You've heard about the cobblers children, right? They have a father who makes shoes and they walk around barefoot. Well, that's the story I tell myself when I start to feel guilty about how informal my own marketing efforts can be. I like to think the copy is awesome, but the strategy behind my activities rather belies my strategic background!
In an effort to remedy that, I'm doing a business plan class through SIFE at Mount Royal University - it's been wonderful in making me gather my vague ideas into a formal marketing plan. As part of that, I'm also writing a social media strategy, and it's an interesting exercise.
So here's my ten pen'orth (oops that's a bit of ye olde english slipping out! I guess I should say 'my take') on how to plan your social media strategy:
1) Your objectives. What are your broad business objectives, and what are your overall objectives for social media. Without defining what you hope to achieve it will be hard to plan specific activities that will support your business goals.
2) Your audience. You need to start with a very clear idea of who you want to attract to your social media activities. If you're in any kind of commercial enterprise you need to attract people who will benefit from your excellent content; but only up to the point where they decide they need your product or service.
3) Objectives and strategy for each social media platform. What you hope to achieve through twitter will probably be very different from what you hope to achieve through Facebook or your blog. By pinning down how each platform is likely to serve you, it becomes easier and more effective to define a plan of action for them.
So, while I may not have covered the entire field of social media strategy, I hope that's a good (very brief) overview, and at least something to get you thinking about what you're up to.
Have a great week!
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