Let's discuss the parts and premises of building a social media strategy. Remember that these are just some starting points. When I build strategy documents and plans with clients, we usually start in one small "need" corner, fashion a goal for that need, and then come up with the various paths that could get us there. Those paths are the arching strategies, and then we lay out tactics to fit those.
Strategy isn't the goal. It's the path you plan to take to get there. So, let's lay out some goals, then talk through how to build a strategy to reach them. Here are a few sample goals. Feel free to add some to the comments at http://chrisbrogan.com/comments-from-101, if I don't cover yours.
Increase customer base.
Generate leads.
Drive sales.
Build awareness.
Make money from your content.
Establish thought leadership.
Educate customers.
Customer-source part of your product development.
Reach new channels of customers.
Improve internal communication.
Before we go too far down any one path, we should ask some questions:
Are your customers likely to be online? Note that lots of people are online these days, but maybe you have a product or service that isn't frequently purchased via the Web. What's your story?
Are you ready to handle negativity? Platforms like blogs and videos allow for negative comments, and some company cultures aren't ready to engage with those opinions.
How will you incorporate this into people's daily jobs?
How long are you willing to give it a try?
What's your willingness to experiment, take risks, and adjust your plans?
The answers to these questions might tell you a bit about your business, whether or not you decide to go forward with building a strategy using social media tools. Remember, it's a lot easier not to listen to customers and, instead, just blast out your messages with no regard to how they're received.
If we're going to put a social media strategy into place, we need to align the path we're going to take, and develop it with an understanding of how to reach our goals. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? Let's get there. How do we know we've arrived? Simple, eh? Let's start with the "how."
Listening. Implement at least a rudimentary listening platform. (Google "grow bigger ears" to see an easy, free platform to start out with.)
Communications. Build a starting place to hold your conversations. By this, I mean a blogging platform.
Methods. Determine the mix of content you intend to create, and build work flow around it.
Community. Most social media strategies have to address community and how you will embrace the people you seek to gather around your business.
Neighbors. Develop a plan to reach out to others in your community, to comment, and to share.
Outposts. Develop social network outposts where you can communicate with other communities and also share the way back to your own platform.
Marketplace. If your strategy involves making money, build a marketplace external to your community. Keep these separate.
Attention. Learn how to build awareness and encourage relationships with the media you're making.
Strategies must tie in to the main business. You might or might not launch pilot programs, but your goals, your missions, the resources used, the integration of the entire project must tie in to the main business. Building icebergs that float away isn't the right way to implement social media in the company. Instead, think about how to use the project as a pilot that might sway everything down the road; build it with an "over there" flavor to start, and formulate a plan to make it "the main thing" and also a plan for "let's bury that mistake." All three types of plan points are important.