Developing a Social Media Strategy

If your organization is like most, it's either about to dabble in Web 2.0, or already has a presence on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. But if you’re going to start spending time on social media, why not take pains to make the most out of your efforts? To help, here’s an overview of our five-part process to developing a finely-tuned social media strategy.

Part I: Evaluation – Before you can determine your organization’s social media requirements and develop a plan, you need to evaluate what social media capabilities you currently have (website, outreach, marketing, blogs, etc.), how you are perceived within those channels, and how compatible they are with your strategy.  From this you can determine what tweaks you need to make to your overall marketing.

Part II: Creating the Plan – Once you understand what you need, you should create goals for social media engagement, clarify your message, and select social media tools for implementation.

Part III: Implementation & Training – In this step you implement your social media tools and train staff how to use them effectively.

Part IV: Monitoring & Ongoing Strategic Development – To be of value, social media tools need to be monitored and adjusted as needed.  They also need to have ongoing evaluation to ensure they continue to meet strategic needs.

Part V: Campaigns – After your organization is comfortable with its social media implementation, use, and maintenance, it may decide to launch social media campaigns to publicize a certain event or mobilize support for a piece of legislation.

Resources - View the social media presentation we gave at this year's S.E. Alliance Summit.