*full-screen version on slideshare.net: The 8-Step Social Media Strategic Plan

Adding social media to your online marketing program is a process. This is my attempt at capturing the major steps and goals in a single slide. Stay social, stay focused, enjoy success.

1. Goal Setting

Essential to any program’s success is defining the user response you are trying to achieve. What do you want the web visitor to do?

2. Team Roles and Responsibilities

Social Media is a team sport. Everyone on the team needs to know their action items and take responsibility for the success or failure of their execution.

3. Personas

Knowing a little bit about your various visitors (their role, their goals, what kind of engagement you want with them) goes a long way towards designing the best program to attract and activate them.

4. Content Planning

Editorial calendars, publishing schedules, and even social network promotions, need to be mapped out ahead of time.

5. Publishing

What’s the process for getting a new article published. Is there a review cycle? Who pushes the "publish" button? Who makes revisions once the post is published? Who responds to the comments and questions?

6. Analytics & Demographics

If you are not measuring your programs you are shooting in the dark. Google Analytics is free, set it up and learn what to watch for. Learn how to determine an "actionable metric" rather than just building reports. The demographics can feed into your personas for revision.

7. Mapping Activity to Goals

All "activity" is good. (facebook likes, retweets, comments, questions) but unless the activity leads towards one of the goals it’s just activity. Make sure the actions you are taking are focused on the goals. And measure what’s working and change what is not working.

8. Revise and Repeat

The great thing about social media is the flexibility to try new things. If something is not performing, change it. Don’t wait through the weekend to see if the metric changes, change it now. A/B test a few ideas. Go with what works, kill what doesn’t. You can see how if you are not measuring the results these changes might be difficult.

The more laser focused you are on your goals for social media, the more success you can have. If you optimize what works and kill what doesn’t you improve your opportunity for the win. And that’s the goal. Social can bring them to the table, but in the end it’s the WIN that matters, the close, the deal, that demonstrates the success of any program.

Know what’s working and do more of that.

The infographic on Slideshare.net: 8 Steps to Social Media Success [infographic]

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)

permalink:  https://uber.la/2014/01/8-steps-social-media/

Other posts to help you kick ass in social media:

• Nobody Reads Your Blog: Sorry! Get Over It and Get On With It
• Twitter 101: Hashtag Discovery & Business: How-To Do Social Media Marketing Research
• How Social Media Can Change Your Business – Social Media Strategist Notebook
• The 7 Connective Practices of a Tribe – How To Build and Support Shared Plans
• Social Media Workflow: What’s Your Daily Cadence for Sharing on Social Networks [infographic]
• Let’s Talk About Your Evil Plan(tm) – Yeah, But What Else Are You Doing?
• The Quick Course in Online Marketing: Big Picture (Social Media, Search Engine, eMail, Content Marketing)