How To Create A Successful Social Media

Strategy

Nadine Morper / 1301999

Social Media In MarketingNovember 2013

Abstract

10. November 2013

Bachelor of Arts

Author or authorsNadine Morper / 1301999

Group or year of entry2013

Title of reportHow To Create A Successful Social Media Strategy

Number of pages and appendices

Teacher/s or supervisor/sJohanna Heinonen

The aim of this report is to provide all necessary information to create a successful social media strategy.

For that reason the report includes a short introduction about social media, the theory about social media strategies, a tactical approach about how to creat a social media strategy and a per-sonal slant.

KeywordsSocial Media, Business Strategy

Table of contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Social Media in general 2

2.1 Definition and rules..............................................................2

2.2 Users.....................................................................................2

2.3 Platforms..............................................................................3

3 Social Media Strategy 11

3.1 Research.............................................................................12

3.1.1 Company background...............................................20

3.1.2 Analyse of past social media activities......................20

3.1.3 Setting marketing goals............................................20

3.2 Tactics................................................................................16

3.2.1 Target Audience........................................................20

3.2.2 Message....................................................................20

3.2.3 Strategic Partnerships..............................................20

3.3 In Practice..........................................................................17

3.3.1 Building a social media marketing plan....................20

3.3.2 Temporary schedule.................................................20

3.4 Evaluation and Post-Processesing......................................17

3.4.1 Evaluate....................................................................20

3.4.2 Feedback..................................................................20

3.4.3 Adjusting social media plan......................................20

4 Personal Opinion 11

Bibliography 25

Attachments 28

1 Introduction

Nowadays it is hard to imagine a world without the Internet any

more and due to this, social media is also becoming a popular tool

in everydays life. Every big company is using social media mar-

keting frequently and even smaller businesses start using social

media platforms regularly. Sure, all of them are aware of the

many advantages of social media but only few of them know how

to handle social media strategically.

Actually, social media marketing is very similar to traditional mar-

keting. You also define a goal, set up a strategy and apply it in

real life. This report will provide some helpful steps how to set up

a strategy and how to evaluate the achieved results.

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2 Social Media In General

It might be a good idea to get general information about social

media first before getting involved in it with your own business.

Also there are certain rules for the use of social media which are

important to know.

2.1 Definition and rules

Social Media is an internet appearance of the Web 2.0 which

bases on communication, intercourse and dynamic. It appears in

many different ways which will be focused in the point channels

but appart from this it is an important chance for companies to

communicate with their costumers.

In social media, guidelines exist to define the way of communica-

tion and intercourse between the parties. These guidelines are

about self-responsibility, transparency, honesty, authenticity,

integrety and the question of separation of private and worklife.

In a company’s social media strategy a company sets its rules how

to influence their employees how to behave according to these

guidelines.

2.2 Users

There are very many different statistics concerning the users of

social media. Two very interesting facts could be found on pewin-

ternet.org (November 2013)

Internet users under the age of 50 are more likely to get in-

volved into social media

Women are more often active on social media

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People living in urban areas network in social media more

often than people living in rural areas

2.3 Platforms

The dynamic and speed of change of the Internet makes it very

difficult to name the most important platforms. When you try to

find information about it you will find two different means of

measuring. Either it is the number of members or the number of

active members a month. Also there are different popularities

amongst the different continents. Therefore it is very difficult to

recommend platforms to get involved into to companies without

analysing the company itself extensively first. Nevertheless, Face-

book, Google +, Twitter and Youtube are undoubtetely very popu-

lar all over the world, easy to use and offer a variety of good tools

for social media marketing.

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3 Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy will guide a company through internet

networks. It is very helpful to use a social media plan to define

the strategy to make you ask yourself the right questions.

There are a hugh number of plans how to create a social media

strategy but however, there is no formula that suits every com-

pany because social media is too dynamic and diverse for a gen-

eral plan. Nevertheless, this report gives some guidelines which

are necessary to create a social media marketing plan.

3.1 Research

3.1.1 Company Background

When analysing your company background there are many ques-

tions which need to be answered critically. An easy tool to do this

analysis is a SWOT-analyse or a BCG-Portfolio which is easy to

handle and complex enough to give you helpful results.

Where are we based?

What is our mission and our vision?

What is our corporate identity?

Who are our clients?

What makes us better on our competitors?

What makes us unique?

3.1.2 Analyse of past social media activities

For this, list all social activities that have been done so far and

answer the following questions:

Where have we been active?

How have we been active?

How active have we been?

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Did we get any feedback? Which?

3.1.3 Setting Marketing Goals

When setting your goals, make sure they are ambitious but reach-

able. You can set qualitative goals as well as quantitative ones

and sometimes, the are even corelated.

To make goals measurable it is important for them to contain the

following perspectives: content, extent, time and segment. Finally

you need to define the targets and goals of your social media mar-

keting campaign and how to integrate them into your traditional

marketing strategy.

When setting your goals also do not forget about your current

budget and ressources.

3.2 Tactics

3.2.1 Target Audience

When researching about your current situation you already found

out about current customers. For the social media plan you need

to define the people you want to reach with your social media

activity. Is it the same people as you already reach with your tra-

ditional marketing activities or do you want to enter a new client

segment with your multimedia-campaign? Do not forget to think

the average user of social media and if your target group is big

enough to get you enough feedback and intercourse.

3.2.2 Message

The message is representing a comapany in two ways: The you

are and how you want to be seen.

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It is very difficult to create an unambigous message. Therefore

you should always double check the understanding with different

people before stating it in public. Unfortuntately many companies

still fail in creating a message that represents both the companies

image and products. At the end focus on your target audience and

ask yourself if the message suitable for the choosen clients.

Once your message is defined you can dive deeper into choosing a

channel that suits you best.

3.2.3 Responsibilities

First of all you need to understand that once something is pub-

lished in the Internet it will remain there and cannot be deleated.

For this reason it is a good idea to have an experienced person

behind your social media presence. He or she should have a good

and reliable knowledge about the company and its products and

they should be aware of the corporate identity, too. Another fact

to consider is that people and especially your clients prefer talk-

ing to one person instead of many and that is why it is better to

have one representative instead of many.

3.2.4 Strategic Partnership

Social media can be a very useful tool if you can reach enough

people. An easy way to spread your reach is a strategic partner-

ship with other companies. Basically, it is a agreement to share,

like and retweet one another. With this tactic you can not only

reach the people who follow you but also the ones who liked your

partner company as well.

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3.3 In Practice

3.3.1 Building a social media marketing plan

When you are done with your research and all the points men-

tioned above you are able to set up a social media strategy. You

will see wether you strategy works as desired after launching

your campaign.

3.3.2 Temporary Schedule

You should set up a temporary schedule to find out whether your

campaign works as desired. That basically means you start your

strategy according to your social media marketing plan and

gather all neccessary information for an evaluation within a

certain period of time.

3.4 Evaluation And Post processing

3.4.1 Evaluation

After the deadline of your temporary schedule you can evaluate

the countable data you have gathered. Make statistics of the

collected data (e.g. how many people have visited your page) and

analyse the results according to your expectations. Also take a

careful look at your budget whether your expenditures are still

within the defined scope or over already.

3.4.2 Feedback

Feedback defines the uncountable data you could gather. This

mostly contains of the comments of visitors. Compare it to the

countable data whether they are similar or they diverge. Try to

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be as concrete as possible as this makes it easier to adjust your

social media plan in the last step.

3.4.3 Adjusting Your Social Media Plan

After a critical evaluation of your first social media draft you are

able to make adjustments on your current plan. After that you can

either relaunch your campaign or continue it the way it was.

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Bibliography

Heinonen, J. 2010. Social Media in Marketing. PowerPoint on

Haaga Helia University of applied sciences Moodle page. Seen on

03.11.2013 on hh.moodle.fi

Lardi, Kamales: Social Media Strategy: A Step-By-Step Guide To

Building Your Social Business

Schütt, Peter: Der Weg zum Social Business: Mit Social Media

Methoden erfolgreicher werden

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2203265/your-social-media-

marketing-plan-in-5-easy-steps

www.social-passion.de (accessed on 03.November 2013)

www.socialmediatoday.com (accessed on 03.November 2013)

www.sayingitsocial.com (accessed on 03.November 2013)

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