Read Chapter 3 and Response

Strategic Alignment

Your Primary Business Goal

It’s not about the number of likes or retweets you get. It’s not a popularity contest, it’s about setting measurable goals for your business so that you can achieve change. The trick here is how to align these business goals with specific objectives on social media. You might not know where to start on social media, but you will most definitely know what you want to focus on for your business, and so this is where you should begin. First, define what change you want to see in your business within a specific amount of time. Refer to the recommendations outlined in your research. Rather than thinking about a grand five year plan, think about a one to three month plan. Why? Well, the social media landscape changes quickly and you’ll need to be better at adapting or responding to change. Besides, it’s more feasible to focus on shorter term goals. To make things a bit easier for you, consider the following primary business goals you would like to focus on:

Business Research You need to build intelligence to inform your business decisions so that you can minimize risk and design your ideas around what your market desires. Whether you have an idea for an innovation and you need to collect data and insights to help make decisions or you’ve completed a product cycle beyond development and are ready to introduce new offerings to the market, you need to do research. Marketing You have your product offering and need to bring it to the market. You’re focused on building awareness and educating the market about the value your offering brings. Sales The market is now aware of your offerings and you need to create a pipeline to sell them. Product Support The market has bought into your offerings and need support so that you can nurture your relations with them. Doing so will establish your business as a brand they will always trust and choose. Business Development You’ve completed your product offering cycle and looking for ways to scale and introduce new products to the market. You want to better understand the problems your market is experiencing so you can offer something innovative and new that solves their problems.

Ask Yourself: Which of these primary business goals would l like to focus on in the next 1 to 3 months? What is the most feasible to accomplish?

Your Key Social Media Objectives

Now that you’ve established what your business focus will be, you can define your purpose on social media. Your Key Social Media Objectives* should align and support your short-term organizational goals. By defining and aligning goals and objectives, it will make it much easier for you to make decisions about what tools to use, how to use them and know what to measure. This alignment defines your social media strategy. All businesses implementing successful social media strategies focus on the following objectives based on their primary business goals. These Key Social Media Objectives have been defined by Forrester Research, Inc. in their book, Groundswell*.

Listening Ongoing monitoring of your audience’s conversations with each other, instead of occasional surveys and focus groups. Talking Participating in and stimulating two-way conversations your audiences have with each other, not just outbound communications to your customers. Energizing Making it possible for your enthusiastic audiences to help move each other to actions Supporting Enabling your audiences to support each other Embracing Helping your audiences work with each other to come up with ideas to improve your cause, programs and services

Each of these objectives align with each of the primary business goals and creates a framework for defining your strategy.

Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on these objectives

Research Monitoring Campaign Listening

Marketing Engagement Campaign Talking

Sales Rallying Campaign Energizing

Product Support Nurturing Campaign Supporting

Business Development Sustaining Campaign Embracing

Fig. 3.1 Each of the objectives can also be seen as steps or supporting objectives leading up to a Key Objective depending on the goal.

Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on these objectives

Sales > Rallying Campaign > Step 1: Listening (supporting) Conduct listening and monitoring to gather insights to know how best to engage with audience. Step 2: Talking (supporting) Create content that will create conversations among audiences and the brand to build relations and trust. Step 3: Energizing (key objective) Create a campaign that will get audiences excited about the brand and it’s offerings so that they will evangelize across their own networks.

Fig. 3.2 *Li, Charlene, and Josh Bernoff. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Harvard Business Press, 2011. __

Strategy Activities

ACTIVITY: Define Your Primary Business Goal Your social media strategy needs to have a focus, start with your primary business goal first within a measurable amount of time. Use the following worksheet to think through what you believe needs to be the primary focus for your business that social media can help you achieve. REVIEW Take a moment to review the primary business goals. Think about where you are currently and where you would like to move your business. Circle the goal you want to focus on supporting for the next 1 to 3 months. REFINE Now take a moment to refine this goal. What specifically would you like to see change (quantitatively and qualitatively) if this goal is achieved? ​Example: Support - I would like to see an increase in product support by 50% and an increase in positive sentiment on customer support. MEASURE Indicate how long you want to focus on this primary goal through social media. Consider what is most feasible based on your refined business goal within 1 to 3 months. ​Example: I’d like to see these increases within 2 months time during the third quarter of the year.

BENEFIT Now define how your business will benefit from achieving this goal. How might this help you move to the next step or change your business? ​Example: By increasing our support and improving the quality of this support, consumers will want to establish a long-term relationship with our brand and will be more willing to participate in developing new offerings in the future.

BUSINESS GOAL REFINED GOAL TIME BENEFIT

Research

Marketing

Sales

Support Example: I would like to see an increase in product support by 50% and an increase in positive sentiment on customer support.

Example: I’d like to see these increases within 2 months time during the third quarter of the year.

Example: By increasing our support and improving the quality of this support, consumers will want to establish a long-term relationship with our brand and will be more willing to participate in developing new offerings in the future.

Development

Fig. 3.3 __ ACTIVITY: Establish your Objectives and Key Results Now that you’ve established the brand’s primary business goal, let’s align these to your social media objectives and key steps for your overall strategy. For each of these steps, we’ll also define the key results so that we have indications of success that we can measure before moving forward. Use the following guide to complete your objectives and steps, key results, and how they align with the brand’s goal.

Primary Goal Key Social Media Objective

One of the five goals the organization will achieve Example: Sales

One of the five social media objectives that aligns with the organization goal Example: Energize

Fig. 3.4

Supporting and Key Objectives Key Results

Example: Step 1 Supporting Objective: Listen Step 2 Supporting Objective: Talk Key Objective: Energize

Example: Listening

1. Identify at least 10 social media influencers to target and engage

2. Identify key values and interests of targeted audiences

3. Identify the most impactful social channels to initiate new engagements

Talk 1. Create new content targeting audiences and key

influencers 2. Ongoing conversations with at least 5 influencers

with positive sentiment 3. Audience awareness increased by 50% within one

month Key Objective: Energize

1. Initiate new campaign to promote offering 2. 40% in shared content within two weeks 3. 75% increase in awareness 4. 30% increase in sales

Fig. 3.5

__

ACTIVITY: Align Objectives with Tools and Technology

Now that you have a sense about your basic steps and the intended results, spend some time thinking about what tools and technology will be most helpful for you to accomplish these things. Don’t just rely on what you are currently working with, consider adopting new tools or innovations if necessary. Use the chart below to map your ideas.

Objectives & Key Results Required Tools and Technology

Tactics

Example: Talking

1. Create new content targeting audiences and key influencers

2. Ongoing conversations with at least 5 influencers with positive sentiment

3. Audience awareness increased by 50% within one month

Example: Tools we will use:

1. Photo Editor, Photoshop 2. Writing Platform, Google

Docs 3. Social Media Monitoring,

SproutSocial 4. Blog, Medium 5. Instagram 6. Twitter

Example:

1. Use Photoshop to create compelling visual content with branded messaging to share on Instagram and Twitter

2. Use Google Docs to create campaign content including blog posts on Medium

3. Instagram will host a majority of our photo and visual content based on the themes of our blog posts

4. We will use SproutSocial to monitor audiences and influencers as well as relevant content to share with them.

5. We will also use SproutSocial to manage content posting across all of our channels.

6. Sprout Social will also be used to engage directly, rely, or initiate conversations with audiences.

Fig. 3.6 __

ACTIVITY: Defining Your Social Media Strategy Statement A strategy statement is a concise description of your overall plan. It should be used to help rationalize the logic of your strategy and provide a clear understanding of the purpose and intent of your strategy. It is the thesis of your thinking at this point. The strategy statement includes the following elements:

Goal Identifies the organization’s goals and what they want to see change over time Target Audiences Identifies the intended target audiences that will be engaged in the strategy Objectives Establishes the objectives in the strategy as a series of steps Overall Strategy Describes the overall alignment of the goal and objectives Benefit Describes why accomplishing the objectives will benefit the organization

General Outline:

In order to (business goal), we will be implementing a (social strategy). To get there, we will first (supporting objectives) with (target audience). Then we will (supporting objectives). Then finally (key objective). So that we can (benefit).

Examples:

“In order to support the goal of increasing ticket sales, we will be implementing a rallying strategy. To get there, we will first use listening tactics to gain insights to identify key influencers, talk tactics to build relations and awareness. Then finally, energize supporters to share information about ticket giveaways, so that we can maximize tickets sales across their networks.” “In order to help research and understand the market, we will be implementing a monitoring strategy. We will spend time using Twitter to listen and discover who are key influencers, what is our current brand sentiment with them, and identify conversation topics they are most interested in. By listening,

we will be able to gain insights and information to help make decisions about how we will approach the market and build awareness.”

REVIEW Spend some time reviewing your previous work as well as the social media strategy framework below.

Your primary business goal This is your strategy Then focus on these objectives

Research Monitoring Campaign Listening

Marketing Engagement Campaign Talking

Sales Rallying Campaign Energizing

Product Support Nurturing Campaign Supporting

Business Development Sustaining Campaign Embracing

Fig. 3.7 WRITE Use the table below to begin inputting the elements of your strategy statement

Elements Inputs

Business Goal

Key Objective

Supporting Objectives

Strategy

Target Audience

Benefit

Fig. 3.8

WRITE Now use these elements and the outline below to complete a first draft

In order to (business goal), we will be implementing a (social strategy). To get there, we will first (supporting objectives)(target audience). Then we will (supporting objectives)(target audience). Then finally (key objective) (target audience). So that we can (benefit).

Fig. 3.9 REVIEW AND REFINE Now begin drafting the narrative or your strategy statement. The outline is only a guide, use it to ensure your rationale is clear but also be sure to write it in a way that it is your own and speaks clearly to the intended reader.

Complete your statement below:

Fig. 3.9.1

__ ACTIVITY: Develop your Strategy Map A social media strategy map is an overview or sketch of your plan that provides brief details to help you make your final decisions more quickly. Whenever possible, make it visual. It doesn’t have to be perfect it just has to pull all the key elements of your plan together in one place. The map includes the following elements:

1. Organizational Goal 2. Targeted Audiences 3. Social Media Objectives and Basic Steps 4. Description of the Strategy 5. Tools, Technology, and Channels 6. Metrics or Key Results

Example for an online video contest

Organizational Goal Targeted Audiences Social Media Objectives and Basic Steps

Increase the number of submissions to the annual video contest Build brand awareness with younger audiences

People within current networks online and on the ground

- Previous contestants - Previous winners - Local chapter members - Volunteers

New younger audiences

- Nonprofit volunteer organizations

- Young conversational hockey enthusiasts

- Young video makers with interest in community volunteering

- Influential bloggers on hockey, special sports, and community development

Listen and Monitor - Discover new audiences to

engage - Discover new conversations

to follow - Identify influencers - Identify conversationalists - Identify relevant content

Talk and Engage

- Share comments with relative conversations

- Create blog posts relative to current and new targeted audiences

Energize

- Ask people to encourage others to join

- Promote benefits - Demonstrate impact

Description of the Strategy Tools, Technology, and Channels

Metrics or Key Results

Rally current followers and other influencers to promote and share the video contest

Wordpress Blog - Create relevant content - Lead conversations

Listening - List of effective content,

topics, and conversations - List of number of influencers

- Build influence and trust with current audiences

- Frame message with new audiences on new platforms

- Move people to do actionable things

Facebook - Listen to current audiences - Share messages and call to

actions - Host the video contest and

judging through WooBox app YouTube

- Monitor relative videos and conversations

- Engage people by participating in other people’s relative conversations

Twitter

- Monitor conversations, people and topics by creating lists

- Share relative content - Follow new people - Promote contest and drive

them to Facebook to vote or submit

- Number of shares Engagement

- Content effectiveness - Quantity and quality of

relationships Energizing

- Number of shares by other people

- Number of clicks to the contest pages and blogs

- Number of entries - Number of voters

Fig. 3.9.2

Use the outline below to begin drafting your social media strategy map

Organizational Goal

Targeted Audiences Social Media Objectives and Basic Steps

Description of the Strategy

Tools, Technology, and Channels

Metrics or Key Results

Fig. 3.9.3

__ ACTIVITY: Draft Your Social Media Strategy Mindset Now pull all of your ideas together from your research to your strategic framing to compose an overall strategy for campaigns that will help achieve the organizational goals.

1. Define the Purpose of this Document 2. Define the problem or challenge 3. Strategy Statement 4. Target Audiences

a. Describe who will be targeted and why b. Define the call to action c. Describe what we would like them to do

5. Overall Plan a. Define and describe the concept of the campaign that will be initiated b. Provide a narrative explaining how this will be done c. Define each of the supporting and key objectives and their key results d. Define what tools, technology, and channels will be used to achieve these results

6. Closing Summary