Meilani MacDonald
Brand Identity & Outreach Strategy
consulting & resources to help small businesses bloom Courtesy of
MeilaniMacDonald.com
Social Media
Strategy Planner
A Slideshow and Worksheet
to help you prepare your business
Meilani MacDonald
Brand Identity & Outreach Strategy
consulting & resources to
help small businesses bloom
Hey There Business Bloomers!
This offering to you was born from a trinity of sources:
WHY Social Media? presentation created for the Desert Business Association’s (DBA) member education series,
hosted at the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors (PSRAR) in August 2013. It was a hit with the audience,
and they provided me with some great feedback that helped me tweak and fine tune it into this Social Media Strategy
Planner that will help you spend your social media time on purpose, with purpose!
Creating Your Social Media Strategy - a 3-part series of blog posts about how to create your social media strategy.
HereDUH the links:
Creating Your Social Media Strategy, Part 1: Objectives Creating Your Social Media Strategy, Part 2: Goals Creating Your Social Media Strategy, Part 3: Action Steps
Create Your Social Media Strategy Worksheet -a worksheet to help organize your social media strategy plans. These have all been brought together in this Social Media Strategy Planner!
What do you mean by “Social Media” anyway?
For the purposes of this document, social media means any media that is social in nature of its use. This could range from the social connection building sites we all know, like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to sites that serve a specific purpose (ex. travel booking or real estate listing), or personal desires (radio, video, gaming), to apps that are very useful to business project teams, for example Google’s Drive, Docs, Spreadsheets & Presentations, which enable team members to easily share files and collaborate on documents from creation to presentation.
Check out this list of social networking websites from Wikipedia for a glimpse of the many social networks out there.
So how do you know where to begin?
Well, before you know what to do, you first must know why you are there. Your social media strategy must support and
bring you closer to your overall business objectives.
Step 1: Write down your Business Objectives. Where do you see your business in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years?
This list will help you define your social media objectives, because those will support your overall business objectives. It’s ok for your Objectives to be broad and expansive! Your Objectives are your future, so go for it and think about your dream business, and list those Objectives that will take you there! Begin with 1 year, 3 year and 5 year Objectives, but if your juju is strong and your mojo is flowing go ahead and take it out as far as you want to map it!
Now let’s move on to Creating Your Social Media Strategy!
Social Media
Strategy Planner
What is Social Media?
For this discussion, social media means
any media that is social in nature of its use.
This could range from the social connection-building
sites we all know, like
,
Google+
,
,
and
, to apps that are very useful to project teams,
for example
Google’s Drive
,
Docs
,
Spreadsheets
,
and
Presentations
, to apps that
enable you to share your personal likes and hobbies, such
as
Pandora Radio
and
Netflix.com
.
Google+
Google+
YouTube
Vine
FourSquare
Google+
YouTube
Yelp
TripAdvisor
Vine
FourSquare
Google+
YouTube
Yelp
TripAdvisor
Vine
Google Drive & Docs,
Skype,
Text,
Maps,
Flickr,
Meetup,
Pandora,
iTunes
?
Which Socials are Right for You?
?
?
?
?
?
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?
?
?
?
?
It Depends
What are your
OBJECTIVES?
Assignment: Complete worksheet Page 1 - Business Objectives,
and Page 2 - Social Media Objectives
Your Social OBJECTIVES should support your
Business Objectives.
How can you use social
media to help you reach your business objectives?
Below are some examples of social media objectives
that support the needs of a growing small business:
Cultivate brand identity / brand awareness
Grow targeted online audience
Provide new avenues of customer service
Drive foot traffic to brick & mortar store
Drive clicky traffic to web site / online store
?
Ok we have Objectives. Now what?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
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?
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The next slides show example Social Media Objectives,
and some Goals that support those Objectives.
SET GOALS
GOALS are
individual projects or campaigns
, each a
stepping stone towards achieving your Objectives.
While Objectives may be broad, Goals are smaller projects
which you can easily envision and complete.
While setting Goals, create realistic project timelines which include
planning
,
execution
and
sustainability
. Does the project have a
finite end
What other Goals will help nurture and reinforce brand awareness?
GOALS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
1 Month
GOAL
:
Brainstorm and produce a catchy tagline or jingle
Examples:
Esser Heating & Air Conditioning - “Yessir, it’s Esser” radio jingle
Desert Cow Computers - “We’re Outstanding in Our Field, and We Won’t Milk You”
Montage Painting - “We Take the Pain Out of Painting”
If you don’t have a clear vision of your company’s brand identity, create it before you set up
your social profiles. You must know yourself before you can tell others about yourself!
If you need help, contact Meilani to book a private or group brand identity workshop!
GOALS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
3 Month
GOAL
:
Set up 3 Social Profiles with cohesively
designed cover photos that support and reinforce brand identity.
Considerations:
What are your brand’s colors? What are your company taglines?
What kind of images represent and support your brand’s messages?
Assignment: Complete worksheet Page 3 - Social Media Goals
GOALS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
6 Month
GOAL
:
Plan and create a seasonal social media event
Some Ideas:
Store Owners or Realtors:
Plan a food, gift or toy collection that drives foot traffic into your store
or to a showing of that new office rental space. Tweet it, FB it, create Events and invite people
to it, etc. Upload video clips and photos of donations and donors as they come into your location!
Online Stores:
Host a “Pay It Forward” event for your online store where people purchase your
products for donation to participating local charitable orgs. For example, if you sell clothing, partner with a
homeless shelter to be the recipient of clothing purchased from your store during the “Pay It Forward”
Um...OK...Now What?
YAAY WE
HAVE
?
How Do We Reach Our Goals?
?
?
?
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?
?
List the Actions you need to take to achieve your Goals.
Be sure to add them to your Calendar or To-Do List!!
Examples in the next slides!
List & Calendar
ACTION
STEPS
ACTIONS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
1 Month
GOAL
:
Brainstorm and produce a catchy tagline or jingle
ACTION STEPS:
1.
Define my brand identity.
Due by end of week 1.
2.
Brainstorm Taglines.
Due by end of week 1.
3.
Ask trusted group for feedback on Taglines.
Feedback due end of week 2.
4.
Find a Jingle producer. Ask for referrals, do your research.
Due week 2.
5.
Provide Jingle producer info about your brand, services and tagline,
and give them direction as to what you want the Jingle to accomplish.
Provide beginning of week 3, with end of month deadline for Jingle maker.
ACTIONS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
3 Month
GOAL
:
Set up 3 Social Profiles with cohesively designed
cover photos that support and reinforce brand identity.
ACTION STEPS:
1.
Research social media sites & choose 3.
Due by end of week 1.
2.
Set up 1st profile and make an intro post.
Due by end of week 2.
3.
Set up 2nd profile and make an intro post.
Due by end of week 3.
4.
Set up 3rd profile and make an intro post.
Due by end of week 4.
ACTIONS
Objective: Cultivate your brand identity / brand awareness
6 Month
GOAL
:
Plan and create a seasonal social media event
ACTION STEPS:
month 1:
Research: holidays & social campaigns
month 2:
Create community partnerships for participation in event
month 3:
Planning: Intent / Desired Actions / Timeline / Incentives, Rewards
month 4:
Begin soft promotions - hints and teasers
month 5:
Continue promotions - hints and teasers / socials / mixers
month 6:
Leadup promotions - press releases, blogs, socials, ads,
announcements, online and printed event calendars, etc.
followup:
Followup stories about recipients of donations, funding, etc.
Assignment: Complete worksheet Page 4 - Action Steps
POP QUIZ
Your social media time is:
(check all that apply)
Networking _____
Raising brand awareness _____
Cultivating and reinforcing brand identity _____
Building Target Audiences _____
Making connections _____
Building relationships _____
Establishing your authority _____
Expanding your reach _____
Valuable _____ Important _____
SURVEY
How much time did you dedicate to in-person networking
mixers during the last two weeks?
Travel to and from mixers: _____
Time spent at mixers: _____
Time dedicated to followups: _____
Why do you spend this time going to networking mixers?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
SURVEY
How much time will you dedicate to social/online networking
mixers in the future?
Researching and writing blog posts: _____
Posting to your socials: _________
Time dedicated to comments & discussion _____
Why will you spend time on online networking?
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
Need Help?
Private & Group Consulting Available
If you would like some help creating your social media outreach strategies,
defining and locating your niche audience, or realizing and cultivating your
brand identity, please contact me, Meilani MacDonald, via email at
Social Media Strategy Planning Worksheet
by Meilani MacDonald • MeilaniMacDonald.com • [email protected]Business OBJECTIVES
What are your overall business Objectives? Envision what you want to see yourself doing in 1 year, in 3 years, in 5 years. What do you want to do? Do you love being in the front lines helping your customers, or prefer behind the scenes managing your employees? Are you looking to expand and hire, or is the solopreneur life for you? Immediate: 1 year: 3 years: 5 years: Ongoing:
Social Media OBJECTIVES
What are your social media Objectives? These should support your overall business objectives. For example, if a biz objective is to increase sales, social media objectives that support might include driving foot traffic to your brick and mortar store, driving clicky traffic to your online store, cultivating brand identity and product awareness, or holding an online contest for prizes from your store. Immediate: 1 year: 3 years: 5 years: Ongoing:
Social Media GOALS
Set Goals that will help you achieve your social media Objectives. Objectives may be expansive and broad Goals can be a single project or activity which supports the Objective. Reaching your Goals will help you achieve your Objective. For example: Objective = Build my audience; build my brand identity; cultivate brand awareness & reputation (broad) Goals that support the Objective: ● Set up social profiles using same pics and cohesive designs that reinforce brand (specific project) ● Participate in Hangout shows as a guest, expert or host (specific activity) ● Participate in conversations with social influencers, and in relevant topical forums (specific activity)OBJECTIVES Goal Goal Goal Goal
example: Immediate and ongoing Objective: Build audience, cultivate / reinforce brand identity Ongoing Participate in conversations with social influencers Ongoing Participate in targeted forums where you provide solutions 3 months Create 3 social media profiles that support brand identity 6 months Join Hangout shows as guest or featured expert
ACTION STEPS
Action steps are what you do to reach your Goals. Plan out your action steps and put them on your calendar and to do lists. Soon you will be checking your Goals off as accomplished! For example: Goal = Create social media profiles that support my brand identity with matching profile pics and cover art Mark your Action Steps on your calendar so they become a ToDo list: ● week 1: Research social media outlets to find the three sites I want to use. ● week 2: Create first profile and make a post introducing myself ● week 3: Create second profile and make a post introducing myself ● week 4: Create third profile and make a post introducing myselfGOALS Action / To Do Action / To Do Action / To Do Action / To Do
example: Goal: Create social media profiles that support my brand identity due by ________ Research different social media outlets & choose 3 which support objectives & goals, & fit me due by ________ Create Google+ profile and make intro post due by ________ Create Twitter profile and make intro tweet due by ________ Create FB profile and make intro post
