What Does a Social Media Strategy Look Like?

You hear a lot about social media strategies and the importance of having one. But what exactly is a social media strategy? What’s in it? If you’ve wondered what that mythical strategy looks like, read on. I’ll show you what mine look like. Feel free to use this as a template for your own or borrow elements. If you’re a consultant, I’d love to see what your social media strategies look like! 

A Living Document

My social media strategies are delivered as documents. The first thing to note is that these are living documents. The strategy goes through numerous iterations, and even once its delivered, it’s not set in stone. Social media is social—your strategy is an attempt to create and shape the social environment to support your business goals. But the communities and their members are the ultimate owners. Social Media strategies must be flexible and dynamic. Plan to review, update, and adjust your strategy regularly during the course of its execution. 

Social Media Strategy Table of Contents

Here’s an example table of contents for a social media strategy document I might create for a client entirely new to social media:

Executive Summary

Goals, Strategy, and Success Criteria

   Detailed Criteria and Interim Measures

      Suggested Measurement Processes

Tactical Plan

   Phase 1 Tasks

   Phase 2 Tasks

   Phase 3 Tasks

   …

Tools and Processes

   Getting Your Facebook Vanity URL

   Creating your Badges

   Day to Day Social Media Work

   Posting/Tweeting

   General Monitoring, Measuring, and Reporting

      Daily Measurement Tasks

      Weekly Measurement Tasks

      Monthly Measurement Tasks

      Quarterly Measurement Tasks

Social Network Guidelines

   Demographic Data

   Content Recommendations 

All Hail the Matrix

I love tables. I find they have a way of forcing me to categorize and group information in logical structures and to write concisely. So, I use a table as the core of my social media strategy document. The core table defines three main elements:

• Social media goals—It all starts with your business goals. The goals are first point the client and I establish, and they drive everything else.
• High-level strategy—Each goal has a high-level strategy describing the general plan for accomplishing that goal. 
• Success criteria—Success criteria are the lynchpin of my social media strategy. The success criteria crystalize the goal and drive the tactical plan, the tools requirements, and even the processes.
• Interim measures—Data to track and evaluate during the execution of the strategy, in order to ensure you’re on track and make necessary adjustments. (See my post Social Media Strategies: How to Definine Interim Measures.) 

Below is an example of what the table might look like, where the goals are to get customers to support one another through social channels and to get more positive, online reviews.

Get customers to provide technical support	Increase positive customer reviews
Strategy: Connect customers with each other online Get customers talking and sharing Provide incentives for answering customer questions Monitor and verify accuracy of answers Ensure all customer questions are resolved to high satisfaction Turn dissastisfied customers into advocates, through outstanding support Monitor severity 1 & 2 problems and implement systems to be sure they are resolved within a day, on average	Strategy: Connect with customers, bloggers, and influencers online Provide all information wanted in a timely manner; answer questions Monitor conversations and insert information where helpful and appropriate in the social context Ensure all customer questions are resolved to high satisfaction Turn dissastisfied customers into advocates, through outstanding support Encourage customers to share their experiences Encourage promotion/sharing of reviews, etc.
Success criteria (1 yr post launch): At least 30% of customer base are following via a social channel Top 20 most common severity 1 & 2 support problems are being resolved within a day, on averge, via social channels Top 20 most common severity 3 & 4 support questions are being addressed via customer posts Support calls/emails are down by 15%	Success criteria (1 yr post launch): Online mentions of business with a positive sentiment are up by 25% Estimated reach of positive reviews over the previous six months is 20% of that of our online advertising reach
Interim measures:Business site/support center: Number of support calls and emails weekly, vs. historical percent. Facebook: Fan base (number of fans per week). Fans who self-report they are customers (on track for 30% mark). Number of posts by fans. Percent of fans answering questions. Percent of posts asking questions and percent answering them. Number of customer questions that are known support issues and count of questions per issue. Accuracy of fan answers to posts for known support issues. Resolution of all posted questions. Number of questions answered by admins. Twitter: Follower count (number of followers per week). Followers who self-report they are customers (on track for 30% mark). Number of tweets by followers Percent of tweets and followers answering questions. Percent of tweets and followers asking questions. Number of customer questions that are known support issues and count of questions per issue. Accuracy of answers to posts for known support issues. Resolution of all posted questions. Number of questions answered by admins	Interim measures:Online: Number of positive sentiment mentions weekly. Number of negative sentiment mentions weekly. Facebook: Reshare rate of positive reviews posted on our account (if possible). Reshare rate of positive reviews posted on partner/other social accounts (if possible). Click-through rate of review links shared. Twitter: Retweet rate of positive reviews tweeted on our account (if possible). Retweet rate of positive reviews tweeted on partner/other social accounts (if possible). Click-through rate of review links shared

The heading contains the goals. I usually have up to four goals. Each goal has its own high-level strategy and success criteria—how we’ll know we’ve reached the goal. Each goal also has interim measures. The measures are only summarized in this table. The actual interim measures are described in greater detail elsewhere in the strategy document.

Bullets for Tactics

My strategies also include a tactical plan. The tactical plan is the to-do list that provides the details of how we’ll implement the strategy. Like the high-level strategy, the tactical plan is usually based on a combination of traditional marketing approaches and methods (differentiation, adding value for the customer, etc.) and the unique approaches of social media.

I break my tactical plan into phases, with a high-level list of tactics for each phase. For each high-level tactic, I create a bulleted list of the specific tasks to implement that tactic. For example, the phases and high-level tactical list might look like this:

Connect Online

• Build the online assets
• Build the initial fan/follow base
• Connect with bloggers and influencers
• Establish social network routines

Provide information

• Provide information
• Answer questions
• Engage in ancillary communities

Encourage sharing

• Provide sharing incentives
• Engage, assist, and validate information
• Share positive reviews and posts

For each of the bullets, I create the tactical list. For example, a basic plan for building the initial fan/follow base might look like this:

Connect Online

Build the fan/follow base:

• Include badges/like buttons etc. in newsletter, emails, and on website pages
• Join groups and fan pages on FB that match demographics or where target customers may reside
• Comment and participate in discussions, etc. on these other pages/groups.
• Use Facebook search to find people who have made relevant posts/asked questions and answer them, if users desires
• Use Listorious to find relevant lists and subscribe to them to find conversations; follow people you meet in those Twitter conversations
• Put Facepile box on appropriate pages on Website 

Tools and Processes

I include a section with the tools and processes the client should use. The information in this section is determined by defining tools and process requirements, which in turn are derived from the success criteria, interim measures, and the tactical plan. It defines the tools needed to conduct different parts of the strategy, such as tools for daily interaction, tools for monitoring reputation or sentiment, tools for tracking links and conducting analysis, etc.

I often break the processes out by day, week, month, and quarter. I don’t describe the minutiae of tweeting or posting on Facebook, leaving that to the Help for different tools or linking to some of the many outstanding blog posts on this. Instead, I focus on processes unique to the organization and its strategy, such as link-tracking and analysis processes or ones for monitoring and validating support questions and answers, and escalating them.

Now you know what my social media strategy documents look like. If you’ve developed one, I’d love to see what yours looks like. And if you’re interested in knowing more about how I create my strategy, see my post “Six Steps to a Social Media Strategy.”