Six Steps to a

Social Media Strategy

aka “What does a social media
strategy look like?”

Neicole M. Crepeau
Website, mobile & social media design specialists Online Strategist
We constantly hear the term
social media strategy.

But what does one

look like?
Example: Table of Contents
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
Example: Section
The strategy is a living
document—built to change.
You can plan,
you can shape the environment,
but you can’t control
the outcome.
To start,
assess your current status.

Even if you aren’t doing

social media, yet:

Where are your customers?

Where are you?
What’s being said?
Step 1:
Define Your Goals
Your goals are
business goals.

What do you hope

to achieve using social media?
Define up to four
discrete goals. For example:

• Drive new registrations

• Get partners to regularly provide end-
user technical content
• Get users to provide customer support to
one another
Make your goals:

Business-focused
Action-oriented
Measurable
Succinct
If you can’t get a goal to
one,
action-oriented line,

it’s too fuzzy

or not granular enough.
Step 2:
Define Success Criteria
Success criteria are a
critical component.

They validate goals & drive

decisions
about measures, tools, and
processes.
Success criteria should:

• Define a timeframe
• Be measurable
• Include specific values
• Support a single goal
Examples:

• Six months post-launch of the social strategy,

10% of our new registrations can be traced
back to the social channels we are working in.
• One year after launch, partners are posting an
average of twelve articles a month on the wiki.
• One year after launch, the articles posted on
the wiki receive an average three star (out of
four) rating from customers.
Step 3:
Create a High-Level
Strategy
This is the part consultants get
paid for.

Why?

It’s not easy to do…and requires

specific knowledge and skills.
 Knowledge about social media
and the various social networks.
Marketing skills.
An understanding of
your business.
Out of the box, creative
thinking.
List five to ten bullets.

Action-oriented.

Create enough bullets to cover

the goal from beginning to end.
Example strategy for the goal Drive
new event registrations:
• Gain social followers from existing online customers
• Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels
• Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events
• Provide incentives for existing customers to promote us online/share info
from us with friends/followers
• Make it easy for new leads to connect socially
• Participate in communities/subgroups where target customers are
• Provide social places for existing and potential customers to discuss
events/shows
• Promote awareness among target customers of the event info available
through our social channels
Step 4:
Create the Tactical Plan
Now, merge your strategies into
one,
uber-strategy

delete any duplicate items

Order the strategy
logically
and chronologically.

Break the strategy into phases

Example strategy phases:

Connect online

Cross-promote

Provide info & incentives

Enable and encourage sharing

Example strategy for a phase:

Connect online
• Gain social followers from existing online customers
• Provide valuable, timely event information through social channels
• Provide financial incentives to social users who register for events
• Provide incentives for existing customers to promote us online/share
info from us with friends/followers
For each bullet
go deep
create a to-do list.

List every task required to

implement that piece
of the strategy.
What do you need to do
first?

What do
you need
to do next?
Need more information?
Get it.
 Need to make decisions? Make
them.

Or at least plan for making them.

 Be specific.
Be detailed.

Capture everything.
 As you create the tactical plan,
hone your strategy.

Change it as needed.

Click here to see guidelines for building the tactical plan

Step 5:
Define Interim Measures
 The hardest part is done.

But there’s still more work.

 Look at your
success criteria
and your tactical plan

How will you know if you’re

on track?
 For each goal,

create interim measures

add measures for tactics, too.
 Interim measures should:

Be specific

Have a timeframe

Click here to see guidelines for interim measures

Example interim measures:
• Low-cost method: On a weekly basis, measure @’s mentioning our account and of
other mentions, plus the number of new followers gained that week. Monthly, look
for trends to find correlations between the number of mentions and follower gain.
After three months, use the data to estimate the acquisition rate through existing
followers.

• High-cost method: On a weekly basis, track @’s and mentions by existing followers
of our account, including the date they occurred. On a daily basis, track new
followers of our account, including the date the become followers and who they are
following at that time. Monthly, compile a list of the new followers who were
following one of our existing followers upon acquisition, and where the existing
follower mentioned us within two days of the new follower joining. Count this a
follower acquisition via an existing follower. (Using this method, we could also do a
deeper analysis to determine which of our followers is most influential in helping to
acquire new followers.)
Step 6:
List Tools & Processes
 What do you need
in order to execute your
strategy?

Tools and processes.

Review your success criteria
and interim measures.

What tools will you need to

do these measurements?
Review your tactical plan.

What tools will you need to

implement it?
What processes?
Create a requirements document
for your tools,

Research tools.
Pick them.
Create a list of

Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly

measurement tasks
Ta da!

Seem like a lot of work?

It is.
Want help?

Contact us.

We’re Coherent Interactive.

We do social media
strategies.
http://www.coherentia.com