Social Media Workbook

MASTERS OF NEW MARKETING | www.AP42.com

Setting yourself on the right course in social media starts with asking the right questions. As with good journalism, these questions start with words like Why, Who, What, When and Where before getting to How.

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This workbook is the first of a three step process. As with all effective marketing programs, the three steps are actually part of a continuous cycle, where investigation, planning, and execution continue as the system is measured and learning from experience is fed back into the process.

The second step is the creation of a Playbook, that turns each of the questions into imperative statements. The question of Who turns into an imperative that assigns roles and responsibilities to those in your organization and its agencies relative to social media. What defines the platforms and the content that will be shared on these platforms. When defines the timing of activities related to the Who and What answers. How details the steps that Who will take on What platforms and content on a timeline determined by When. Where ties this all together with any location-based or physical presence represented by your online social activities. All of this continues to roll up to the primary answer to Why.

Once the questions have been asked in the workbook, and answered in the playbook, youre ready to execute. The third step is to get out and use these media.

WHY

WHO?

WHAT?

EN? WHERE? WH HOW?

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If all digital media are social, then what do we mean by focusing on social media as something specific?
Good question. Your website is social if it is sharable. Google searches are social in that they reflect how many people use a network to search and connect information. Email is social if its forwarded. Message boards are obviously social places, too. They may not be the shiny new objects in the social sky, but they are all important, and need to be considered as part of a social media marketing strategy.

If everything is social, what do you mean by social media? Business communications have always had a social element. Models of trust such as word-ofmouth predate even the written word. What has changed, even in the digital space, are the models, methods and technologies used to facilitate the power of people to use these media to search, connect, and share.

The key component of social media strategy is not each platform in isolation.
Some platforms are better known as social networks because they are primarily built on the connections among people, and present those connections as their primary content or function. But overall social media marketing stitches these together with media not considered specifically social to create a system that functions greater than the sum of its parts.

The purpose?
To complement your top-down, business-controlled, brand-defined marketing communications with participation in the wider communications among people that may affect your business and your brand. Advertising to people on Facebook is not social media marketing, its advertising. Providing content on Facebook that people will share with each other, allowing them to communicate, validate, reinforce - thats social media marketing.

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Are you ready? With the rapid rise in social media platforms, most people have been exposed to one social media platform or another. Often this exposure has only been to platforms in the context of their personal life: classmates, relatives, friends and neighbors. Translating these to business contexts may not always be so obvious.

For those unsure of how to proceed, we recommend a period of observation with different platforms. You may need to create an account for best access, but you dont need to actively participate, and you can set your privacy controls accordingly. For example, use Twitter as a search engine and look for terms relative to your business. Once you see what people are saying, look more deeply into who they are, links to their sites, etc.

Where it gets interesting is when you see three things:

Who else are they following? Who is following them? What lists are they on? By following these connections, you will start to see people who are leading the conversations and the trends relative to your business, who is paying attention to whom, and what language they are using. After a while, you may choose to follow some of these people on Twitter, or add them to your own lists, and check in on the feed occasionally to see what is new. All without writing your first tweet! With enough exposure, it should start to come naturally to you how you might participate in this conversation, both as an individual and as your business.

Who

follow are they else

ing?

wing them? Who is follo

What lists are they on?

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Business presence vs Individual presence vs Personal presence

Traditional marketing communications has often used individuals to represent the business along with the brand, from CEOs to they guy who could stop the production line at Saturn by yanking on a rope. Social media has added new dimensions to the association of businesses with the people who work for them. Because some social media systems such as Facebook have personal accounts at the core, it may be difficult to operate in them with only the face of the business.

Trickier yet is the fact that individuals use of social media may transcend their workplace, and for them to participate on behalf of their business without blending their business and personal personae requires specific knowledge, planning and discipline. Some employees are not willing to turn all 24 hours of their day to company, but some platforms such as Facebook do not allow multiple accounts reflecting business and personal faces. Privacy controls and lists only go so far to separate out multiple parts of peoples lives.

One of the obstacles to social media marketing is defining the balance between how your business is represented and how individual people are represented.

Identifying ahead of time the brand identity of the company and any individuals that will be associated with it will allow you to more effectively plan your presence. Specific company rules for social media participation may be helpful, but in this era, they will never allow for complete control of the 360 identities of employees.

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WHY?
The first question we are asking is Why?

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It is important to understand your business objectives relative to social media. It is new, and it is shiny, but is that enough? Do you understand how social media integrates with your overall business model and an integrated marketing strategy? It is also important at this point to ask Why? from the viewpoint of your customers. Why should they care? Why do they want to interact with you via social media? Why should they tell their friends. Start with these questions before you move on.

Why are you doing this: what are your business objectives?

Long term (>1 year):

Mid term (1 year):

Short term (this quarter):

What is the brand essence that you wish to support via social media?

Why does anybody care?

What value are you offering to your customers by engaging in their social media spaces?

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WHO?
PART 1

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Weve split the Who? part of our workbook into two sections.
The first is about your audience, those people out there who (if you completed the first part of this workbook) have a reason to engage with you via social media. Answer these questions to start thinking about your audience in a little more detail. Who are your customers?

How ready are they for social media engagement?

What social media do they currently use?

Do different kinds of customers use different social media?

What percentage of your customers: Dont participate in social media Use social media to register opinions Create content and share it with social media - posts, pictures, videos, etc. Share links or other collections of content on social media

Read social media without joining

Join social media platforms

Use social media information to form decisions

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WHAT?
Our What? questions
What social media are you already using?

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delve into the things you may already be doing in social media, what you have been considering or other factors that affect how you will be participating in various social media platforms.

What social media are your customers already using?

What social media are your competition already using?

What social media systems do you plan to use?

What custom application/use of media do you plan to use?

How will your social media systems work together?

What are any regulations or codes of conduct/ethics that govern your industry?

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WHO?
PART 2

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Who? part two, is all about you.

As you consider your organizational readiness, begin to think about who may be responsible for different facets of the operations. It all may come down to one person, or may be spread out among a number of departments.

Who is your Social Media czar?

Who is responsible for content creation?

Who is responsible for communication?

Who is responsible for customer support?

Who is responsible for content approval? marketing and message:

legal:

Who is responsible for: review and insight:

representation the face of your brand:

How much time do you have to allocate to social media?

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WHEN?
The question of When?

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addresses the cadence of communications through social media, and asks you to consider your ability to work on different time scales for different purposes. Use this section to fill out some ideas how you might realistically engage with varying frequencies. Remember, as well, that you may need to be involved or respond quickly to emerging situations or opportunities, and that these often defy the calendar! Ongoing - on demand

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Quarterly

Annually

Emergency Mode

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WHERE?

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Where? in the world If you are a company that serves its customers via physical locations, you may use social media as part of the bridge between online engagement and visits to your locations. You may also extend your reach globally, as people may recommend your products or services to friends and contacts around the world, or to visitors to your locality. If your business already serves global markets, social media can accelerate the connections. Local customers: How do you interact with them online?

Do you serve them through a physical location?

Regional customers: How do you interact with them online?

Do you serve them through a physical location?

National customers: How do you interact with them online?

Do you serve them through a physical location?

Global customers: How do you interact with them online?

Do you serve them through a physical location?

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HOW?
The last question, How?

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starts to home in on how this will all come together for your organization. Answering these questions leads to a more in-depth planning process, where you take the answers from the other sections, and begin to develop a roadmap to success. What planning have you done and will do next?

Do you know how to register as a business in various social media platforms?

How will social media presence integrate into your business operations?

How will social media presence integrate into your marketing and sales operations?

What workflow will be required to maintain and manage a presence in social media?

How will you prepare for crisis or opportunity arising from your social media presence?

How will you monitor and measure activity in social media?

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Whats Next
Now that you have answered the questions to get you started on the road to successful social media marketing, you will be better prepared for the next stage of detailed planning. For further information or assistance in the planning process, please contact us:

MASTERS OF NEW MARKETING ALEJANDRINO PARTNERS 42

2303 Camino Ramon, Suite 280 San Ramon, CA 94583 (925) 901-1100 info@AP42.com http://www.AP42.com