Social Media Planning Workbook

Transcription

1 Social Media Planning Workbook Janet Fouts

2 What is Social Media? Social Media is a loosely fitting title for a website that engages the user in conversation. It used to be that you built a website and hoped people would come to it, read what you had to say and then pick up the phone and call you. Maybe. Times have changed. Life moves at web speed these days and a regular website simply can't keep up. The Social Media Advantage Social media is a low cost way to connect directly with your market, build relationships with them and give them a sense of ownership through participation. As opposed to traditional media methods, social media is interactive and dynamic and can be suited to the particular audience quite easily. From a web standpoint it lends itself to being indexed by search engines, shared and republished by the community, allowing your network to reach farther and faster than by a website or ad alone. Traditional marketing takes time and money. With social media you can get your message out and adapt it based on user feedback or market fluctuations. You can learn tremendous amounts about your new expanded network by speaking to them directly, gathering data about habits and preferences and fine tuning your message and even your product accordingly. Social media will change the way you do business You may not be connecting with your users yet, but they are out there. More than 40,000 blogs are created per day. Many have a broad focus or are in niches that don't apply to your business. When you find the ones that are, you have an instant connection to your target market that you might not have reached any other way. You have the amazing opportunity to connect on a personal level and help them understand the product, the market, the competition and yes, you. If you don't talk to them, somebody else will. What? Let them talk about us? In a 2008 study of top CEOs for PRWEEK, Burston-Marstellar found 50% got industry information from blogs and 62% felt social media can have an impact on a company's overall reputation. While it is true that opening up your blog to comments or your forum for discussion offers a platform for complaints about your business or practices. Believe me when I tell you they will do it anyway. If the discussion happens on our own blog or forum you have the unique opportunity to show how responsive you are to your customer base by responding, correcting inaccuracies or simply dealing with the issue. Good customer service will spread the word about you and your company. Making it work The purpose of this workbook is to give you the tools to build a social media plan so you can look at the available tools with an organized idea of what it can do and how you're going to use it. There's no way I can give global advice on which networks work for you or which are the must-have applications to use effectively to meet your goals. At the end of this workbook are some links to help you find discussions relating to your market. From there you can find the tools and you can join in or start your own!

3 Define your goals Make a simple list of what you want to achieve. (Don't worry about how yet) Expectations How will you measure return on investment and show progress towards your goals? Who is your audience? List features of your target audience and what you want them to do. How do they communicate most often? (blogs, forums, lists, wikis? ) Where can you find them online? Locate your competition List at least 5 below. Answer these questions for each one. 1. Are they key influencers? 2. Are they successful in your eyes? 3. What are they missing? What is your investment? Time Investment in technology Learning curve Support Paid ads

4 Who will be involved? List potential team members and their level of commitment. Do they need training? How much time should they spend on this per day? Per week? Define a clear strategic message Based on your goals and the thought leaders in the space already create a unique message to convey. Make it short or cut it up into a number of standalone messages. How many ways can you deliver it? What are the key points? Are you selling products or information? Identify the issues not to be discussed or phrasing to avoid. Create verbiage that relates to your market, and resonates with you and your audience. For example, if the market is entry level don't talk over their heads. If the audience is very technical, don't talk down to them. Develop a branding kit for anyone on the social media team. The kit should include logos, colors, key phrases, links to key pages on the website. Make your press kits interactive if possible. Post links, downloadable docs and images and link to them whenever possible.

5 Social Media Tools Overview There are many, many more examples of social media, and one of the things you will need to do is find the one(s) that are going to work for you. Here is a very basic breakdown of what these tools do. Social Media Tools Micro Blogs Twitter, Plurk, Laconica, Jaiku Blogs Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad Forums and Communities Joomla, Drupal, open source software Podcasts-Video Social Networks Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Ning, many specialized networks Social Bookmarking/rating sites Delicious, Reddit, Magnolia Digg Purpose Sending links, connecting with other influencers, demonstrate authority in your space. Longer posts, build your authority, create a place for discussion and feedback Deeper discussion, user submitted content, creating a place where your users can share ideas and bond with you and your product. Audio and visual connection with your audience, demonstrations of products or concepts Focused communities where users share a common interest or goal and can easily share that with their friends. Share valuable posts and content and rate them You can locate discussions about your market, product or business by searching for keywords related to them. A few good places to start are: Social Mention Twitter Search Radian 6 Google Blog Search Trackur The Search Monitor Once you complete your social media plan, come back to these sites and identify which ones suit your needs best, then start finding ways to engage your audience in meaningful dialogue. If this is a team effort, create a place on your intranet or internal documents listing what each team member is doing. List each others' profiles and cross link to each other. Read and comment on each others' post s and book marks, but don't make it obvious that the only people talking are other team members, or you'll be talking to yourself. Be yourself. Each person on the team should be speaking in their own voice while delivering the agreed upon messages.