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How to Plan a Social Media Strategy for a Business

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12 Steps to Social Media Strategy Development

1. Assessment. Listen to and assess your market. Understand what your customers need and want. What issues are on their mind and how can you solve their problems. Consider you brand’s position

2. SWOT. Understand you assessment by using SWOT analysis. Examine the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

3. Assemble Team. Put together a strong team covering all the bases. From your own business requirements, the customer’s needs and any partner concerns.

4. Define Your Goals. A Clear goal and strategy is needed for success in social media marketing. But you also need to define success and make it quantifiable. How are you going to measure it?

5. Define the Benefits. You shouldn’t go into social media haphazardly, just because everyone else is doing. What real and tangible benefit will your business and your customers gain from your social media strategy?

6. Programs Needed. Decide on the types of programs your strategy will need, and what actions have to be taken to achieve your goals.

7. Resources and Budgets. Work within your limitations. Think about the ongoing costs, when working out the resources and budget to allocate. Make full use of reporting tools to monitor your progress.

8. Program Development. Don’t work in isolation when developing the program. Keep your partners and customers in the loop, throughout the whole process. This is about social engagement, so start communicating and consulting from the get go. Your customers will spot potential problems you may miss, and save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

9. Team and Partner Training. During the programs development, make sure your team and anyone else involved are trained to understand how your strategy will work in practice.

10. Set Social Media Guidelines. This isn’t the same as a policy. These guidelines should help set the general rules and regulations that should be followed in your social media campaign. Make sure to create these guidelines with the help of the whole team. Don’t just make it for them.

11. Get Started. Now that all the planning and preliminary stages are finished, you need to take action. Fully integrate your strategy into the way your business operates with your customers and partners.

12. Measure and Tune. Social media development is an ongoing strategy. You should be quantifying, measuring and modelling all social engagements. Never lose sight of the goals you set at the beginning.

Build your social capital, to solidify your position in the market and the eyes of your customers.

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