POST UP!

It’s a rare business strategist who doesn’t acknowledge the need for a company presence in Social Media, and corporate or small business Twitter accounts and Facebook pages abound, but these exploding numbers of organizations who are dipping their toes into the Social Media pool dwarf by comparison the numbers of those who actually have a Social Media Strategy. One study of non-profits showed that only 25% of respondents had a documented content strategy. It’s no great reach to predict that, without a strategy, most efforts are likely to be misdirected, ineffective, or at the very least less valuable than they would be if there were a plan in mind.

If you’re searching for a game plan or a set of guidelines for your Social Media efforts, you will soon find that there are dozens! Your new challenge becomes choosing “what’s right for me?” If you favor simplicity over complexity, you could do a lot worse than to consider the POST method, developed by the smart folks at Forrester Research, and popularized in the book Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

POST is an acronym, which makes it pretty handy when you need to remember what the important elements of your plan really are. The letters stand for People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology – if you keep these four things in mind, you can’t go too far wrong! Let’s look at each of them and what they mean as part of your master plan.

PEOPLE

Who are you trying to engage? Potential customers? Donors? Influential supporters in the community? Networkers? Knowing who you want to reach, what types of messaging they respond to, and where they spend their time online is important if you want to reach the right audience. And, don’t forget that for everyone you want to influence, sooner or later you need to answer the question “What’s in it for me?” I like to refer to this as my “cookie” theory because – just like when we were kids – in the end, we want a cookie.

OBJECTIVES

You’ve probably heard this before: “If you don’t know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter much what direction you are pointed.” Deciding in advance what you hope to achieve with your Social Media plan will get you started off in that right direction and minimize wasted time in pursuit of non-useful strategies. For example, If you are trying to appeal to local shoppers to visit your store, you would choose different platforms and messaging than if you were mounting a global effort to get more visitors to your website. Similarly, if you are looking for signatures on a petition, your plan will be different than that of someone who wants to start a scholarly discussion on an interesting topic. Take time to sketch out your objectives, make sure they are SMART (another acronym, standing for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time Constrained)

STRATEGY

Strategy in Social Media refers to the “value proposition”. What is it that you are wanting to accomplish? Are you trying to develop lifelong fans, or increase the current buzz about your brand? Or are you trying to influence an important issue, or just get the phone to ring? The “7 Habits” concept of “beginning with the end in mind” is relevant here. What exactly will be different, if your plan works?

TECHNOLOGY

A key element in a good plan is determining just which type or types of Social Media you should use to reach your target audience with your desired message, so that you get the results you want. Often, thinking this through will result in a multi-platform approach. Your website, a blog, guest authorship, Tweeting, active involvement in LinkedIn groups, or curating a rich collection of images on Pinterest or Instagram could all be part of your plan, and you may find that different objectives or audiences will get you busy with different tools.

Don’t be confused by the apparent simplicity of this approach. Thoughtful analysis and careful consideration of each of the four elements of the POST model can lead you to a richly developed, professional, and effective Social Media plan.