Social strategy

This 10-point sequence is effective.

1. Listen to conversations about your brand/company/industry
2. Calculate your share of voice – and your competitors’
3. Set yout goals to align with PR, marketing and business goals. Get agreement on the goals.
4. Find relevant communities and bloggers who write about your subject
5. Identify the influencers in these groups. Tip: In all liklihood, they are not famous A-list bloggers.
6. Develop a content strategy based on what you have found in your previous steps.
7. Evaluate the platforms and tools: which tools are best for your business to reach the people you want to start conversations with.
8. Create and deliver that content – monitor responses and reactions.
9. Participate in and facilitate conversations. Provide tools to make it easy to find, share and discuss the content.Syndicate your content so it can filter into the social web.
10. Track and measure results.


Also consider:
I think this is a good primer. It’s definitely important to listen and engage. There are a couple key steps missing, however.

1) You have to set goals before you can determine your strategy. Are you trying to increase awareness about your company or product? Trying to decrease calls to your customer service team? Trying to raise the positive sentiment around your brand? These are all different goals that require different strategies.

2) Define who you want to target. Is it moms? Maybe you want to reach male teen gamers? In the listening phase, find out where they hang out and what tools they use to communicate. Since both of these target audiences use social media differently, you’ll be able to better choose what tools to use when developing your strategy.

3) Don’t just choose to do video or a blog because you feel like everyone else has one. Choose the tools that best align with your goals and the technologies your target audience use.

4) Since you have goals, you’ll be able to measure how well you met thos egoals. How many calls to customer service were deferred? Are people talking about your brand in a more positive light? If you have clearly defined goals, the ROI will be a lot easier to see.