Andrew Grinaker | Digital, SEO and Social Media Strategist Blog | Seattle, WA

5 Questions When Starting a Social Media Strategy
by Andrew Grinaker

While most companies have begun starting and managing a social media strategy, some companies, including small to large, are still mulling over options to start one. Here is a series of questions to address and answer before moving forward with a social media strategy.

1)    What is the desired outcome? Before you even beginning discussing how you are going to attract visitors for Facebook or Twitter, you must decide as a company or organization what is the desired outcome of starting a social media strategy. Sufficient answers would be centered around improving customer service, lead generation, expanding market reach and the like. If you are starting a social media strategy to gain more followers or to “do it because everyone else is,” stop what you are doing and go back to more traditional marketing.

2)    Who is going to manage these social media channels? An effective social media strategy takes time, effort and more time. Each company must assign the appropriate resources for managing these social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, LinkedIn, etc.) and providing relevant content to their audiences. This time should be accounted for and part of an individual’s job responsibilities. Starting and managing a social media strategy is not a “side project” for a marketing team member.

3)    What does your audience look like? Social Media is just like every other marketing strategy. You must understand your audience to understand what types of content they are looking for and through what channels. Basic marketing demographics should be already available through your marketing department, but a more in-depth look into social media channels is needed to best utilize your time. If you are in the automotive industry, your research might show that time is better spent on Facebook than Twitter, or vice versa.

4)    How transparent is your strategy? After developing who is going to manage these channels, a coherent and concise strategy can be documented. Focus on how transparent you expect the company and the represented individual to be. Are they going to Tweet about job openings? Are they going to post product reviews on Facebook? Are you going to respond to ALL comments/recommendations no matter the content? Decisions need to be made about what types of content can be published and what can’t be viewed by the public.

5)    Where is the content going to come from? Writing and sharing relevant content will help the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Identify what types of content you have and where you can leverage that content. If the person that is managing the channels is responsible for writing content as well, for example blogs and such, then that time must be accounted for in their daily job.