Social Media Plan – 10 Steps to Get a Grip

Do you feel as though your social media program has taken on a life of it’s own? Do you feel the chances of you getting a grip on social media in your lifetime are well… slim to none?

Do any of these sound familiar?

• Tweets flying out of control.
• Nightmares of your Twitter account taken over by your 5 yr old.
• Worries of who your intern gave access to your Twitter account.
• You don’t know passwords to at least 50% of your social network accounts.
• Social media policy… don’t have one but wish you did.
• Who’s tweeting for your brand again?
• Teams are fighting internally about who owns social media.
• Goals, what are those again?
• Integrate social media into your business? Maybe in five years, right now you don’t know where to start.
• Budget for social media? CEO wants ROI first.

Has the social media beast got a hold of your budget, resources, and ROI? Are you at a loss for how to get it back? Check out this article “20 Tips to Tame the Wild Social Media Beast.”
Slow down. Take a deep breath. You are not superwoman, superman, the rainmaker or the master social media ninja. You can and will get a grip on your social media in this century. Trust me, it has happened to people just like you. It is going to take hard work, and you can’t outsource all of it. You must roll up your sleeves, get ready to integrate and don’t let anyone get in your way. You ready? Great, let’s go!
Here are 10 easy steps to help you organize and get a grip on your social media efforts. At the bottom of this post I have linked to several blog posts I have written on this topic the past few months as well as resources for you to download such as worksheets and more.

Step 1: Know What Ya’ Got – Maximize to Monetize

Social media isn’t just about “the next big thing.” Learning how you can maximize to monetize might just be your key to success.

• What content do you have that you can leverage? If you have loads of content but don’t know what to do with it, then get it organized. Assign one of three statuses to every piece of content. It’s either in, out or updated. Use this special worksheet to help you get started–>>Download Content Inventory Worksheet.
• What social media profiles do you have active? Who owns them? Where are the passwords? Document them all in a spreadsheet asap!
• How long have each of your social profiles been active? What data is available for them to help you make future decisions?
• What work have you done to date? What can be leveraged? What have you learned?
• What talent do you have within your organization? What are their top skills? Where are the gaps?
• What relationships do you have externally you can leverage and bring in tighter to your team and efforts? Where can you partner for mutual benefit?
• Do you have a social media policy? When is the last time you reviewed? Does it cover the key areas to minimize and help mitigate risk? Is it up to date?

Step 2: Know How You Did.

It’s time to get real and honest with yourself about results to date. Don’t sugar coat this analysis. Dig deep into the data and let the data talk to you. Don’t manipulate the data to trick your boss, CEO or board of directors. The more honest you can be here, the better chance you have of getting a grip on your social once and for all.

• What have your results and performance been to date?
• Are you integrating and aligning social media to your business? Is social supporting your business goals? Or is it being treated as an add-on band-aid?
• What opportunities exist to increase return on investment and results?
• Do you have a business, marketing and social media plan? If yes, have you achieved the set goals and objectives? If not, how close did you come? What were the gaps?
• Why did you or didn’t you meet your goals and objectives?
• What was the good, bag and ugly in everything you have done to date? What worked? What didn’t work? What needs tweaked? What needs repeated?
•  If you didn’t meet goals and objectives what stopped you? Is it knowledge of how to integrate social media into your business? Is it technical skills? Engagement skills? Lack of content? Lack of understanding of your market and audience? Resources? Budget? Lack of vision and needed focus? Lack of corporate executive buy-in? Get to the heart of this to increase your chances of better meeting your goals and objectives in the next phase.

Step 3: What is Holding You Back?

This is another area you must get real and honest with yourself. Take a nice long weekend away at the beach or cozy day by the fireplace. Dig deep into what is holding you back. What is holding you back personally, professionally from meeting your business goals and objectives.  What is holding your team and organization back? What’s holding your external industry or niche back? Is it bigger than you? If yes, how can you have a positive impact on a larger ecosystem? Don’t make excuses here. Remember, our focus is to get a grip on social media and your business, not make up reasons why it’s not working or blame it on the lack of planets aligning.
What is holding you back. Is it one or more of the below? Whatever it is, figure out a plan to fix it.

• Random acts of marketing (RAMs) wasting cycles and ROI
• Skills
• Strengths
• Assets
• Knowledge
• Tools & tech
• Budget
• Resources
• Time
• Confidence
• Fear

Step 4: Know Where You Want to Go!

If you have ever visited my blog, watched one of my videos or held any conversation with me over 60 seconds you probably know one of the first questions I ask you is “what are your goals and objectives?”  Bottom line, if you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

• What are your goals?
• What do you want to be when you grow up? When your company grows up? When your market niche grows up?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• How do you see your business changing in the next 12 months, 24 months, 48 months or longer? How will social media impact that?
• How do you see social helping you meet your business goals and objectives?
• Where can social media best have positive impact and help you achieve your goals?

Step 5:  WHY WHY WHY? 

Why do you want to go there? Why does your market, community or audience care if you go there? Why should they click like, follow you on Facebook, be your friend, tweet you, retweet you or give a rip about anything you have to say or do? Why should your boss care what you do, say, or spend on social media this year?
If you don’t answer this most basic set of questions of WHY, your efforts may be all for nothing. No joke!
Download this FREE Social Media Audience Analysis Worksheet that leverages the Forrester POST Methodology.

Step 6: Identify & Mitigate Risk.

What risks do you face and how are you going to mitigate them? What challenges will you face and how can you proactively minimize their impact?
For example, do you risk not having enough time? If yes, then a mitigation plan may be to first create the list of the top 10 things you are not going to do so that you can do the top 10 things that will help you get a grip on social media. Check out this blog post here for more tips on this topic.
You may have risks of not enough knowledge of industry, market, clients? This could lead to bad decisions and investment in social media which as a result could mean you fail at connecting with your audience and community.
Other risks may include but are not limited to:

• Risk of poor quality execution due to unskilled team.
• PR crisis management and mitigation.
• Social media policy and / or lack there of such policy.
• Industry or regulation risks.
• Changing ecosystem.
• Competitive threats and pressures.

Step 7: How are You Going to Get There?

What is the strategy and approach you are taking to achieve their goals. We leverage the Forrester Research POST Methodology. You can download a worksheet here to help you focus on your audience, objectives and a strategy to achieve your goals and objectives.
Your strategy and approach to integrating social media into the DNA of your business should not come from a cookie cutter plan you find via a Google search. It should come from a clear understanding of your markets, audience and industry. It should be clearly mapped to your goals and objectives and be the roadmap of how you are going to connect with your audiences and provide them the highest value to best achieve your goals and objectives.
There is only one way to do social media and that is the way that works for you and your business, period! Focus on you and your business, not everyone else!

Step 8: Who Needs to Go With You?

What partners should and could you take along with you? Who can you partner with that will offer mutual benefit? A good partner has something to bring to the table for you just as you should do for them.

If you are part of a larger organization, then also look at what other internal organizations and teams you can partner with. Even if you are in a different country than other teams within your corporation, there can be much benefit to working together, learning from one another. Why not partner together and conduct a similar test with similar variables in the different geographies? Findings could prove useful not only for your immediate teams, but for others who you can share the information and also get them on board with your greater efforts.
Remember, the goal is to lead with RESULTS!  It’s not always about leading with the latest shiny new object. Generate real results with data to back it up and you’ll be shocked the number of people who might want to get on your social train in six months from now!

Step 9: What will you do when  you arrive? What’s next?

How do you know when you arrive? What does success look like? What does your roadmap look like? What do you do when you get there? What will you do when you have achieved a mass community on Facebook or Twitter? How will you continue to provide them with real value, keep them connected to your brand and continue nurturing relationships in a real and authentic way?
How will you continue to integrate social media into the DNA of your business? How will you continually optimize, rinse and repeat? How will you capture data, measure and leverage for continuous improvement?
For me this is the fun part. I know for many they would rather get a root canal, or three. If you need help or don’t know where to start with any of this, give me a call or contact our agency, Marketing Nutz  and we’ll help you get a grip on all of the above plus more!

Step 10: How will you differentiate & do better than the rest? 

What are the short, medium and long term tactics and strategies needing started and implemented that can give you the extra oomph into your business and results?
Examples could include:

• Training and education for your team.
• Social business and/or communication leadership training for your executive team so they feel comfortable with social media.
• Corporate or personal brand development or refresh.
• Content marketing strategy.
• Further refinement of goals and objectives.
• New website or blog.
• Overhaul of website or blog.
• Brand architecture development.
• Social media assessment or audit by a third party to better understand all of the above.
• Social media profile customization such as Facebook profile, Facebook cover image, Twitter customization, You Tube customization.
• Proper setup of social media profiles.
• Personal consultant or business coach to help you navigate it all.
• Better understanding of everything I stated above as it all sounds greek to you?
• Blog and content strategy.
• Video marketing strategy and implementation plan.
• Integration with offline events and marketing.
• Development of testimonial and case study summaries