Developing Your Social Media Plan

On Tuesday May 18, 2010 Aimee Burnett, Laura Modjeski, Ellie Saxton led the Twitter discussion in Kelli Matthews’ J412/J512 class.  The discussion began with an explanation of how to start developing a social media plan.  We first discussed Chapter 4 of Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s book Groundswell.  When developing a Social Media Plan, first start with your audience. Determine what they like and want while interacting online.  Groundswell talks about the P.O.S.T method, which stands for people, objectives, strategies, technology.  Ellie Sax brought up a good point, sometimes its helpful to create a “persona” of your target audience, to get a good idea of a day in their life.

The discussion continued with what you should do once you’ve defined your target audience. Aimee noted that most audiences are spectators, and asked what it means for a company if your audience is coming to mostly read, watch and listen. Jeremy responded, saying that we should be spectators ourselves for at least 30 minute per day, to better understand how our audience is interacting online. Classmates then shared multiple links to Mashable articles with easy tips to create successful social media plans. Laura linked the “5 Steps to Creating a Social Media Plan” and discussed how the plans would change depending on the age of your target audience, and were surprised to find out that the average age of social media users is 37.

Next, we discussed how every company should begin their plan with a listening strategy before talking, embracing, or energizing strategies. Listening should last 6-8 week which means a lot of research needs to be done. When you move past listening into embracing, there is a loss of control, which many companies fear. While you’re listening, an important part of the planning process is finding your voice online.

We ended the discussion with the idea that it is important to leave room to grow in your social media plan. This means leaving room for changes and recommendations in the future, as well as being prepared to adapt your plan depending on the changing needs of your target market.