Social Media Strategy

We began reading "Share This: the Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals" this week in my social media principles class. This handbook is a useful tool that allows you to get the most out of using social media for your business. The first part of "Share This" gives statistics about users and defines the terms the authors will use throughout the book. The second part explains how planning works in using social media. 

The planning aspect of using social media is extremely interesting to me. I personally use social media daily, but I don't put in a lot of planning to what I'm doing. When a company wants to use social media to its advantage, more planning and strategy is involved. These strategies require six steps: select a squad, choose a goal, listen, think character and content, integrate your outposts and measure what you treasure.

Selecting a squad to be in charge of the social media is one of the most important steps. The people you select must be active in social media in their daily lives so they actually understand what to do and how social media works. These people must be able to keep everyone else involved and up to date on what is happening with the company. 

Choosing a goal is a basic step in planning to use social media. What does your company want to achieve by using social media? It is important to choose only one goal because you can focus all of your attention on that one goal and make it the most successful that it can be. Success in a goal is usually measured by return on investment (ROI) by the leaders of the company.

Listening, as I have mentioned in a previous post, is an important skill for businesses, especially when using social media. Checking keywords and typing your company's name into a search engine is a great way to begin the listening process. This step allows you to find out what your customers really want from you and you can build your brand from their suggestions. Even if the reviews are bad, your company can learn from those mistakes and never make them again. Listening also gives you the opportunity to see what you are doing well. It is important to use tools that allow you to listen and participate.

Thinking character and content is the next step in making a strategy for using social media. Character and image are two completely different things; character is the real deal and image is what you show others. A company needs to reveal its human side in order for customers to feel more invited. The content being shared needs to be monitored, and if there are negative comments, they need to be handled. 

Integrating your outposts means making the most of the social media sites you are using. It is not necessary to use all of the social sites you possibly can, but it's more about using them well and connecting them to each other. 

Measuring what you treasure is looking at your ROI and deciding if your plan was successful or not. You can then take this information and plan your next goal accordingly.

These steps are the basis of using social media to your best advantage. Business use of social media takes much more planning than personal, everyday use.