eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Marketing in a Digital World Social Media Strategy What you’ll learn Several valuable strategic uses of social media The steps to creating a social media strategy Which documents and protocols you should have in place for social media success

Social Media Strategy More consumers are spending time online, and are increasingly active on social media platforms. It makes sense to incorporate social media in marketing strategies 63% of adults in US visit social networking sites US computer users spend 20% of their online time on social networks, mobile users spend 30%

Social media solving business challenges Community management Communication and outreach Reputation management Sales and lead generation Support and customer service Insights and research Advertising and awareness SEO Strategic use of Social Media

Communication and outreach Social media allows for two-way conversation Public communications tool Broadcast timely messages Reach out to public Inform interested parties in real time (this is especially important when it comes to breaking news events)

Community Management Social networks represent real-world networks Maintain the community around your organisation Role of community manager Actively lead conversation Serves as touchpoint with biggest fans, evangelists Long-term project

Support and customer service Customers are increasingly comfortable transacting online, and expect organisations to answer their queries online Public Quick response Swift resolution Collaboration from other customers can reduce organizational effort

Reputation Management Everything that has ever been said about your brand online – both positive and negative – are only a quick search away Monitor social channels to gauge sentiment proactively Respond to potential negative comments before it escalates Use Social Media to tell & spread brand’s side of story

Advertising and Awareness Social Media channels provide rich demographic and psychographic targeting opportunities Data provided, or can be gauged from profiles Consistency Part of your strategy Create them before taking SM action

Sales and lead generation Social media can be integrated in various sales options available online, endorsing products through your contacts Collaborative filtering Social communities are lead generation assets Social layer on online shopping experience

SEO Social media provides additional assets that can be optimised Provide links, likes Tie back to reputation management for own brand name Do a quick Google Search for your brand. How many of these results are for social media pages?

Insight and research Social media can be a powerful insight and research asset, provided insights are judged in their proper context Use Social media ad planners to understand the demographics of your market Use ORM tools to gauge sentiment Various analytics tools can track your community before/after campaigns Online communities can serve as focus groups

Creating a Social Media Strategy Plan properly. Social Media is a fast-moving channel, and planning is vital to success The best social media strategies: Embrace the fact that it’s a two-way channel Allocate resources not only to put messages out, but deal with messages coming in.

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 1: Get buy-in May seem like a free resource, but plan time to be invested Inform all stakeholders concerned of your social media plan Budget for additional resources

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 2: Listen and understand the landscape First take a step back and listen: What conversations are already taking place? Do they have the facts? Where does it take place? Who is doing most of the talking? What can you, as a brand, add to this conversation? Is it valuable?

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 3: Analyse A list of the social channels and platforms your brand should be in, based on where your customers already are, and where they expect to interact with you.? Non-official communities created by fans? Existing conversation? Themes? Competitors? Potential brand evangelists?

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 4: Set Objectives The desired outcome of your social media strategy, based on business challenges Objectives must be SMART S – Specific M – Measurable A – Attainable R – Realistic T – Time-bound

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 5: Create an action plan Roles and responsibilities of project leaders, other stakeholders? What social media tools to use? Frequency, volume of activity, response- turnaround-time? Conversation plan? Tone, FQA, Community Guidelines?

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 6: Implement Implement steps 1-5 Set up platforms Alert stakeholders Monitor mentions and responses

Creating a Social Media Strategy Step 7: Track, analyse, optimise Social Media Tracking Tools Platform insights Web analytics URL shorteners Online monitoring software Social media dashboards

Good documents and processes are the foundations of social media success Dynamic space involving many stakeholders Consistency Part of your strategy Create them before taking SM action

Social Media checklist Item Account logins: Facebook Twitter YouTube Blog Item Community guidelines available online and linked to where appropriate Social Media strategy and content strategy Roles and responsibilities Risks and escalation plan Brand voice guidelines Social media guidelines for agencies and employees Monitoring and listening plan Reporting: tracking and insights

Community guidelines Guidelines should be friendly, with the tone in keeping with your community or brand Set the tone for the community Useful for difficult community members Set behavioural guidelines Useful if a member or post needs to be removed

Content plan DateMonTuesWedThursFriSatSun External Internal Theme Facebook Twitter

Communication and escalation protocol Positive … Neutral … Negative … Urgent … Basic Complex

Dealing with opportunities and threats Comment when it’s appropriate, listen with interest, be polite, be respectful, and add value wherever possible Brands should become active participants in the conversation

When to talk and when not to When everything being said is nice When everything being said is neutral When negative things are being said

Responding Be transparent, be honest, and treat the person as you would like to be treated Recognise that consumers hold the upper hand Customers dictate the channels of communication. Research your audience and tailor your strategy to them – not vice versa.

Recover from an online brand attack Be prepared Act immediately If what they’re saying is false... If what they’re saying is true... Keep the negative pages out of the search engines

Risks and challenges No one cares The social media space is used by unhappy customers It requires on-going attention and monitoring It can be difficult to measure the impact of the campaign

Super Bowl Social Media Command Center Monitoring and managing massive crowds through social media

What happened? The overall campaign was a huge success Positive sentiment to negative: 3: retweets daily

That’s all folks You can also read about: User Experience Design, Web Development and Design, Writing for Digital, CRM, SEO, Search Advertising, Online Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, Video Marketing, Social Media Channels, Social Media Strategy, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Data Analytics and Conversion Optimisation.