DISQUS

Charles Heflin · 1 year ago

I would also add that choosing the appropriate social media properties based on the type of content you will publish is crucial in the planning stage.

What social media properties contain your target audience and which social media properties are useful for syndicating your messages and what is the proper social etiquette within those properties? ... In other words what is acceptable by the communities you may choose and which networks are worth the time?

Training would be a huge factor here. Do you find someone experienced or do you train someone from the start? This person must understand the technologies (functions within specific social networks) while focusing on community relationships not promotions.

Thanks for this planning list. It is very helpful.

- Charles Heflin

Catherine Allen · 1 year ago

I agree whole heartedly with considering a trial - 2 months, 6 months, etc. For those execs or clients who are skeptical, it doesn't seem as daunting when there's a date set for a go/no go on continuing, based on success. And also, what if (shudder at the thought) it's not working? It gives the project leader an appropriate time to *adjust* activities as needed without SM coming off as a failed experiment.

In terms of what to add to the list Chris, you might consider adding /Measurement next to Goals. A goal may be "to increase downloads of a new app" or "sign up new subscribers/users/customers" - but a company might wish to get a bit more specific - "increase membership by 100 subscribers per month" in relation to sales or "be mentioned in relevant blog postings or comment sections on blogs with a Technorati authority of at least XX" in realtion to thought leadership. Then a CMO or VP of Corp Comm can tie SM his/her strategies directly to company/sales/exposure goals to maintain funding, and well moral support.

Dana Young · 1 year ago

I think there are two points to consider (which is what I'm dealing with right now) although this might be more applicable to enterprise-level social media. That may be a different animal completely than what you are proposing here.

(1) Which social media/Web 2.0 apps do you want to include as part of your strategy? Not all will be useful or desirable for your approach or client base.

(2) Vetting the strategy with clients and getting their buy-in. Social media is either new or off-putting to many people, either because of lack of exposure or misconceptions about how it can be used (i.e, someone at the executive leadership level who may have only heard about kids using MySpace may not understand why it could be important to have something like a LinkedIn profile.)

Nancy Williams · 1 year ago

I also think that when the target markets are determined, whether a single strategy will suffice or whether it is more logical to split the tasks, goals, milestones and resources. The programme you undertake for CEO's of publicly listed companies may be very different for small business owners, or retirees.

And speaking of milestones (apologies for descending into somewhat cliched terminology), they need to be a fundamental part of the goal setting process.

Monsieur J · 1 year ago

I think that all starts and all ends with those 5 general items from Peter Drucker :
Define Goals (why a social Media ? To do what ? what's the point ?)
Organise work (who will provide, when, what is the process ?)
Communicate and motivate (let them know!)
Measure Performance (are you reaching your goals ?)
Training (pass the message to others, that's the true victory)

My blog on webmarketing management experience : http://www.managementetmoi.blogspot.com/

Lara Kretler · 1 year ago

Chris, this is incredibly helpful to me in something I'm working on right now. Thank you for sharing this list! Perhaps mention budgeting in your Resources lines? Budgeting time for the internal resources, but also budgeting funds for external resources if needed.

Lara Kretler · 1 year ago

Ack, sorry, hit submit too soon - just realized I needed to change the URL to my new blog instead of my old. Sorry for the double comment!

Sue Murphy · 1 year ago

Further to what Dana Young is saying about "buy-in": Change management would be a critical step in my strategy. All the new technology and useful tools in world won't help if people don't understand what's in it for them. Whether it's the people who will administer the system or the external audience, building in training, communication and feedback loops are essential to the success of any strategy.

Unfortunately for many organizations, change management is an after-thought, an extra expense for which they do not see the value. Multi-million dollar projects fail all the time because of this.

Some important questions to ask:

At what point in the process will I start to get buy-in of internal/external audiences?

How am I going to ensure a closed feedback loop (in other words, who is going to be accountable for handling comments, concerns, questions in a TIMELY fashion?)

How will I measure success?

"Leading Change" by John P. Kotter is a great book on the subject of change management.

dahowlett · 1 year ago

Hate to say it Chris but this is little more than Project Implementation 101 though I do feel you've missed a few real potential gotchas.

Saravanan Sahadevan · 1 year ago

Thanks a bunch chris.. Im not that an expert to say anything against all the guru's who commented here..

@Dennis Howlett Please do share what you think Chris has missed out.

Ann · 1 year ago

Thanks for the well-considered post. I have a few thoughts.

Re: Target Audience -- In this social media world, this is difficult to control. I also think that you need to be ready to change/adapt your strategy if need be. For instance, we started out targeting our existing customers -- and then quickly realized that our most avid community participants were not our customers and were not, in fact, people that we had any connection with whatsoever.

As to the rest, I think much depends on the corporate culture. Knowing the culture and how to work within it are key. In some cases, rather than following the planning stages as you've outlined, it may be better to "act first and then ask permission."

Roger · 1 year ago

Hi Chris, great post as always.

An essential part of the mix in determining a social media strategy is a competitive analysis. Part of strategy is understanding what else is out there--what you're up against.

If your competitor has a social media presence, how does it present? Does it comprise a stand-alone social network, blogging or forums? Does it use open source or a custom solution? Does the competitor have a presence on Twitter, or popular social platforms such as MySpace or Facebook? If the competitor has a significant social media presence what is your value add or differentiator?

Barry Graubart · 1 year ago

Chris - think this is a good outline for, say a traditional company looking to dip a toe in the water with a blog; in future posts would love to see more ideas for more advanced social media strategies. How and when to engage/comment on other blogs, how to best utilize FF and twitter, strategies for appropriate use of Digg, Stumble, etc (not to game them, but how to leverage), how to stimulate discussion/comments on the blog, etc.

Josh Klein · 1 year ago

I'd add one final step: Learn (or Keep Learning)! With things changing as quickly as they are, and the amount of in-the-trenches knowledge you can pick up, it's vital that a strategy includes wiggle room for adapting as you go. If you spend 6 months in a blogging trial period, you better be ready to adapt the strategy going forward!

chrisbrogan · 1 year ago

To answer Dennis, it's definitely project management. Nothing new there. What's new is the guts. I'm writing out what the project parts are.

I fully agree that we should add in measurements, that we should discuss WHICH tools. Definitely a good point to add to the mix. I've added both to my outline.

@Josh - learning's a good point. I've added a perpetual learning.

Still mulling the rest of it. You're great for your help. : )

Chris Culbertson · 1 year ago

I am in the research stages of Social Media and have begun my planning. Thank you for the great blog. It has helped me along the way. What are your thoughts on one person or multiple people handling the responsibilities of social media? I can see how both could be good ways to go about it. I would assume that most companies do not want to spend the money on a specialist, but may delegate the different tasks throughout their current employee? Does this help with protection from turnover? Can this help with accountability? Beyond that, does this help show the culture of the business to the consumers, which ultimately generates good results if the culture is interesting, i.e. New Belgium Brewery?

Beth Harte · 1 year ago

Chris, this is a great project planning list. The one thing I see missing is marketing. (i.e., now that it's implemented, how do you let people know about it?) Is it best to just let it happen virally (through links & comments on/to other blogs) or is it okay to send a note to customers, prospects, vendors, partners to let them know about it and encourage their participation? Thanks!

Patrick Fire · 1 year ago

Is there a risk (even if it is a small one) that a "trial" blog could blow up and look like a company blogging secretively? (Like many companies have done with malicious intent in the past).

For example if someone finds the "Ice Cream" blog by target, does some researching and finds out that it is in fact target; they could very well make it out to be a big scandal when in actuality it was simply practice?

I suppose you could always have it an internal blog to start and publish it online after you have given it a go or not.

What are your thoughts about blogging for internal reasons rather than external?

dominic · 1 year ago

Chris, this is a great list.

I'll add a few items.

1- Politics, People and Power: bringing the social sphere at play in the enterprise modifies decision making on critical things like: new product definition, marketing strategy, measure of success ... and as any disruptive change, the one that master it the faster will individually get a competitive advantage.

There is also a move from being valued from what I know towards being valued for being able to learn by interacting with the social eco system & who I know.

How is it gonna work when you've got deeper connections to the influencers in your domain than your boss?

Sound familiar to anyone having deployed knowledge management system in large enterprises...


2- Intellectual property: might be a subset of your legal topic but this is key.

I discussed with somebody responsible for a social media strategy at a large corporation and some interesting questions popped up like: who owns his facebook group, he or his company, what about the huge number of linkedin connections and facebook friends he made thru his job.

Sales rep have sometimes contractual restrictions when moving to competitors. Are we gonna see the same with social media influencers ?

3- Metrics. Cies should start measuring their level of interaction and their level of influence as a group to their target communities.
Should probably start with evangelist and marketers.

ex: how many "prescriptors" have joined the first circle of LinkedIn firend one of your team member ?

Hope this help. Have a great day !

John Panico · 1 year ago

Loved the post. My question is if you are trying to build a community, how do go about doing that as a trial and not affect the intended brand you are trying to build? I can definitely see it as an option for those that are established, but if you aren't, doing a trial might be a challenge.

Thanks for your insights.

JP
"Living the Dream...Baby!"

Amber Naslund · 1 year ago

Chris - great post. Another key element for me in the planning process is listening, probably part of your research heading. Knowing what's already being said about you and your brand before launching any SM strategy is key to knowing where to start, what channels and tools are being used in your space, and whether your audience tends to be more passive or more participatory.

Thanks, as always, for sharing your discoveries.

Amber

David Murray · 1 year ago

Excellent checklist.

I would add, from personal experience, not only research your niche, but research what program/platform will best suit your needs.

If you are building a community, would you use Community Server, Joomla, or Droopal. Do you go PHP or .Net? If you just need a blog do you start with WordPress or build your own? What platform will best work with the available resources you have?

chrisbrogan · 1 year ago

@John - to try and build a trial community might be tricky, but there are ways. Remember that trial in this case means mostly trying out the software, and how to manage a community.

You might try it out by helping a local organization (like a church) start a community, and train up their people to run it. That way, you can learn about the tools, the philosophies, what comes up in the course of running a community, the amount of time it might take, and at the end, you'll be giving another organization a tool to keep up with their own flock.

@DaveMurr - definitely. The small example you used shows that there are complexities abound in what tools you choose.

Beth Kanter · 1 year ago

Training and support is really important - particularly if designed to build capacity. IN the nonprofit sector, many nonprofits have "strategic technology plans" http://tinyurl.com/3k9coo - and there was a rule called the 70/20/10 rule -- it went something like this spend your time and resources in this precentage..

10% hardware
20% software
70% wetware

Wetware? Yes, your brain - that includes training, support, planning, and evaluation.

Even though there are many free social media tools, I think you can still apply this to social media strategy.

Macbeb · 1 year ago

"Please" to see that we almost have the same way to enter the subject

Here's how we proceed when designing from scratch a new community with our clients:
1. We call it "strategic base", and is sum-up in two very "simple" questions:
- what should the service-community provide to your company ? = gimme basic prioritized objectives (e.g. traffic and money, loyalty, image, customers qualification...etc...)
- what should the service-community provide to its final users ? = gimme basic feelings on how you'd like to enter the conversation (target, claim, miscellenaous features...)
=> based on these elements + market and usages evolutions, we formalized a concept recommendation
2. Then we go very concrete through 5 interdependant workshops (where take place the elements you listed):
- Recruitment
- Product
- Animation
- Moderation
- Technical
- Business Plan
=> finalized with product scope (front & back) + illustrations + animation & moderation guidelines + business plan = all elements needed to take a decision

Maria Reyes-McDavis · 1 year ago

Great post, and some very thought-provoking notes here. Too often the only social media strategy a company or online entrepreneur has is to "fly by the seat of their pants." What a waste of a potentially powerful strategy :-)

Thanks!
Maria Reyes-McDavis

Paritosh Sharma · 10 months ago

I feel, understanding the sales cycle of the client, is really crucial in the planning phase.

Social Media is not just about visibility and branding, the ultimate business objective is lead generation in majority of the clients' cases. Hence a strong measurability and metric setup should be present.

The approach should be flexible enough so as to be customized as per the clients needs and requirements.

I would also like to know from the people commenting, as to how do they report to the client to make sense of their SMM implementation and really fulfill the business objectives.

Best,
Paritosh Sharma