Does your company have a Social Media Policy?

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Developing a Social Media Plan

Are you thinking about getting your business involved with social media? It can be a strategic business initiative but must be executed well. It’s important to construct a plan before diving in, or you could just end up wasting time on social networking sites.

Objectives, strategies and tactics

When developing a social media plan, start by thinking about business objectives. For instance, you may want to increase sales, improve retention, strengthen your reputation, learn more about your industry and competitors—perhaps all of the above. Then think about the strategies and tactics you can develop to meet those objectives.

· A social media strategy is a plan of action, designed to achieve a specific objective. Strategies can be very complex and include many components. Your business objectives will dictate your strategy, and you may have more than one strategy to meet all the business objectives you associate with social media.

· Tactics are the approaches you use to carry out your strategy. You will likely have multiple tactics associated with each strategy.

For example, if your business objective is to learn more about your client base to help influence your product development and marketing decisions, a strategy might be to reach out to customers and prospects through social media to open meaningful conversations. One tactic in that strategy might be offering a 20 percent discount to all individuals who complete a survey through Facebook or Twitter.

Questions to consider

Consider the following questions when crafting your social media plan:

· Why are you interested in social media? What are your primary business objectives? You may want to recruit more talent, gain insight into customers, become a thought leader in your industry or niche, attract more customers, connect to other industry people, etc.

· Who is your target audience?

· What does each site/platform offer, and how can you benefit from those resources? Decide which sites to take on, based on what makes the most sense for your business.

· Who will manage your social media initiatives? Will it be a current employee or team, or a new hire?

· Who will have access to your company social media profiles—all employees, or a select few? Consider the implications of who will have log-in information; it is often best to limit that to a small group of individuals.

· Do you already have someone who handles speeches or other press needs? Consider including that person in your social media initiative to retain the same “voice” and personality of the company.

"Remember to be genuine, personal and human—not a generic robot or a pushy salesperson."

· What makes your company unique or different from competitors? What elements make up your brand? What is your competitive advantage? Discuss how to integrate your brand into your social media efforts so that your online presence is differentiated.

· As you’re developing your plan, include concrete goals and guidelines, such as what type of content is and isn’t acceptable, how often you want to post on each platform, etc.

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