Part 1 discussed how you can use social media and identified some points to consider that will help to develop a social media strategy.  From this information it will make it a lot easier to develop your social media strategy and the following points briefly detail the main steps to follow:

  • Make sure it is linked to your mission, values and objectives contained in your strategic plan.
  • Establish clearly what outcomes you want from your social media strategy.
  • Identify and understand the different segments of your target market.
  • For each market segment establish the best way to communicate with them.  Remember that not all communication should be electronic or via social media if that does not suit a particular part of your market.
  • For each social media method you plan to use, identify the type of information that will be sent via that method.  For example, blogs on your website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and Linked In,  just to name a few, are all different and can be used to target different market segments with different types of information.
  • Be clear who will be responsible for managing, monitoring and providing responses relating your social media strategy.

These are the main steps to follow to develop you social media strategy and an important issue to also include is a way to monitor the success and effectiveness of the social media strategy.  As such, make sure to create a set of key performance measures so that you can accurately monitor the effectiveness of your social media strategy.  These should form a report that is reviewed at each committee of management meeting so changes and improvements can be made as needed.