Social Media Strategy Execution – A How To Guide To New Media Success
A Social Media strategy is a critical piece to making sure that your efforts with New Media are helping your customers and your company. But how do you actually “do” it? A well defined strategy is nice to have, but without execution, you aren’t going to make your customers or your shareholders happy.
Photo by Blumpy via Flickr
Strategies are tough, which is why many consultancies sell a solution. But the solution of consultants often doesn’t come with a guide on how to execute. How do you execute a Social Media strategy and make a tangible business impact?
Below are my thoughts on the 9 areas critical to executing a Social Media Strategy. By addressing these areas, a company can better position itself for initial success and improve their ability to scale. These 9 will be covered in detail across 3 separate posts.
9 Social Media Strategy Execution Steps
- Start with Business Objectives
- Staff a Diverse Team
- Study Customer Research
- Structure Problem Solving around Customer Needs
- Solve Problems Through Brainstorms
- Create a Social Media Portfolio
- Establish a Set of Metrics
- Learn by Doing
- Learn, Fix, Then Apply
1. Start with Business Objectives
What Does this Mean?
- Business objectives describe the overall point of what you’re trying to do.
- A good business objective is one that would make a board of directors or owners of a company want to give you resources to execute.
How to Execute
- Convene top management during strategic planning sessions and figure out what is important to the business.
- Use overarching strategic priorities, like “Grow in new markets”, “Improve profitability through cost reduction”, or “Maintain existing customers” to guide the objectives you set for Social Media.
- Avoid picking a Social Media tool like a Blog or Twitter when thinking about the objectives. Your discussion should be focused solely on the business at this point.
2. Staff a Diverse Team
What Does This Mean?
The key here is diversity. Many companies are tempted to align Social Media on an Org Chart within a function like marketing or technology. This may work for some companies, but it’s not likely to help you achieve all your business objectives.
How to Execute
- Assemble resources from across the company. The best Social Media teams are ones that have a diverse set of talents and experience.
- Don’t underestimate the importance of balance. You need people that are “Social Media experts“…but you also need people who can influence the organization.
- Use “non-traditional” resources like Social Media interns, “rotational programs”, mentees, or any other interested employee that can help. There’s always more that can be done, and with proper planning you can take advantage of every single opportunity.
- Staff the best resources by providing them with the tools required to execute a Social Media Initiative.
3. Study Customer Research
What Does This Mean?
- Study the customer problems, understand what they need help with, and provide content through a technology that helps them.
- This is the easiest way to get a competitive advantage because the customer data exists throughout the organization, but you’re competitors aren’t taking the time to do it.
- This is critical, you are doing Social Media to help your customers, but unless you know how your customers are using Social Media to solve their problems, you can’t possibly succeed.
How to Execute
- Collect and analyze as much existing research from your marketing and new product development group.
- Evaluate a Social Media Market Research Consulting firm and their ability to surface insights from listening to existing conversations.
- Dive into the details of your customers’ needs, problems and frustrations.
- Ask yourself, How are my customers solving their problems? Are they using the internet or Social Media?
- Create a customer experience life- cycle model to prioritize your Social Media efforts.
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