean that the audience has moved on to another platform. Monitor and constantly hone your strategy to embrace the market and keep the content and platform relevant.
Measure success. Whatever success looks like in your Social Media strategy plan, it needs to be measured and reported upon just like any other business initiative. Once you have communicated what you expect out of the investment in time and energy, make sure that it takes a high profile in your business and that the results are communicated and shared with your exec and your stakeholders.

It all sounds pretty obvious really, but with so few business taking Social Media seriously, the only real way to embrace and join in what is a technology and tool that is here to stay, is to have a strategy that gives it the respect it deserves. in doing so I am confident you will not be disappointed.

This article by Alan Ball was originally published on LInkedIn Pulse.