“…Brands now need an average of 29 employees to manage over 20,000 daily interactions across 50 social accounts.”

Define the type(s) of Social Network that is critical for your Brand’s success.

 

Define the frequency of engagement for your brand after reviewing the strengths of each network and the type of content.

Establish your Social Media voice. Establish the type of content that the Social Media voice publishes and which networks are useful for engagement with that voice. If you are a known brand you may choose to go with different types of messaging for different networks.

Start with listening to the current sentiment for the category and Keywords that matter in the category. It’s important to keep in mind people, places, brands and products while determining keywords. If there is a positive sentiment you can start out building on the same, if there is a negative sentiment, you may avoid going with controversial topics to avoid further negative remarks. Map your competitors’ communication to understand how they are using social

Define the type of Social Media Initiative. Initiatives should be based on the Goal of the activity

• Initiatives should include the activity with a pre-defined objective.
• The objectives for each initiative can be classified broadly into the following:

Brand Awareness, Customer Service, Lead Generation, Community Building

• Define initiatives based on three key social metrics

Activity, Reach and Engagement. They can be defined for both inbound and outbound initiatives and in terms of relevance and the type of conversations that you are seeking to generate.

Whatever happens in Social Media reflects in your web metrics. To fully understand the impact look at the following:

1. Clicks from Social Media to your website

2. Referrals from Social Media links to your web site

3. Total new visits from Social Media sites

4. Total new page views from Social Media

5. Performance for Goals set

Integrate Social with overall Marketing and Communications Strategy. Align your email, TV, Direct Marketing, Radio and Outdoor strategy including setting up event specific Social Media Campaigns.

Customize and personalize  your Brand Content to maximize Conversions for an effective Social Media Strategy

Plan your Communication and be present at the right place and at the right time.

Gather and Implement Social Intelligence with the right Social Media Tools or Social Media Solution.

Phase One requires Auditing and Assessing Size of Company, Size of Social Media Community and a Go-To state

Phase Two requires Identifying Sources and Outputs. A Social Media solution should help in sorting relevant conversations, mentions, videos and resources from forums and social networks.

Phase Three requires Acting on insights. To create an actionable plan, Brands need to look at refining media approaches and segmentation to use insights to arrive at successful business decisions.

Source: The New IQ – Crimson Hexagon and Spredfast Social Media Planning Guide