The process steps are the same for a social media project as for any other project: Analyze, plan, implement and monitor. The launch, however, is as multi layered as the social web itself. A recent paradigm shift in the ‘attitude’ required for this type of communication has even reached the level of corporate management: Social media is an honest, eye-level, transparent communication with your own target groups. A company that lives and breathes social media has in fact systematically aligned itself to the needs of its clients.

The following sections will provide you with a short introduction to our approach:

1. Commit: Build lasting foundations

Using modern communication methods, consumers are constantly communicating with and about your company. This has led to a certain loss of control over your corporate image, for example, which can no longer be managed as easily as in the past.

When they’re talking about you – participate in the discussion via select social media to ensure customers view your company positively. Social media gives you a unique opportunity to initiate quickly spreading word-of-mouth advertising that may even go “viral”.

In the initial phase of the project, we’ll discuss the potential conflict areas you’ve already identified. Potential promoters will also need to be identified and involved.

In this initial project phase, we’ll deal with topics such as:

  • Long-term nature of the commitment
  • Distribution of monitoring and control of the company’s corporate message
  • Greater transparency of internal information and processes
  • Eye-level dialog with customers and consistent adoption / implementation of customer input

2. Analyze: Social media communities – Listen, learn and identify your own assets

In this first step, social web research is performed to identify the topics, needs and problems that are being discussed with regard to your company, your competitors and your industry. With regard to your company, the following questions will need to be answered:

  • How much talk is there about the company?
  • What are the target group’s interests? What are their needs?

Which platforms are important for us? What values and codes of behavior apply there?

What other topics are relevant? What is well received? Tags such as muchfollowers can also help you organizing and reaching large number of audience on social media easily. It can be used over Instagram where people can follow this tag and help locate your account with no difficulty.

  • Who are the key opinion leaders / influencers?
  • Are there any identity breaches (brands or people)?
  • For the various platforms in my target markets, how large is the potential reach?
  • How does this compare to competitor companies?

To perform such research it is absolutely necessary to use professional tools. Blogs and micro-blogs such as Twitter, forums and traditional online news sources are researched going back many months and in some cases, years. The results and correct interpretation of this research will later be utilized for your company’s social media strategy. To ensure the transparency of the outcome, we also monitor for you the defined measures.

A well-organized Dashboard identifies key peaks and is the gateway for in-depth analysis

Even more important for the success of your social media presence than analyzing the market, is to perform an analysis of your own company:

  • What experiences (both good and bad) has the company had with social media engagements?
  • Identify people in the company who can add value to the project.
  • Does the company already have (possibly even unused or dormant) accounts with social media platforms?
  • Identify existing relevant content and how to take economic advantage of it.
  • Identify existing contacts and channels for the promotion of social media engagements.
  • In interacting with customers (pre-sale to post-sale), what is the key ‘need for action’ ?
  • 3. Plan: Formulating the measures into a concept

Based on the research results, we will jointly develop an implementation concept for your social media strategy that has been customized to your company.

  • Define the target groups based on the identified behavior and needs.

Define the goals to be achieved by the social media strategy and assign the monitoring.

Select the most relevant platforms for your company

Based on the insights gained from the implemented measures, we jointly perform an ongoing analysis of changes in the marketplace.

Before starting the project, the responsibilities are clearly specified

The chart below illustrates the ongoing “goal definition” process

Goals are set step-by-step, with increasing complexity

Due to the technologies involved and the broad application scope, it indeed makes sense to engage a social media agency.

4. Play: Easily find out what works

Instead of theoretically working through a variety of measures, we jointly prepare a concept based on sound research and clear, measurable goals. We reduce the complexity because we accomplish the goals bit-by-bit through easily understandable sub-steps. Together, we continuously adapt the goals based on the insights gained from the social media actions already carried out. Keep in mind that social media is a “free market”, where you may need to respond to surprising, unforeseen reactions.

How to select the right measure?

In accordance with specific criteria, we jointly evaluate the list of measures and enter the results in a co-ordinate system. This clearly-structured representation makes it possible to quickly assess new measures on a cost-benefit basis.

Sample valuation of social media measures

5. Create: Implementation of measures and social media roll-out within the company

An overall strategy not only requires the development of a concept, it is also essential to create a road map. Social media’s important goal for companies: To find fans and friends instead of “just” customers. For businesses, the same rules apply as for friendships. As a result, these are thesuccess factors for the implementation of social media engagements:

Success factors for social media engagements

To succeed in social media, you must be present and disseminate your content. Consequently, more attention will be paid to you and you’ll have more credibility.

Define your social media strategy. Pragmatically. Systematically.

6. Improve: A continuous process of improvement

  • Follow the principle of “Viva la evolución!” (Long live evolution!). Measurement and optimization brings you further.
  • Together, we continuously measure and optimize the measures taken.
  • We help you to develop new measures when existing ones have become well-established.
  • The following chart shows a sample of measurement criteria in the area of social media.