When we were kids, we were all told, "You can't start with dessert." But when you come to the social media table, you need to eat your dessert first--you need A PIE. Even when your first inclination is to just start that Facebook page because everybody says you should, stop and build your strategy first: Assess, Plan, Implement and Evaluate.
A social media strategy is a must-do before you ever open the toolbox. It's simple: know what you want to accomplish before you dive in. Begin with the end in mind. The internet garbage pile is filled with organizations that never gave strategy a second thought. After all, "it's free, it's easy to sign up for an account--what can possibly be so tough about this stuff?"
Even if you've already started in social media without a strategy, I highly recommend going through the process. Research shows us that organizations that plan their social media strategy have a higher level of success.
(A)ssess - You have to listen first
• Who are your audiences? Are they online? What social media tools do they use already? Do you have a good website? How often are your fans visiting your website?
You can find out anything you need to know about your stakeholders with a well-defined survey (Survey Monkey or other free tool) sent to a cross section of your fans. At Montana State, we asked our fans to define how many times a week they used Facebook Twitter, viewed video online, read a blog, listened to a podcast, etc. and took our cues from those numbers. We found through Google Analytics that our average fan only visits our website twice a week, so we didn't have to worry about putting up new video content on our player every day. We found we had a very low number of people on Twitter, so we didn't invest a lot of time and effort in using Twitter for anything other than a newsfeed for the time being. You can also get a good idea of where people are by looking at the Ladder of Engagement from Charlene Li's Groundswell as well.
This phase usually takes about a month at the least. You need a good sample of feedback to get a realistic picture of where your stakeholders are at and what you want to accomplish.
Other ways you can listen: convene informal focus groups, follow what other "like" institutions are doing, look at free online research about social habits (great free set of metrics from Exact Target available online at http://www.exacttarget.com/sff/research_part7.html), and follow social media curators on Twitter for good links and info.
After you learn about your stakeholders, assess the state of the union in-house. Do this by asking these questions:
1. How much time, people and resources do we have available to do this? What do we need in terms of time, people and resources to make it work?
2. What is the current duty roster and what will be the new lines of responsibility?
3. What is our current information flow? Are we engaging our fans or just pumping out information? (You will need to acquire good engagement skills if you are currently just a news-only source. Social media will stall out in a broadcast-only model.)
4. What will we need to change about the way we do business to be successful?
(P)lan- First Prioritize
Next, paint a big picture with the information you gathered while listening. Separate your "urgents" from your "wishes." For instance, it may look like this:
Need Now:
1. Current event calendar w/ invitation capabilities
2. Photo gallery-place for fans to post photos as well
3. Videos of post game press conferences
4. Video interviews with coaches and players
5. Place for fan interaction/discussions
6. Real-time game day feed
7. More locations to broadcast our news stories
Need Later:
1. Live web streaming of games
2. Special contests and promotions for social media fans
3. In-house video production capabilities
4. Electronic newsletter
Next, match your resources (time, money, and people) to your urgent priorities. When it comes to this matching exercise, you may find out that you really don't have the time or money (equipment) to do video, so it could get bumped down to the "later" list. That is the value of assessing: you save yourself a headache by not starting what you can't do well.
In the now, numbers one through five can be reasonably accomplished with a good Facebook page. Number six is probably best accomplished with a Twitter hashtag or "Cover it Live" if you want a moderated chat on game day. Twitter is probably the best option for number seven.
I don't recommend using Facebook for broadcasting news stories. If you clutter people's Facebook pages with too many daily posts, they will block you. Choose 2-3 top news stories a week for Facebook (more on that later) and use Twitter or opt-in emails for the rest.
You've assessed, you've prioritized. In the next installment of Social Media 101, we'll explore the implement and evaluate stages. Does your organization have a social media strategy? How important do you think it is to have one?
