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- Defining Social Media
- Who Can Benefit from a Social Media Strategy?
- So What?
- Conclusion
- The Essence of a Superior Social Media Strategy
- Superior strategists assess the competitive landscape
- Superior strategists make big-picture choices
- Superior strategists coordinate the choices
- Superior strategists coordinate the choices into a coherent path forward
- Superior strategy results in an orchestrated set of tactics
- Conclusion
- The Benefits of Strategy
- A sound strategy helps guide your deployment of scarce resources
- A sound strategy helps coordinate people and resources
- A sound strategy provides a powerful message to educate employees in the organization
- A sound strategy provides stability during tumultuous times and crises
- Conclusion
- Functional Perspective
- Dynamics Perspective
- Experiential Perspective
- Conclusion
- Stage 1: Facts – Collect relevant facts
- Stage 2: Anchors – Isolate the essential analytical anchors implied by the facts
- Stage 3: Judgments – Make judgments based on the analytical anchors
- Stage 4: Validation – Validate your judgments
- Conclusion
- Characteristics of Superior Coordinates
- Superior coordinates represent tough, “big-picture” choices about what to do and what not to do
- Superior coordinates enrich one another
- Superior coordinates robustly define the operating space
- Principles for Formulating Coordinates
- Respect the “unequal dialogue” in your organization
- “Don’t fight the last war”
- Know when to play offense, defense, and use special teams
- A Discussion Protocol for Crafting Coordinates
- Review your competitive analysis and seek out hidden connections
- Construct a “brain-prodding” chart
- Discover clusters of goals or pods of insights
- Label and evaluate the pods
- Determine how the goals could be linked together to accomplish something unique and spectacular
- Conclusion
- Channel Dynamics
- Channels connect senders and receivers
- Each channel has a unique capacity to transmit particular types of signals
- Channels cultivate unique conventions, customs, and norms
- Principles for Selecting Channels
- Select platforms that sync with your coordinates and your target audiences’ preferences
- Consider niche-like platforms that may serve your needs
- Select platforms that you can master on a tactical level
- Strategic Channel Selection
- Systemically study a wide variety of potential social media platforms
- Evaluate and select the platforms for active and passive management
- Craft a “job description” for each channel
- Bundle the channel “duties” into manageable jobs for your social media team
- Assign the right person or team to the tasks
- Conclusion
- What Are My Content Options?
- Who Generates the Content?
- Internally-produced content
- Curated content
- Co-created content
- User-generated content
- How do I Select the Right Content?
- Coordinate aligned
- Audience sensitive
- Channel compatible
- Category apportioned
- Feedback driven
- Conclusion
- Understanding Connectivity
- Nodes
- Links
- Direction
- Capacity
- Volume
- Networks
- Connection Principles
- The pattern of connections (network) is more important than the strength of individual components (nodes)
- There are tradeoffs associated with every type of network
- Networks have both structural and emergent properties
- Connections Matrix
- Crafting Network Strategy
- Identify a broad range of nodes and links
- Map out and evaluate your existing network structure
- Mix and match your connection strategies
- Develop the skills and commitments to match your connection strategies
- Judge effectiveness based on the strategy employed and the ease of reaching “bullseye nodes”
- Conclusion
- Sources of Errors
- Attention
- Speed
- Habits
- Thinking biases
- Organizational structures, procedures and protocols
- Corrections Matrix
- Minor oversight
- Modest gaffe
- Missed opportunity
- Major blunder
- So What?
- Detect patterns of errors
- Build an eagle-eyed radar screen
- Augment your radar screen by recruiting and maintaining your own friendly spy network
- Build an experimental lab
- Determine what type of corrective action to take
- Set up a regular assessment process
- Conclusion
- Test 1: The Coordinate Test (note: the following questions apply to a specific example)
- Will the selected channels increase your target audience’s attendance at your event?
- Will your content choices increase your target audience’s attendance at your event?
- Will your connection choices increase your target audience’s attendance at your event?
- Will your correction plan increase your target audience’s attendance at your event?
- Test 2: The Synergy Test
- Are the channels aligned with your message choices?
- Are the channels aligned with your connection decisions?
- Are the channels aligned with your correction plan?
- Are the message choices aligned with your connection decisions?
- Are the message choices aligned with your correction decisions?
- Are the connection decisions aligned with our correction plan?
- Test 3: The Translation Test
- Test-Taking Advice
- Don’t assume that because you passed test 1 that you will ace test 2
- Solicit the opinions and insights of others
- Expect imperfections
- Conclusion
- How We Fool Ourselves
- Focusing on one or a few metrics
- Neglecting to identify underlying actionable issues
- Failing to take the situation into account
- Purpose of Assessments
- Setting benchmarks
- Orienting management processes
- Identifying continuous improvement opportunities
- Developing a Social Media Assessment Tool
- Coordinates
- Our social media efforts help us meet our business goals
- We have the proper communication goals to support our business goals
- We are meeting our communication goals
- We have the right measures for our goals
- Our goals are aligned with one another
- Channels
- We have selected the proper platforms to meet our goals
- We have clearly defined roles for our different platforms
- Our core audiences consistently use our selected platforms
- We share the right type of content on our platforms
- We properly manage the logistics of our platforms
- Content
- Our content resonates with our core audiences
- We have the right mix of different types of content
- Our content creates a consistent brand image
- We have the right mix of in-house-created, user-generated and curated content
- Our content syncs with our goals
- Connections
- Our social media platforms logically link to one another
- Users can easily connect to our target site
- We have the right internal organizational relationships to properly manage our platforms and related content
- Our social media platforms properly link to our other communication tools
- We are connected to the right communities to achieve our goals
- Corrections
- We have in place mechanisms to quickly detect social media gaffes and identify emerging opportunities
- We avoid making the same kinds of mistakes
- We consistently and quickly correct errors
- We have informal protocols in place to regularly review performance and detect trends
- We have a formal process in place to review our strategy and performance on a quarterly or semi-annual basis
- So What?
- Do your homework by collecting relevant metrics and holding discussions with a wide range of people
- Embrace the debate
- Acknowledge the relationships between the 5 Cs.
- Conclusion
- Step 1: Master Metric Language
- Audience composition
- Traffic patterns
- Engagement measures
- Community sentiment
- Step 2: Dive Deeper into the Measures and Analytics
- Platform-specific measures
- Non-platform-specific measures
- Step 3: Avoid the Metrics Minefield
- Resist being seduced by the glamour metrics
- Don’t assume that metric language transfers across platforms
- Watch out for comparisons across organizations and time
- Step 4: Match Metrics with Your Assessment Plan
- Conclusion
- Key Principles
- Analyze your audiences
- Establish the right comparison points
- Spotlight the return on investment
- Highlight connections between social media platforms, other communication tools, and events
- Focus on continuous improvement
- Main Sections of the Assessment Report
- Introduction
- Limitations
- Comparative framework
- Data and analysis
- Success stories
- Conclusions and recommendations
- Appendices
- Conclusion
- Strategic Mindset
- Strategists are always grounded by the current reality even as they envision the next steps forward
- Strategists focus on making the right tradeoffs
- Strategists cultivate synergies
- Professional Sensibilities
- Professionals are committed to a core set of values and related ethical standards
- Professionals cultivate collaborative, respectful relationships with others in their organization
- Professionals exercise good judgment
- Enthusiasts’ Zeal
- Enthusiasts have fun, within limits
- Enthusiasts devour the latest news and trends in their field
- Enthusiasts experiment
- Conclusion