Social Media Strategy
contentS
overview of Social Media . . .
resourcing & Managment of Social Media. . .
audiences. . .
Social Media channels and tactics . . .
Social Media channels . . .
tactics: content and engagment . . .
Social Media Management, resources & risk . . . .
Metrics . . .
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1 - 9 10 - 13 14 - 15 16 - 17 18 - 19 20 - 27 21 - 23 24 - 25 26 - 27 28 - 31 32 - 34 80 / 20 rule for Social Media Posts . . .•
Social Media engagement . . . .
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Social Media content Planning . . . .
SuMMary
the following guide will help you to understand how you can use social media successfully as part of your communications and marketing. it has been produced for marketing, Pr and commu-nications managers in public sector and government organisa-tions, charities and businesses.
the guide contains practical advice, examples and exercises to help you:
understand what social media is and how your organisation
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can use it
gain management buy-in and resources for social media
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Produce effective content that will interest your audiences
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How to manage social media risk
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good luck preparing your social media strategy and feel free to get in touch if have any additional questions on social media.
Paul Mcgarrity
director, octave digital
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ontent
WHat iS Social Media?
Social Media is the term for online sites that let people communi-cate with a community of peers in real-time.
Social media sites such as Facebook, twitter and linkedin are used by hundreds of millions of people across the globe to keep
in contact with friends and family, find, share and promote con -tent.
WHo iS uSing it?
Social media use has increased massively in recent years. in uk
and Ireland over 52% of the population has a Facebook profile
and sites such as Facebook and twitter now play a very impor-tant part of their day-to-day communication with peers, friends and family.
Social media is not a fad.
in fact real-time social media networking has become so impor-tant, that it has become the primary way for people to connect with others. this trend will only grow with the rise of smartphones which make it easier to access social media sites in different loca-tions.
HoW do PeoPle uSe
Social Media?
People use social media for a variety of purposes including: communicating with their network of friends
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Finding out about news and views online
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networking for business
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ter are social sites – so people frequently respond to other status updates - by commenting, retweeting or liking the post.
Posts, depending on their popularity, can reach a wider audience if they are liked, commented on or retweeted, sometimes giving them a viral effect.
HoW can organiStionS uSe
Social Media?
It’s not difficult to understand why major brands, small business-es, charities and public organisations are using social media. the power of traditional media has decreased in the past dec-ade. While some forms of traditional media such as tv and radio have remained relatively roboust, other media such as newspa-pers and magazines have witnessed massive declines in
read-ership figures. People are using new forms of media including
search engines, email and social media to communicate, shop and socialise. because social media is so important in many peo-ple’s lives, it makes sense that you will want to use social media as part of your marketing.
Social Media Marketing
beneFitS :
connect with modern consumer – who uses variety of media
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and devices, but is increasingly moving away from print me-dia
boost online Pr and exposure for your brand to carefully
se-•
lected niche groups
improve key business areas from customer service to
market-• ing and Hr
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WHy uSe Social Media?
not enough organisations ask the questions ‘why do we want to use social media?’, and ‘what do we hope to get out of it?’
So your first step in a social media strategy is to be very clear
about what you want to use social media for. this part of the
strategy is where you map out your objectives. Below I have list
-ed a wide range of goal and objectives
research and learning
Market research
Promote an event
reach a niche / target audience online
Promote interesting content
identify new leads
recruit staff
Raising profile of key staff / CEO
improving Pr coverage
Promoting content
improve reputation
note: it’s common for businesses to try to use social
media to achieve unrealistic objectives. While social
media can be great for marketing / Pr, recruitment, events and customer relations – it’s not a sales channel and it’s only effective when it’s used properly.
you need to consider the wider digital marketing and sales environment and select the right tactics and channels for
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WHy uSe Social Media?
Consider the business and marketing objectives above.
Map out your main objectives for using social media. Are they SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely?
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organiSational uSe oF Social
Media
in my experience many organisations are not aware of how they can potentially utilise social media across the whole organisa-tion. as part of the strategy, you will need to consider how social media can operate across the organisation from Hr to customer service and Pr.
toptip: if you work for a large organisation - make
sure you educate decision makers on how social media affects the whole organisation from customer service to the ceo and sales. one idea is to hold a session with staff to dis-cuss how technology, digital and social media can be utilised to improve customer service, networking etc.
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review the chart below and identify the areas where you could improve your business functions?
business
improvement examples Primary channels could we use? How could we use?
Marketing (b2c)
Promoting the brand online
Reaching defined
demographics (using Facebook to adver-tise to young people) building brand loyalty (encourage brand fans to follow you on social media and engage via content)
Marketing (b2b)
gaining leads online (an accountant could use social media to identify leads and connect, engage with them)
Pr improving media
relations (identify
main journalists and
connect with them online)
Profiling Senior Staff
online / improve ceo reputation
improving promo-tion of event and live engagement.
identifying and en-gaging with stake-holders
integrate into crisis communications plans and activity
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internal commu-nicationsengage with staff / improve internal comms. replace staff intranet
customer Service
responding to cus-tomer enquiries and complaints
broadcasting announcements
Finance reduction of spend on ineffective forms of communication and customer service (eg. reduce reliance on telephone for customer service; re-duce spend on print adverts)
Hr advertise recruitment drive (e.g graduate placements )
improve recruitment for niche positions (e.g use linkedin to identify and contact)
MeaSuring goalS
Having defined what you want to achieve with social media, you
now need to complete a short benchmark for measuring success. this is not a case of measuring the number of followers you have on social media channels. instead you will want to measure the impact you are having online. the social media measurements i
find most useful are:
engagement with customers
How quickly and effectively you responded to
customer queries online
Identifying influencers and leads
Engaging with influencers and leads
How people engaged with your content (likes, positive
com-ments, retweets, shares etc)
networking at events
online media coverage
Website traffic
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note:Hootsuite (enterprise version): Social media scheduling and meas-•
urement tool
Facebook insights: analytics tool that can be accessed in the admin •
section on a Facebook Page
google analytics: tracks information on visitors to your website and •
the activity. •
these tools will give you data on social media engagement and how social media activity is driving traffic to the website. However you will also have to interpret the data and report on how social media goals are being achieved, so it typical to produce a regular report on the extent of engagement on social media, how people responded to your posts etc.
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MaP out your Social
Media goalS
For each of your goals, map out the following: What is the goal?
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What is the benefit to your business / marketing activity? •
How will this activity be measured
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What is the
goal? How will you achieve? What is the benefit? How will it be measured
example: increase online engagement between us and our target audi-ences
Start social media channels, social media advertising, online Pr
create great, inter-esting content! encourage feed-back! Promote brand awareness get audience to promote our con-tent gain feedback from customers number of fol-lowers; customer engagements with posts retweets, likes and shares of our content
comments, how well you replied
reSourcing
effective social media requires a commitment to do it well and to resource it effectively. in order to manage social media effec-tively, you will need to do the following:
Plan the types of content you are going to use
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Produce content (posts, photos etc) on a very regular basis
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grow your social media community on different channels
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engage with your social media community in real time
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Monitor your social media channels regularly
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looking at the list above you may feel you don’t quite have the resources to do social media effectively. So the next step in your social media strategy will be to:
assess your organisation’s main resource gaps
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try to secure additional resources
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identify the following gaps in your resourcing and management in the exercise below:
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resource gap? relevance to your organisation next Steps
no budget approach management
and make a strong case for social media invest-ment and training
key staff do not know how to use social media
in-house Social Media training
Staff do not have time to use social media
additional social media resource. reduction in other marketing activity in favour of social media Social media has
been left to one person / over-stretched
training other members of staff in how to use social media
Securing reSourceS
Securing the right resources for your social media activity may well be the most important factor in your social media success. the secret to securing the valuable resources – usually people, training and budget – is to make a persuasive case for using so-cial media. the case should focus on:
The value and benefits of using social media to the organisa
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How the organisation can benefit by improving key areas of •
the business by using technology such as social media
Finally, it’s very helpful to have a senior manager or board level champion who supports the use of social media. they will be a key ally in securing resources.
StaFFing
you will also have to decide which staff within your organisation will be operating the social media channels on a regular basis. unfortunately, many organisations fall into the trap of automati-cally thinking that a recent graduate or intern will be best placed to manage social media. However this is rarely the case. Sound-ing authoritative and interestSound-ing on social media often requires an
in-depth level of knowledge of the organisation and junior mem -bers of staff often don’t have this. in practice it’s much better to use experienced staff who can then be trained up in managing social media well.
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training
Social Media training is used to ensure that relevant staff have the knowledge, understanding and skills to use social media ef-fectively. typically, in-house training, delivered by a social media trainer, is delivered in the following areas:
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training type audience Benefit
Social Media oppor-tunities
Senior Staff / Managers
educate senior staff on the
ben-efits of social media
gain buy-in from senior staff How to use Social
Media channels - Practical
Staff who will be using social media on a day to day basis
a – Z practical training on how to use Facebook, twitter, linke-din
ensures staff can use each channel well
Social Media Market-ing and Management
Staff who will be using social media on a day to day basis / Managers
Staff learn about:
the types of content to use
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on social media
How to respond to
com-•
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How to grow following
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Social Media risk all Staff • risks of using social media How to mitigate risks
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Preparing a social media
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queStion
How would you assess your available resources for using social media effectively?
queStion
Who will manage your social media on a regular basis? if social media is being used across a variety of units (e.g customer serv-ice, marketing) then who will be responsible for managing social media and how will they work together?
queStion
identify your staff training needs.
Who will need trained in social media?
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Have you secured a budget for staff training?
audienceS
the next stage in your social media plan is to map out the target audiences you want to reach. However before you do this, you need to consider some important points about reaching and
in-fluencing people in the digital age.
People use social media channels such as Facebook and twitter to socialise, learn new things, to relieve boredom, research and be entertained. is it any wonder they ignore corporate Pr stories online. With Social media you have to attract people to you brand online and then be a combination of useful, funny, caring etc enough for people to engage with what you are saying.
So you have to ask – why would sometime with limited time and lots of distractions want to follow you on twitter or friend you on Facebook? Why would they want to interact with your content?
if your organisation has a Pr / communications plan it will be
useful to review it to find out if have a list of target audiences already defined.
types of audiences you may want to reach include: current clients or customers
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Potential clients and customers
• Journalists • bloggers • thought leaders • Stakeholders • enewsletter readers • staff • local businesses • networking contacts •
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deFining your target
audience
queStion
Who are your target audience on social media, who do you need to reach?
queStion
What kinds of content will resonate with them?
queStion
How are you going to engage with them?
Social Media cHannelS and
your audienceS
the social media landscape is made up of hundreds of different social media sites – however there are a handful of very domi-nant sites:
Facebook – the world’s most popular social media site
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twitter – second most dominant social media site, based
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around short tweets
linkedin – World’s largest business networking sites
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in addition to the social media ‘heavyweights’, there are a variety of popular social media sites including:
you tube • google+ • Pinterest •
WHicH Social Media
cHannel(S) are relevant For
you?
The vast majority of organisations will want to concentrate their
social activity on the dominant social media sites. you also have to consider where your audiences are online. if you a public body or brand then Facebook and twitter are two of the obvious
chan-nels to use. However if you are a B2B firm, then you may want to
concentrate on linkedin.
Social M
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your opportunities brand Promotion✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
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customer Service✔
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advertising✔
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event networking✔
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b2b✔
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image promotion✔
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HoW to build an audience on
Social Media
in short the best way to grow an audience on any social media channel is to post great content and engage with people.
But you will also want be proactive in finding the relevant audi -ences and current contacts on social media. this stage in your strategy is about building your social media audience.
Social Media cHannelS
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small business, brand, charity or government organisation – you will want to include Facebook as your main social media plat-form.
Points to consider in your Facebook Marketing:
Facebook is used by people to socialise online with families
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and friends – so you need to develop really interesting or use-ful content that resonates with your audience.
Facebook effectively punishes Pages that post poor content –
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by showing your posts less.
businesses that are good at Facebook use a combination of
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stories, humour and are topical
effective Facebook marketing is increasingly driven by good
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quality images
the main marketing opportunities with Facebook are: creating interesting stories about your brand
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using Facebook ads and Promoted Posts to reach a wider
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twitter is a real-time social networking platform which is
witness-ing major growth. In fact, the UK has around 15 million active
users.
keeping up to date with their interests / news
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contacting businesses (customer service)
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live chatting with friends / business contacts at events
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Find out about breaking news
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businesses can use twitter effectively by:
Promoting interesting news and information
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networking at events and with stakeholders
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Help with customer service issues in real time
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use cultural and news trends to raise your visibility online.
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linked in
linkedin is a networking tool for professionals. used by millions of business people across the globe, the platform allows you to:
research potential leads, contacts or potential employees
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build a powerful community of connections
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raise your visibility and that of your company
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tacticS
your tactics are the most important factor in making social me-dia work for your business. in this section you will review the two broad types of tactics that will be used to fuel growth and interac-tion on social media:
content:
• the types of posts and visual content that you de-velop and publish on a regular basis
engagement:
• How you interact with people on social media
WHy iS content So iMPortant
to Social Media SucceSS?
two of the biggest reasons some businesses perform poorly on social media are:
boring, irrelevant content
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lack of engagement and interaction with people on social
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media channels
in order to be successful in social media marketing, you need to interest your fans and followers in the news feeds section. this is
the section that people check to find out news and updates from
friends, family and brands.
the newsfeed is a competitive space! So you need to develop and promote content that interests people in what is essentially their personal media space.
the key to marketing successfully in social media is through con-tent that people will like, share or post positive comments on. So how can you do this successfully?
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apply the 80 / 20 rule to social media posts. For every promo-tional post you make (new product in stock, launch of your new online video etc) you need to create about 4 posts around content designed to interest your customers.
brand content – 20%
brand – related information and
content that benefits your audi -ence. think of discounts, special offers or important news that is relevant to your audience. but re-member to keep it topical….!
example:
audience FocuSed content –
80%
content that really chimes with your audience. this type of con-tent does not have to be directly related to your brand – rather it’s content designed to entertain and appeal to your audience. For
80 / 20
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PoP culture /
Product
ProMotion >
Valentines day, or they might just
retweet a funny comment from a celebrity. With these types of posts they aren’t mentioning their own brand – they’re being social online by talking about cultural events. this type of social media activity can be very successful. example:
Product
ProMotion
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tHink about
(a) some of the events, news, new products etc that you would like to promote in the next few months.
(b) several major cultural events, TV shows, upcoming holi
days and relevant celebrity news happing today.
Write doWn your ideaS For:
1 brand focussed post on Facebook
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Social Media engageMent
one of the areas that organisations really fall down on when us-ing social media is failus-ing to engage with people. to use a net-working example – they’re a bit like:
(a) The really shy person at their first networking event who
doesn’t say anything
(b) Someone at a business lunch who only talks about them selves and ignores what other people are saying?
not very social is it?
to be successful at using social media you’ll need to engage in the following ways:
Monitor your news feeds to check out what your community
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is saying
identify what people are saying about your brand online
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answer questions quickly and be helpful
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ask questions and get feedback from people
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operate a customer service function via Facebook & twitter
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like and comment on other people posts
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it’s similar to being a good friend on social media in your person-al lives. When i’m using Facebook, for instance, i’ll review what my Facebook friends post. i might like a photo they have posted, comment on something they have said or i could help them with a question they’ve asked.
brands who don’t engage end up looking self-interested and not really interested in their customers!
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example: asking a question
Social M
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ontent Pl
anning
in order to develop your social media content, you need to think about and answer the following questions:
What social media channels will you use?
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How will using them help your business and marketing objec
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tives?
Facebook content
q. What types of issues, events, news etc might form the basis for your social media stories on Facebook?
think about the types of seasonal and cultural events that might be happening in the next few months and might be relevant to your organisation. use them to generate a list of 5 social media posts on Facebook.
tWitter content
What types of tweets might you develop to: Promote news and events in your industry
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be visible and interact with people at an event
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Promote a product
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engage with a customer
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linked in content
Similar to Facebook and twitter, you can raise your visibility in linkedin via the status updates section. Some of the areas you might like to include in your linkedin content are:
commenting on a new development, news, controversy in your
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industry
Promote an event
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comment on a post from an industry peer
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Promote content you have developed (blog post, online guide
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engageMent exerciSe
you are organising an event on behalf of your organisation - what types of content can you develop to:
Promote the event
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create engagement during the event
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Follow up after the event / call to action
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the sections below will help you answer the key resourcing and management questions and develop a plan for adequately man-aging social media within your organisation.Social Media ManageMent
and reSourcing
Social media savvy organisations share a critical factor:
Their senior management have bought into the fact that modern organisations and businesses need to use social media well. Hav-ing bought into the need to do social media, they will commit to resourcing it and having their staff trained in how to use it well.
So the first step you take if you want to manage social media well is to persuade management of its value and the benefits of using
it properly.
The next step should be to secure the financial, staff and training
resources to do it properly. organisations who market and com-municate well via social media usually have:
an in-house social media champion – someone who is a strong
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user of social media and who knows your brand well a digital marketing and social media agency
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in your social media strategy, you will need to address the follow-ing questions:
q. Have we the time to do social media properly? can you de vote at least 2 hours to each social media channel each week? q. Who will manage our social media channels and content? q. What training do we need to invest in in order to do it effectively?
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Social Media riSk
However social media with its emphasis on open, two-way con-versations presents challenges and risks for organisations.
Social media can act as a beacon for negative comments from a small minority of people. even though a small percentage of all comments on your Facebook Page may be negative or unaccept-able, organisations need a clear policy and guidance on how to react to these comments.
as your own employees will be posting comments on social media channels on a very regular basis, you need to set out guidance on what types of content to post, how to deal with any unacceptable posts or even block certain users from your social media chan-nels. Some businesses have encountered reputational damage due to a lack of proper procedure when using social media.
the main social media risks can be summarised as:
Failure to monitor you social media accounts and spot
damag-•
ing content online
Staff member posting something inappropriate on your
organ-•
isation’s social media profile
Staff using their own social media channels to bring your
or-•
ganisation into disrepute
not securing your social media accounts – former staff
mem-•
ber seizing control of your social media accounts
negative reviews from customers on your Facebook Page
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While some organisations do encounter negative incidents on so-cial media in many cases they have not taken basic steps to man-age risks effectively. Many of the social media risks can be easily managed by:Proper social media training for staff
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regular monitoring of social media channels
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Securing your social media accounts
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in order to mitigate some of these risks and ensure good govern-ance, it is important for larger organisations to develop an overall social media policy and guidelines. the following guide will help you to consider the main elements of a social media policy and also help you prepare one for your organisation.
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think about the main risks that could affect your organisation? outline what they may be.
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MetricS
Finally, your social media strategy should set out the
main metrics that will help measure whether your
ac-tivity is successful:
Generate Traffic:
Use Google Analytics to measure the level of traffic
from social media and which social media channels
are referring traffic.
grow Followers:
Followers of your social media channels
generate engagement:
quality and type of engagement with people /
cus-tomers via social media
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issues Why they happen What to do about them ‘We have social
media channels but can’t grow them’
Started a social media
profile – and just left it
there
Social media platforms treated as direct com-munications sites
Poor content
Paid ads and promoted
posts to reach a defined
audience
orgs: Manually search and add friends / follow pages
talk to people in real time / good content develop and posts good quality content
“a lack of resources / capability”
Social media hasn’t been positioned prop-erly with senior staff. need to secure re-sources and budget for it
not viewed as
suf-ficiently important to
allocate a budget too no training
no time
a – Z practical training on how to use Facebook, twitter, linkedin
ensures staff can use each channel well
Social Media
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“We are concerned about the reputation-al risks”
“We are concerned about the reputational risks”
create a Social Media Policy for your organisa-tion
Free resource:
http://www.octavedigital. co.uk/digital-learning/ online-guides/
“our content doesn’t really connect with our audience”
treating the same as corp comms
‘all bout Me!’ approach
culturally, you need to be comfortable with hav-ing a less corporate ap-proach to social media posts
Follow the 80 / 20 rule outlined in the Social Media content section let staff have responsi-bility and leeway to post “How often do we
need to post con-tent?”
irregular posting of content
create a content calen-dar – similar to Pr cal-endar. by mapping out the main events, promo-tions etc occurring each month – it will make it easier to create social media posts.
aim to post content on Facebook every day and a few times per day on twitter
WHo are We?
octave digital is a digital internet marketing agency founded in 2009 to help business-es and organisations market effectively online. the consultancy specialisbusiness-es in online marketing strategy and campaign management and helps clients to understand, adopt and utilise new technology and media.
our services include digital Strategy and Planning, digital Marketing training, Search engine optimisation, Pay Per click advertising management, Social Media Marketing, Website design and email Marketing.
Paul Mcgarrity
Managing director
our services include digital Strategy and Planning, digital Marketing training, Search engine optimisation, Pay Per click advertising management, Social Media Marketing, Website design and email Marketing.
