A definitive social media strategy – in six simple steps

Devising and executing an effective social media strategy should – in a perfect business world – be the thing you do before you get online and start attempting to deliver meaningful social media engagement. But many leave this crucial element out of their social mix, and jump in with social media content, without testing and defining their ideal audience first. The likelihood of seeing a profitable ROI on social media engagement is slim. After reading this excellent Guest Blog on the consistently-brilliant blog of Brian Solis, it became even clearer this week that businesses looking to create profitable and repeatable success on social media need to do one thing. Strategy must come first. When it comes to developing a social media strategy for a client, I like to keep it as simple as possible – after all, complex strategies are useful in the right hands, but simple strategies can be understood and executed by any hands, with the right guidance and inputs. And, in my experience, the most successful social media marketing has simplicity at the heart of what it seeks to achieve. So, in trying to define social media strategy in six simple steps, this might be useful: * Evaluate Evaluating which social media platforms to deliver a social media strategy on remains a crucial starting point. Through ruthless evaluation, gaining insight into effective social media marketing becomes a straightforward following-on exercise in strategy. * Measure Measuring the importance and relevance of each social media engagement is also a key consideration. By measuring the impact of each social media platform, your social media strategy can be pinpointed into highly-effective interactions with your targets. * Listen Listening to the conversation on social media is essential – there is already so much broadcasting and white noise on social media platforms, that a failure to listen means your social media engagement will be destined to shouting, floundering then failing. * Deliver After assessment and observing, comes the fun part – delivery of social media engagement. And, if your social media strategy is as sharp as it should be, that social media marketing will hit a targeted, relevant and engaged audience of potential targets. * Monitor Monitoring how it’s all going is vital – if you don’t know what’s being said, shared and followed, what’s the point of attempting to engage via social media marketing? Effective monitoring means a higher chance of successful social media engagement. * Adapt Intelligent social media strategies are adaptive, constantly changing direction, tweaking messages, and remaining on top of the conversation. Adapting social media engagement also shows resourceful, original and innovative thinking – highly attractive. A final thought: One of the most important parts of the Blog, for me, was this paragraph - “In our world, our teams don’t have the time or the resources to get things wrong. And there are rarely second chances. So we have to get it right the first time. Sometimes that means going all-in on one social channel rather than having presence on three or four.” A definitive social media strategy does exactly what it should – a lean, mean, social media engagement machine. With soul, too.