Social Media Strategy Blueprint

THE TEN STEP

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT A Practical Toolkit For Planning, Executing & Measuring An Impactful Social Media & Content Marketing Strategy.

Tent Social Marketing Strategy Series www.tentsocial.com

THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION Whether you are a small business owner trying to make sense of this social media thing, a Millennial who has been tasked with figuring out your company’s social media strategy or are already a seasoned vet with social media – it is very likely you are overwhelmed from managing it to some degree. The biggest problem that leads to endless confusion in social media is that most people and organizations have no clue where to start. That’s why we’ve created a practical guide, packed with tips tools and resources that will save you tons of time and energy, because you’ll start off knowing which way to go instead of wandering aimlessly through the clutter.

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How To Use This Blueprint

This is not your ordinary eBook that you should simply skim through and never look at again. This Blueprint was made specifically to help you plan your social media & online content marketing strategy from start to finish n the end a comprehensive plan that is sure to impress upper management or, if you run your own ship, it will be your own personal roadmap for social media success. Each step is split into three sections: 1) an introduction and rationalization for that step, 2) practical tips for that step and 3) a selection of invaluable resources and tools to help you get the job done. Before you begin, download our FREE Social Media Strategy Blueprint Template that works alongside this eBook. We currently offer it in EXCEL form, but stay tuned for new collaborative versions coming soon, including Google Docs, Powerpoint and more!

About TentSocial – Social Content Marketing Agency We are a digital marketing agency that specializes in the strategic planning, creation and ongoing management of social media and content marketing. We eat, sleep and breathe what we call ‘social content’, which is online content that is created with the intention attracting prospects and sharing across the social web. Swing on by www.tentsocial.com - we’d love to connect!

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THE TEN STEPS

THE TEN STEPS

Step One: The Destination

Step Six:

Step Two: Know Your Audience

Step 7: Media Mix

Step Three: Your Story

Step 8: Platform Mix

Step Four: The Landscape

Step 9: Timing Mix

Step Five: Source of Growth

Step 10: Metrics Mix

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STEP ONE THE DESTINATION

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STEP ONE

STEP ONE: THE DESTINATION The first step in the “The Destination" or your business objectives.

is

For many, this step may seem obvious, but it is far too often overlooked. Most people end up doing social media with no real rhyme or reason, often seeming very busy while not actually accomplishing anything. Every campaign, big or small must have an objective. Even if that objective is relatively loose and doesn’t have many hard metrics against it, you must have one – otherwise you are pretty much just wasting your time playing on Facebook all day.

The business objective will lay down a foundation for your marketing and social media campaigns. It is your compass to help guide you in the right direction. Think of it in terms of driving somewhere – your objective is normally to get to a destination. If you find out you are going the wrong way then you immediately know that you need to change course. If you don’t have a business objective, then you could be driving for days, weeks or months and never even know if you are going ! On the following page you’ll find four quick tips to help you write an effective business objective that will help you lay down a solid foundation to move forward with not only your marketing and social media activity, but your business in general.

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else. – Yogi Berra

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STEP ONE

FOUR TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING 1 Make It Medium To Long Term: 12-18 mths Where do you see yourself in 1-2 years? What will your business or brand look like? Hopefully, it looks different from where you are now or at least you are maintaining a strong position if you expect significant competition to swoop in. IMPORTANT: If you are in it for a quick buck, DO NOT use social media. Social media is not the correct tool if you’d like to drive massive traffic in a very short period of time and then head for the hills with your cash. You need to be committed to your customers in the long term to see the fruits of social media.

2 Make It measurable: Use Numbers When Possible An objective without any associated numbers is very difficult to measure. Create goals that reference measures like dollar sales, unit sales, products launched, new clients/customers, repeat customers, etc. Furthermore, always associate a timeframe to your goal, otherwise you will never know if you actually accomplished it. Try and come up with at least two objectives - one financial and one nonfinancial. Depending on the nature of your financial and non-financial objectives, your marketing and social media strategy could be very different - so think carefully.

3 Be Realistic There is no point in coming up with an outrageous business objective that you will never be able to accomplish or measure. The business objectives should be realistic and allow you to track progress forward. Even little steps towards a business goal can do amazing things for team morale and motivation.

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STEP ONE

FOUR TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING 4 Keep It Short & Simple Think about it – but don’t overthink it. Set a target and go for it. You can always change your objective and you likely will as you progress. The best business objectives are ones that you can remember and repeat to yourself and team to keep everyone on track. If you can’t

KISS

memorize it quickly, it is too complicated.

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STEP ONE

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and record your financial and non-financial objectives.

Questions to ask yourself when thinking about objectives: Financial: What is your monthly/quarterly/annual revenue target 1 year from now? What is your targeted $ share of market in 6-12 months? How many products do you want to sell 1 year from now? How many new clients/customers with what average revenue do you expect 18 months from now? What $ sales % growth (year on year) would you like to reach in 12 months

Non-Financial: When is the drop-dead date for that new product launch? What would you like the internal structure of the company to look like in 1 months? Which new geographic markets would you like to make initial sales in 2 years from now?

Learn

help you out

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STEP TWO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

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STEP TWO

STEP TWO: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE The second step of the 10 Step Social Media Blueprint is all about identifying and truly getting to know your audience . I can’t stress enough the importance of this step. Everything that comes after this will be built on what you know and want to learn about your audience. There are many schools of thought on how to best evaluate and understand your target market. None are without limitations, but I prefer to keep it simple - since we know that if isn't simple, it doesn't get done. Thus, I break it down into another 3 steps: Paint a Quick Picture, Dig into the Facts and Reveal the Insights

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. – Ernest Hemingway

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STEP TWO

HOW TO GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE 1 Paint A Quick Picture One of the easiest ways to understand your market is to STOP talking about them in theoretical terms and start drawing a literal picture - or creating a persona. First, work from your ‘gut’ and picture one of your customers in your mind and then write down one sentence or a few words to describe her (or him). Then, write down her name (or a representative name). Giving the 'persona' a name will help make them real and ensure that your marketing efforts are personal instead of corporate, sterile garbage. Finally, pop into

Google Images or Shutterstock.com and see if you can find an actual photograph to represent this persona. Save the picture, print it up, do whatever it takes to engrain this person in your mind.

2 Dig Into The Facts This is the stage where you get to put your 'gut' away for a bit and focus on cold, hard facts. It is worth spending some time mining this information on the web, especially as you think about a social media strategy, as you will need to learn about how your target audience behaves online. To start, list everything you can about your target audience that you know to be true. This might include demographics (age, sex, geography, family size, average income), life-stage (student, young professional, new parent, retired, etc), career, lifestyle and hobbies. If you're working in B2B, think about industry, size of company (small/medium business vs enterprise), average revenue, role in company (marketing manager, CEO, account executive etc) location, business phase (ie: start-up vs mature). You may have heard comments in-person from you customers, but the beauty of the internet today is that it is very easy and very free to do some of that listening yourself online. Understanding what is already being said about your industry and product/service is crucial to building an effective social media strategy.

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STEP TWO

HOW TO GET TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE 3 Reveal The Insights Finally, to truly connect with your audience you need to do more than simply identify who they are and what they do. You need to identify how they feel and why your product or service might actually be useful for them. This is by far the most difficult step, but is also the difference between great marketing that connects you deeply with your customers and lame marketing that is, well... lame. Consumer/customer insights are about understanding how your 'persona' feels about a particular problem that your product or service could potentially solve. Try to really get in the head of your customer and feel what they might be feeling. Then, in the first person state the issue, need or desire that you (your audience) has that your product or service provides a solution for. As you do this, try not to mention your brand or product. The reason there is so much bad advertising out there is because marketers don't think enough about true emotional insights, rather they focus on the product itself. To develop strong insights, ask yourself the below questions. To help out, I have provided Brand X razors as an example:

Example Product: Brand X Razors 1. What rational need or desire does my product or service fill? (ie: helps ‘PERSONA X’ effectively cut the hair off their faces.) 2. What emotional need or desire does my product or service fill? (ie: helps 'PERSONA X' look and feel good and have confidence as he starts his day) I know this is a heavy step, but it is so critical to the success of your business, not just from a marketing point of view, but from a deep understanding of the value that your product or service provides for your customers. If you can't come up with a strong insight in relation to your audience, then maybe your product or service isn't serving the correct need. So sit down and give it a go... think Mel Gibson in “What

Women Want” and truly try and understand your market. If you don’t get them you can’t talk to them and if you can’t talk to them, you can’t sell to them, and if you can't sell to them -- well, you get the picture.

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STEP TWO

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and record detailed information about your target personas.

Online Tools To Help You Learn About Your Customer: Google Alerts (FREE!) Pick 5-6 very specific words about your brand and industry and set up daily email alerts as these words are mentioned in blogs, news articles and more.

Twitter Keyword Search (FREE!) Find out what people are saying about your brand, right now. Simply type your brand, industry keywords into Twitter Search and you will see the results show up instantly. Google Insights for Search (FREE!) Search forms the foundation of the web and you can learn a lot about what your audienc might be searching for (and in what volume) by plugging your bran name and some competitor keywords into this tool.

Radian6 or Sysomos ($$$) If you would like to really dive in and do some serious research about your brand or category over a longer period of time, deep-listening tools like Radian6 or Sysomos do a great job. These tools will help you identify broader trends over time and also help to compartmentalize and organize the vast amount of data so you can draw out deeper insights.

Learn how

can help you out

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STEP THREE YOUR STORY

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STEP THREE

STEP THREE: YOUR STORY The third step in the , is about defining what makes your brand/offering unique, or what I like to call - 'Your Story.'

Why Develop A Story? The goal of developing a story is to gain a deeper understanding of what makes your brand and product unique. Keeping focused on what makes your brand unique will also align your business with sustainability in the market (aka. ongoing $$$). Ask yourself, why would anyone buy your product or service versus the competition or versus not purchasing anything at all? Every marketer needs to be able to rattle this off in seconds if someone asks. The problem is, most cannot. Whatever the reason(s), whether it be better technology, nicer features, stronger heritage, more convenient location, cheaper, lighter, better personal touch, more reliable, more durable etc., you need to define at least one that you can hang your hat on. If there really is nothing then you need to do something very quickly to change that, whether it be through new product development or differentiated marketing, otherwise you will get left behind, it is only a matter of time. To develop your story, you need to create a full picture of your brand, which involves where you've been, what you do and where you want to go. This begins at the purely rational and moves into emotional and aspirational. Every brand will sit at different places in this spectrum, but in the majority of cases, you will want to continue to deepen the emotional connection people have with your brand, ultimately leading to stronger loyalty and love for your brand. And don't we all want that?

Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell. – Seth Godin

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STEP THREE

HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR STORY 1 What Is The History Of Your Brand? If you have a well-established brand, there is likely a long history of key events that have helped it get to where it is today. Don't walk away from the equity of a strong heritage. If you are an entrepreneur with a new brand, think about your own history and experience. Everyone has their own unique story in life, take advantage of this and weave it into your brand story.

2 What Do You Physically Sell? Not much explanation needed here. What is the actual product or service that you provide? Be sure to highlight the different types of products and services you offer along with any key features.

3 What Benefit Do You Sell? What is the benefit of your product or service? As discussed in Step 2, try and think about this from both a rational and emotional point of view. Emotional benefits often provide much better inspiration for great stories.

4 What Makes Your Brand Unique? From the history, features and benefits identified in the previous steps, which are unique to your brand? You might have better technology than a competitor, you might have a better known and trusted brand than others. Narrow it down and select the features/attributes/benefits that make your brand awesome.

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STEP THREE

HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR STORY 5 What Does Your Brand Aspire To? To create a truly great and beloved brand, you need to stand for and reach for something bigger. This should be aspirational and keep you striving to be better (ie: points you in the right direction, but might always be just out of reach). The simpler and more concise you make this, the better. For example, Google's is "Don't be Evil" along with a mission to organize and provide access to the world's information. Whatever you write down make sure it inspires you, the people on your team and your customers.

6 What’s Your Brand Personality? Finally, define the tone of your brand as though it is a person, instead of a faceless robot. This is crucial for all of your communications, but especially important in social media as you or someone in your company will be interacting with people online on a daily basis. Try and use very descriptive adjectives as though

are describing someone that you know.

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STEP THREE

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and record detailed information about the key elements that make up your brand’s story.

Use Classical Storytelling Tools, Like The ‘Story Arc’: The history of your brand has likely had several full story arcs that you can tell. Focus on several little stories and experiences that will form the foundation for your broader brand story.

Climax Rising Action

Exposition

Learn how

Falling Action

Denouement

can help you out

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STEP FOUR THE LANDSCAPE

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STEP FOUR

STEP FOUR: THE LANDSCAPE A lot can be learned from simply reviewing the activity (or lack thereof) of the competition and others in your industry. By understanding the activities that are already occurring online, in relation to your business and industry, you can effectively leverage ideas that are already working and/or identify gaps in activation that you can take advantage of. Depending on the industry you are in, there are two main groups that you should spend some time reviewing, in-depth. The first is the competition, both big players and small players, and the second are regulatory bodies. Auditing the competition can be a timely task, but I promise you that opportunities will reveal themselves through this process that you’d likely never think of if you skip it. So, take the time and invest in this step, it will save you a lot of time and make sure you are heading in the right direction as you develop your strategy in later steps.

Know your enemy & know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster. – Sun Tzu

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STEP FOUR

HOW TO GET TO KOW YOUR LANDSCAPE 1 Define The Competition List 2-3 competitors and write down a few sentences about them off the top of your head, without doing any research. Answer the following questions: What do they do well? What are they weaker at? What is some recent marketing/product activity that they’ve been doing? This summary should give you a quick snapshot of who your competitors are and their key marketing activity.

2 Search Media Audit Pick 4 or 5 phrases or keywords that your customers might search online in relation to your industry. These should include general keywords as well as more specific ones. For example, Carribean resorts (general) vs dive resorts in the Dominican Republic (very specific). Perform several searches and write down anything that you note of interest. Which com-pany dominates search for different keyword phrases? Which do you domi-nate, if any?

3 Social

Audit

Of the competitors you chose, visit their websites and look for social links. These links often appear in the top right or in the footer as small Facebook, Twitter and Youtube icons. Using our free Excel social media strategy template, record each competitor’s name and copy the links to all of their social media properties. Scroll through the activity

write down a few

notes about anything that is of interest. Look specifically for things like, number of followers, frequency of post, number of comments/ engagement, nature of content being posted, plus any specific promotional campaigns they may be doing.

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STEP FOUR

HOW TO GET TO KNOW YOUR LANDSCAPE 4 Evaluate Regulatory Opportunities & Limitations Many industries are very highly regulated, such as Healthcare and Financial Services, which can dramatically impact the approach required when leveraging social media. In most cases, social media can play a key role in strengthening the bond between yourself and industry bodies, if properly leveraged. In highly regulated industries, it is important to ensure you have a good handle on what you can and cannot do within the social media environment. Don’t let this scare you away from leveraging social media though, it just might require you to add an additional step of review/approval or moderation into your process.

Barriers & Key Issues Once you've taken a comprehensive survey of yourself, the landscape in which you exist and you have a good understanding of your business objective, take an opportunity to write down 3-4 of the biggest things that are going to stand in your way (key issues) as you reach for your objectives. The best way to reach a goal is to have a strong understanding of what you need to overcome to get there. Examples of common barriers include: strong competition, lack of awareness, low trust and credibility, low engage-ment category, etc.

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STEP FOUR

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and map out the key activity of your competition and industry bodies.

Many of the online resources used in Step 2: Know Your Audience, can also be used here to better understand your competition. So, start with them. Google Alerts (FREE!) Pick 5-6 very specific words to your brand and industry and set up daily email alerts as these words are mentioned in blogs, news articles and more. Twitter Keyword Search (FREE!) Find out what people are saying about your brand, right now. Simply type your brand, industry keywords into Twitter Search and you will see the results show up instantly. Google Insights for Search (FREE!) 'Search' forms the foundation of the web and you can learn a lot about what your audience might be searching for, and in what volume, by plugging your bran name and some competitor keywords into this tool. Radian6 or Sysomos ($$$) If you would like to really dive in and do some serious research about your brand or category over a longer period of time, deep-listening tools like Radian6 or Sysomos do a great job. These tools will help you identify broader trends over time and also help to compartmentalize and organize the vast amount of data so you can draw out deeper insights.

Learn how

can help you out

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STEP FIVE SOURCE OF GROWTH

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STEP FIVE

STEP FIVE: SOURCE OF GROWTH Step 5 is the final foundational step of creating a social media strategy and brings us to defining your source of growth. In most cases, the primary objective of a business is to grow in some manner. Depending on the maturity and category in which the business exists, there are a few different ways in which growth can occur. Simplistically, we are going to break down growth into 3 sources from a marketing point of view. They are: the pie bigger, steal some pie and spend more on pie and pie related items So, you may be saying, “Pie? What are you talking about?” Allow me to elaborate with another example If you sell running shoes, there are 3 ways for you to grow your revenue. They are: 1. Convince people who didn’t previously buy running shoes, to buy running shoes (Example: Get people who only bought basketball shoes to try running shoes as well) aka. make the pie bigger

2. Convince people to buy YOUR running shoes instead of your competition’s (Example: Switch Addidas loyalists to Nike)

aka. Steal some pie

3. Convince people who are already buying your running shoes to spend more on shoes and complementary products

(ex: twice a year instead of once a year and/or to also buy a pair of socks and a t-shirt along with the shoes). aka. Spend more on pie and pie related items

Defining your source of growth will allow you to determine where you should focus your communications as you drive towards your business objective.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough – Mark Zuckerberg

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STEP FIVE

HOW TO DEFINE YOUR SOURCE OF GROWTH 1 Make The Pie Bigger If you operate in a relatively new industry or category, your primary challenge does not lie in beating the competition, rather it is more about convincing your audience, in general, that the product or service that you offer is of value. As this new category grows, your business will also grow proportionally with the category as long as you have appropriate awareness and an equivalent product or service to the rest of the industry.

2 Steal Some Pie If you operate in a mature industry, such as restaurants or hotels, your problem does not lie in convincing people that they need to ‘eat’ or need a place to stay, rather it is convincing people to eat at your restaurant or stay at your hotel versus the one across the street. In other words, you need to steal customers from the competition.

3 Spend More On Pie & Other Related Items Finally, this source of growth is likely something that all businesses will strive for, but it is important that it is prioritized accordingly with the other two sources of growth. Focusing on this source of growth essentially means that you want to increase the dollar value of each of your customers. This might be by trading customers up to a more expensive product or service or selling complementary products alongside your regular sales.

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STEP FIVE

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and prioritize the different sources of growth for your business.

Social Content Tip #1 If making the pie bigger is your primary source of growth, then the content that you create should focus less on differentiation and more on education to bring more people into the category. Social Content Tip #2 If stealing some pie is your number one focus, social content that is created must have elements that differentiate you from your competition and demonstrates unique benefits. Social Content Tip #3 If upselling customers is defined as an important source of growth for your business, then content that showcases these complementary products or services must be present in some form in your social content.

Learn

can help you out

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STEP SIX SOCIAL CONTENT MIX

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STEP SIX

STEP SIX: SOCIAL CONTENT MIX Step 6 is all about defining the type of social content that will be created. Many brands and businesses jump onto Facebook or Twitter without thinking about or putting any planning against the type of content that will be distributed within the community. This leads to two things: A lot of content with no purpose & a lot of wasted time and resource. At the heart of your Social Content Mix is ‘Your Story’. This should inspiration for an ongoing narrative of content for your communities. A social content mix is made up of several ‘content groups’ that will form the foundation of the type of content that will be featured in your communities. Each one of these content groups has very specific objectives associated with them, so that with each piece of content that is being pushed out into social media, you are being driven closer to reaching your business goals. Before beginning to think about what content you might post within social media communities, you need to define content in terms of different phases within the customer purchase funnel. Split your content into 4 different buckets, as follows: 1. Social Content that drives 2. Social Content that drives 3. Social Content that drives 4. Social Content that On the following pages we will look in-depth at each of these types of content.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste. – Henry Ford

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STEP SIX

HOW TO DEVELOP A CONTENT MIX 1

Social Content That Drives Awareness & Trust

Every social media community needs content that will draw the audience in. I call this ‘puppy and baby’ content (people always love it and share it). This is social content that will engage the widest audience possible, within your target market. This can be content related to current events, industry news, or other fun, engaging content. Keep in mind, there MUST be a link between this content and your brand/business. If you can’t draw a line between the content you feature and your business, don’t post it as it will not actually benefit you in the long term. Paid social media advertising can also fall into this bucket.

2

Social Content That Drives Engagement & Understanding

This type of content is more inwardly focused than the first type of social content. It is an opportunity for you to educate your audience on your product and services or on aspects related to the

, if it is complex

requires education. With a better understanding what you offer, prospects are more likely to move towards conversion. This is often the stage in which prospects are comparing your product or service with others.

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STEP SIX

HOW TO DEVELOP A CONTENT MIX 3

Social Content That Drives Conversation & Sales

This third type of content is entirely inwardly focused and an opportunity to showcase specific products/services and promotions. This is ultimately where you are trying to drive everyone to. In many cases, people are

SALE

indeed looking for this type of content—just not all the time.

4

Social Content That Outreaches, Engages & Responds

The final type of content to consider is how you will reach out proactively to fans as well as respond to comments and questions within the social media communities. Will customer service be an objective within your communities? Do you need to create accounts that exclusively offer customer service? Or can it be served as part of another broader community? Also,

Q: ? A:

what is your plan for responding to posts, comments and questions within your communities? What will be the tone? How often will you respond? Within each of the above types of content, create

different content groups. Each of these content

groups should be unique and capture several sub-types of content within them. These content groups will form the foundation for all social content moving forward.

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STEP SIX

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and record the different categories of content you will create in your communities.

Common Content Types: Awareness & Trust Examples: Curated industry links, seasonal/current event content related to your industry, content that shows the personality/human side of your company.

Common Content Types: Engagement & Understanding Examples: Photos of product, explainer videos, comparison charts versus the competition, spec

features.

Common Content Types: Conversion & Sales Examples: Coupons and promotions, sales consultations, product demos.

Common Content Types: Outreaches engages or responds Examples: Responding to questions, retweeting, @replying, reaching out to prospects, following

Lear how

can help you out

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STEP SEVEN MEDIA MIX

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STEP SEVEN

STEP SEVEN: MEDIA MIX After determining what categories of content you will create, you need to define the nature of this content and in which media it will be used. I call this step the 'media mix.' To begin, it is helpful to think of your content in terms of the 3 (or 6) C's. They are: 1. Create 2. Curate 3. Contribute, Comment & Care Within each of these 'C's' you need to decide which media you will engage in. Will you be creating articles, taking photos or videos, writing eBooks and/or making presentations? Will you curate photos? Will you comment on videos, blogs or social posts? While your strategy will likely change over time, it is helpful to define where you would like to focus as this will help you to be much more efficient with your time and resources. Before , download our Social Media Strategy Template (EXCEL) to help you document the nature of your content marketing.

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life. – Julius Caesar

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STEP SEVEN

HOW TO DEFINE YOUR MEDIA MIX 1 Create This category of content is certainly the most difficult and resource intensive, but also the most rewarding as it normally provides true, targeted value for your fans that can be shared and ultimately point back to you for days, weeks, months and years in the future. What type of content are you going to create? Do NOT go overboard and try and create several different types of content as with each different type of media comes new challenges.

2 Curate The second type of content is that which you curate. This type of content is very important for three reasons: 1. It will save you an incredible amount of time and resources 2. It will open up doors for conversation in your industry 3. It will help improve your own credibility. Curate things that are interesting to you, in relation to your field, and they will likely also be interesting to people in your industry. When you do this, always provide credit, whether it be by retweeting, or providing an active link reference in your Facebook post. When you share content from other people it demonstrates a balanced perspective and that you do more than simply self-promote all of the time. You of course should not curate exclusively as this type of content works much more effectively for engagement and credibility building than for conversion.

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STEP SEVEN

HOW TO DEFINE YOUR MEDIA MIX 3 Contribute, Comment & Care Finally, to take full advantage of social media, you MUST act like a human being who actually cares. This is often a type of content that companies overlook, because it is not easy to plan and it constantly changes depending on the situation. First let's take a look at contributing and commenting. As an expert in your industry, this is your opportunity to show people that you know your stuff. If people see that you have an interesting perspective, your credibility will improve and often prospects might follow a comment you made on a Facebook post or blog back to your own website. Choose a selection of industry websites, social profiles and blogs that you can check into on a regular basis. Make a habit of providing your perspective on other people's posts - you'll be amazed at the connections you will start making.

Secondly, you absolutely need to 'care' in your social media communities. Social media is a great place to provide customer service and you cannot lose sight of that. Whether it be a question, comment or complaint - always respond to people. Show them that there is a person behind the brand. You will be amazed at how far this can go.

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STEP SEVEN

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and define what type of content you are going Create, Curate and Contribute.

Content Creation Tip: If you don't have the resources in-house for content creation, consider bringing on an agency that specializes in social content creation to help alleviate the load. TentSocial has a talented team of content creators ready to help you out, if needed. Click here to learn more.

Content Curation Tip: There are several great news aggregators and alerts to keep you connected to your industry. The best of which includes Google Alerts, mobile readers such as ZITE and FLIPBOARD or GOOGLE CURRENTS, plus leading blogs within your industry earn what they are and follow them.

Commenting & Caring Tip: As you interact with your fans, remember that they are people. While there are many different best practices for how to speak with people on social media, as long as you interact with them in a similar way you would in person (timely, genuine and polite), then you should be .

Who’s Responsible for Content? Defining a strategy for the types of content you want to create is all good, but make sure that as you move through this process, you assign different resources to the tasks of Creation, Curation and Contributing, Commenting & Caring. This should likely be a group of people to help alleviate the content load. Normally, it is a combination of people from the marketing team, cross-functional partners, senior leadership and agencies.

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STEP EIGHT PLATFORM MIX

THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

STEP EIGHT

STEP EIGHT: PLATFORM MIX From a content point of view, we've covered what content will be used , how it will be created, curated or commented on and now need to define 'where' it will be used. Most people take this step as Step 1 of creating a social media plan. Ever heard anyone say, "Let's get a Facebook page!", without ever considering what the implications are for the business, what type of content will be featured and why it will actually be useful? There are several different options for platforms out there that will appeal to you depending on the business you are in. As a general rule of thumb, regardless of whether you are B2B or B2C, start with a blog (see reasons below). From there, if you are B2C, Facebook is next and if your are B2B - go with LinkedIN. After that, I recommend incorporating Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, TripAdvisor, Google+ and Yelp as additions, depending on your resources and industry. On the following pages, see a quick rundown on the top social media platforms and why they might be valuable for you. Before taking a look, download our FREE Social Media Strategy Template (EXCEL) so that you can record the platforms you would like to focus on and most importantly, 'WHY' you are investing there.

LinkedIn is for the people you know. Facebook is for the people you used to know. Twitter is for people you want to know – Source Unknown

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THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

STEP EIGHT

AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS Blog Many don't think immediately of a blog when they are thinking of social platforms, but this should actually be where you start as this is the ONLY major social media asset that you can actually own. A blog on your website will serve as the foundation for all content that you create and ultimately will be the asset that drives long term success for your business from an organic traffic point of view. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are really just rented space on someone else's land. This doesn't mean they are not incredibly important, it just means you always need a place where you are investing in the long term as well. The blog on your website is just that. Each dollar that you put against quality content on your blog will see return for weeks, months and years to come. I'm not going to do a robust review of blogging/content management platforms in this post, but some of the top ones include, Wordpress, Blogger and Joomla or for full marketing management platforms that include blogging modules, look to options like HubSpot, Marketo or Eloqua.

Facebook .You can't argue with the dominance of this platform from a pure reach and penetration point of view. If you want to reach the widest segment of the population, Facebook is going to be your 'go-to', especially when it relates to B2C. Key Benefits:

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STEP EIGHT

AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS LinkedIn LinkedIN has had significant momentum over recent months and has been crowned the champion for lead generation amongst B2B businesses over any other social network. Approach this platform very differently from Facebook. It is all about 1 to 1 relationships and leveraging the power of personal networks in collaboration with a business page. Key Benefits:

Twitter I recommend every company who is willing to invest in social, to invest in Twitter. Think of it as your own private news channel. If you have something to say and you want to say it quickly, Twitter is by far the best choice. What is perhaps of biggest risk, is NOT having a Twitter account. There are so many conversations happening in the 'twittersphere' these days on pretty much every topic and if a crisis hits and you don't have a platform to speak from and rectify the situation, the crisis will only get worse. Key Benefits:

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STEP EIGHT

AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS YouTube YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world and if you create content to connect with your prospects, fans and customers on this platform - you will almost certainly gain increased visibility within the industry that you operate. The web is becoming increasingly visual and media like video and photos will only become more important in the future. Don't worry if you can't go for high-production value, most people are more interested in quality information. Key Benefits:

Pinterest One of the newest kids on the block is Pinterest. As mentioned above, the web is becoming increasingly visual and the explosive growth of Pinterest is a great example of that. Pinterest will be of most value to those that have several products or services that can be shown using photos. These are not the only ones that can have success using Pinterest though. This platform allows you to express yourself and your business using pictures instead of words, which is often easier for people to do than to try and eloquently write it. Key Benefits:

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STEP EIGHT

AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS Google+ There is much debate about the value of Google+ as engagement remains relatively low, even though user base is huge. I'm a firm believer in Google+, but you can't think of it in the exact same way as Facebook and LinkedIN. Think of it as a backbone to the Google services. Google is the biggest search engine in the world and

services are used by millions

of people everyday, including Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Drive and Android on mobile. Ignoring Google+ is like ignoring all of these platforms. If you are getting into social media, create a Google+ account for your business, because at the very least it is going to act as a social listing for Google amongst all of the other services. Depending on your industry, you may find that you really, really love Google+ as it certainly has some interesting perks - including Google+ hangouts and Google Drive/Docs as an internal social network. Key Benefits:

Instagram Instagram was purchased by Facebook and is now playing the role of Facebook's 'Pinterest Fighte . As noted earlier, the visual web is crucial and when combined with mobile, it is almost certainly going to be a dominant force. Think of Instagram like Twitter using a filtered photo instead of 140 characters. Instagram will be an important player in the future, since it is backed by Facebook, but if you are looking for a network to stay out of the game with for a little bit, I'd recommend to hold on this one. Key Benefits:

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STEP EIGHT

AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS Trip Advisor If you are in the hospitality industry, you are likely already very familiar with this platform. What you may not be familiar with is the robustness of the tool and the incredible importance it plays with your business. Do NOT ignore this platform. Take control of your profile and respond to each and every one of the comments on it. Make sure there are great photos posted and if there are poor reviews, jump in and use it as an opportunity for service recovery, if needed. Key Benefits:

Other Networks Other networks for local businesses to consider include Yelp, Foursquare while B2B companies may be more interested in platforms like SlideShare.

No matter which platforms you select, remember they are merely tools. Just because a carpenter has a great hammer doesn't mean he is going to build great houses OR have a great business. Great, compelling, purposedriven content is at the heart of business success in social media.

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THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

STEP EIGHT

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and map out the different platforms you will use to carry out your social media and content strategy.

Social Profile Design Reference Guide. Once you have selected your platforms, you will need to make them look good. Every platform is different, with various design requirements. Click here to download a quick design reference guide for all the major social media platforms. Learn more about TentSocial Design Solutions

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STEP NINE TIMING MIX

THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

STEP NINE

STEP NINE: TIMING MIX One of the final steps in defining your social media strategy is to establish a schedule and frequency for posting. I call this the 'Timing Mix', which is a direct continuation from step 7, the . Depending on the resources of your team, the frequency of posts should vary significantly. My best advice for you is to be conservative in how much you will post and then work up from there. That being said, consistency is very important on social media so make sure you never go more than a few days without posting something. The first step in creating a timing mix is to define not when exactly you will post (that will come later), rather how often are you going to , in general. The following pages will help you to determine how many times a day, week and month you will engage in your communities. Be sure to to help you plan your timing mix.

Timing is everything. – Molly Sims

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STEP NINE

HOW TO DETERMINE SOCIAL TIMING 1 How Often Will You Create? Take a look back at

when you defined the type of content you

would be creating. What are the resources required to create your conpiece of content requires a very different degree of resources and as such needs to be planned realistically. Most companies should begin with blogging as a foundation for content. In general, in order for a blog to be effective, at least one article should be created a week with the ideal range being closer to 2-4 per week, depending on the industry and nature of content. Of course, 2-4 blog posts are NOT realistic if you are a one-person team and you will be adding it on in addition to your current workload.

2 How Often Will You Curate? Content curation is a task that needs to become a reflex for you and/or members of your team. You should get in the habit of regularly reading articles in your industry and sharing them freely on your social networks. Twitter is an especially good network for this. Make a habit of searching for hashtags or keywords related to your industry a few times a week (at least) and retweeting and commenting on posts in that stream. If you find a good article or piece of content on one network, save the link and write social posts to share it across all of your other networks as well. To be successful in content curating, you must be consistent and have a genuine desire to learn more about your own industry. Through this consistent search for the latest and greatest, you will develop a style for the type of content that you will pass on to your fans. Stay true to this style, be consistent and your fans will love you for it.

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STEP NINE

HOW TO DETERMINE SOCIAL TIMING 2 How Often Will You Comment & Contribute? It is a little bit more difficult to schedule 'caring' for your customers as it requires more of a responsive approach. ALL questions should be responded to on your social media platforms. Do your best to respond as soon as you can, but don't sweat it if it takes you a few days. People genuinely appreciate a response from an organization on social media, even if it takes a few days—just don't wait much longer than that. As far as commenting and contributing, this can take a similar approach to content curation in that it is something you need to get in the habit of doing on a regular basis. While you are looking for new content on blogs and other social platforms, don't just take the link and create content with it - contribute to that community by leaving a comment or add value to a retweet by placing a 2-3 word commentary before it. This will help to bring a unique character to you and your brand, improving your credibility in the long run.

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STEP NINE

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and plan the frequency that you will create, curate and contribute.

Timing Tip: If you’ve already tried managing social media, you know that it can quickly eat up hours of your day without you even knowing what happened. To avoid this, segment your social media activity into defined time periods during the day.

Take Advantage of Social Media Management Tools: Luckily, there are some fantastic tools out there that will make your management of several different profiles, much easier at a relatively low cost. While there are several software platforms out there (including Sprout Social and Seesmic),

favourite is Hootsuite, which allows you to customize

several different social media streams, monitor for comments, assign them to relevant team members and, the most popular feature, schedule your posts so you can have a consistent social media presence without actually being on Facebook all day.

Click here for a FREE trial of Hootsuite PRO.

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STEP TEN METRICS MIX

THE TEN STEP SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BLUEPRINT |

STEP TEN

STEP TEN: METRICS MIX The final step in the social media strategy blueprint is the 'Metrics Mix'. This is where we get to explore what some call the mysterious world of social media ROI. As mentioned, in (Social Content Mix), the success of your social media and content marketing needs to be measured against appropriate goals. These goals should NOT always be primarily about driving sales. Sales is, of course, the ultimate goal, but you need to measure the success of your social media efforts more holistically than that. I recommend breaking up your measurement in a similar manner that you broke down your content in Star with measuring hard metrics such as 1) Reach and Awareness, 2) Engagement & , 3) Conversion & Sales I call these hard metrics, because almost all social platforms allow detailed analysis of these.

There are also some softer metrics that are much more difficult to measure, but are also very much worth considering. These are general sentiment of conversation (positive, neutral, negative), excellence in online customer service and customer insights. The area of research and customer insights is often ignored by marketers when they create social media communities which I believe to be a massive missed opportunity, as the are in some cases a very large test community where they can ask many of the same questions to their audience that they might ask a focus group (and spend a fraction of the $$$). Depending on your objectives, the level of importance you place on different metrics will vary so it is important to customize this step for what works for you organization.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. – Albert Einstein

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STEP TEN

HOW TO MEASURE SOCIAL 1 Measure, Reach & Awareness A general rule for measuring reach & awareness, is that you likely want it to grow and develop an audience, your goal should be to do just that not blast 1 message to 30 million people, once or twice. Remem-ber, you have content that is created with the intent of driving wider reach and awareness, so make sure you line up your content with the correct metric.

2 Measure, Engagement & Consideration Measuring engagement and consideration can be a little bit more difficult than measuring reach as it requires the evaluation of several different components. These might include comments, likes, clicks on content that is related to your product or services. Traffic from social media to a conversion landing page is a key metric for consideration.

3 Measure, Conversion & Sales Finally, the ultimate goal of all this is to drive conversion and/or sales. I encourage you to take the time to measure the above metrics, but remember to make sure it is all laddering back to this. At the end of the day, if nothing is actually happening from a conversion and sales point of view—you are probably wasting your time and need to re-look your approach.

SALE

The biggest issue with conversion and sales is actually effectively measuring it. Now, this is not an issue with the social platforms themselves rather it is an issue that has faced every form of advertising since the beginning of marketing. The reality is that it is actually much easier to get to this though online media than traditional.

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STEP TEN

HOW TO MEASURE SOCIAL BUT, you must take the time and make an investment in infrastructure so that you can accurately measure conversion and sales as a result of your online marketing efforts. If you do, justifying social media will be easy. If it doesn't work, change your strategy or walk away from it. But, you cannot blame a lack of perceived success from using social media on social media itself as a platform, since you likely just don’t know went wrong if you don’t have the proper infrastructure to measure the activity.

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STEP TEN

TOOLS & RESOURCES Download the Social Media Blueprint Excel Template and plan the frequency that you will create, curate and contribute.

Use Powerful Online Tools to Measure Conversion & Sales Measuring conversion and sales is certainly the most difficult and will vary from company to company, but is also the most important. Luckily, there are some great software companies around who have made this process much easier. At TentSocial our software preference is HubSpot, an all-in-one marketing software that allows you to do everything from create blogs, emails and landing pages to tracking the activity and source of traffic as it relates to visits, conversions and sales. Click here for a FREE

demo of HubSpo to test-drive it for yourself.

Reach & Awareness Metrics Facebook Key Metrics: Impressions (post-level & page-level), fans & shares Twitter Key Metrics: Followers, retweets

Insights Engagement and Consideration Facebook Key Metrics: People Talking About, Engaged Users, Likes, Shares Twitter Key Metrics: Retweets mentions (combined with influencers)

Conversion Metrics Form Submissions, Coupon Download, Resource download, Webinar registration, Trial/Demo Registration, Sales For benchmarking versus others in your industry, check out http://www.socialbakers.com/

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WHAT’S NEXT? The Blueprint in Closing... This brings us to the end of the Social Media Strategy Blueprint. If you have made it this far, then you can consider yourself far ahead of your peers as it relates to a deep understanding of how to effectively leverage social media. The strategy is only the beginning though. Once a solid strategy has been laid down you need to plan what the execution will look like on a day to day basis. At TentSocial, we have a document for this as well – called the Social Media Playbook. It goes into detail about how to create content calendars, social media internal and external guidelines, approval flow, escalation guide, brand style & tone of voice and much more! Click here to request first access to the Social Media Playbook as it is released. Until next time, Stay Social!

Jeff Berezny Founder & Director of Content Strategy TENT SOCIAL @tentsocial

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