Once the goals are set and the information on the use of social media by our target audiences has been obtained, it’s time to formulate the strategy. Understanding that the strategy is to convince a set of different target audiences to enroll in a certain type of engagement (contributor, client, follower, etc.) through content delivery via social media platforms, the formulation has to depict which social media platforms are to be used for every target audience and for what kind of enrollments. Further, it might be convenient that some target audiences or some enrollment purposes have their own page or account apart from the others within one social media platform. A succinct way to formulate the strategy is to draw a table to fill in the following data for every social media platform:
- Specific, measurable and time-bounded goals
- Target audiences, assigning a priority level to each of them and for each region
- Types of content –considering format and language- to be delivered, assigning a priority level or intended frequency to each type of content
- Types of activities to be carried out
- Advertising for which target audiences, assigning a budget percentage to every one
- Number of pages or accounts to have in every platform, and for which audience or enrollment purpose is every one
- Consider pages or accounts for different geographical markets and languages.
- How to manage content and conversation
- Development stage in which it is to be deployed
Furthermore, it is advisable to start using one or two social media platforms at the beginning, and expand the scope of used platforms for as long as the stakeholder network grows. Therefore, the social media strategy should consider several phases of network development, stating which social media platforms are to be used in each phase as well as the turning points at which to leap forward to the next phase. This way, the initial efforts in deploying the social media throughout the stakeholder community are to be more effective, and as long as the network grows and is more familiar with the social media tools, this network is leveraged to also follow the other social media platforms.
Would you consider other points in designing the social media strategy?
