“Social Media is not short term. When you engage in social media, you’re in it for the long haul.” This is a common idea shared at most social media conferences, and from time to time, you may hear me utter something similar, but it is normally connected to my thoughts on the “social media campaign.”
Yep, I said it: social media campaign (Cue the dramatic music for the naysayers). I know that social media takes time and should be undertaken with a long term strategy in mind, but being in it for the long haul doesn’t mean that your program will run forever. When you are thinking about how you will engage in social media, you need to plan for both your entrance and your exit.
At the last meeting of the DC Chapter of the National Black Public Relations Society, I joined two other great panelists in sharing thoughts for a session on Strategic Social Media. I developed a presentation which focused on the following steps for developing a social media strategy:
- Listen – Learn more about the current conversation.
- Map it Out – Identify key players to connect with.
- Get Help – Read the latest tips from industry thought leaders.
- Do It Yourself (DIY) – Craft a tailor-made strategy.
- Make Rules of Engagement – A guide for assessment and response.
- Exit Strategy – A plan for how to evolve the campaign.
I really drilled down into my reasoning for listening because it is so integral to coming up with a good strategy, but I also wanted to focus a bit on the idea of an exit strategy because I think it often gets overlooked as we move full speed ahead towards implementation.
Here’s a simple illustration of how I view social media engagement:
Layer 1: The Decision to Engage
Layer 1 is very straightforward. It represents the period of time during which your organization is committed to being engaged online in social media, right from the moment the green light is given to begin planning until the bittersweet end.
Layer 2: Communication Channels
The next layer includes a few activities and channels of communication that you may use throughout to engage. For most groups, this will include blogging, podcasting and/or some form of video (Speeches, Events, Members/Dollars in Action).
Layer 3: Exit Strategy
The top layer is where things get interesting. This is where exit strategy comes into play. Many plan for social media campaigns to run like layer 1 or 2, one constant line moving forward or little pieces of activity here and there.
Layer 3 represents my view of how the social media campaign should be for most groups. Note, as we move from left to right, the arrow is getting larger and includes several phases. Your social media campaign, if successful, should be growing and evolving over time. Phase 1 will bring you out of the gate, but as you plan for that first campaign, you should be thinking of what will follow. If you meet all of your goals, what will be next?
If you’re building a social network, is there a plan for adding new features or empowering members to take a greater role in the process?
If you’re fundraising online using social media, is there a plan for how you will involve contributors and share future activity?
The arrow that I have displayed continues to grow, but this may not apply to every situation. At some point the campaign will have run its course. Do you have a plan for how to bring things to a close? To transition from campaign 1 to 2?
Things may change as time goes on, but it is always good to have an exit strategy in place.
This is very interesting, and I am glad you shared this with us!
Look forward to reading more!
Aaron Myers
drmyers.wordpress.com
I’m one of the baby boomers who attended your excellent seminar on social media. Worked at Fleishman-Hillard years ago, short stint at Olgilvy Mather.
Very impressed with the panel. Bright, congenial presenters. A breath of fresh air from the starched, uptight types that used to permeate the big firms.
The future is in good hands!
Linda Falkerson
@drmyers
Thanks. Glad you found it interesting!
@Linda
Thank you very much for your kind words! It’s great to know that the session was well-received. If you have any suggestions for future topics to cover, feel free to email me (james.walker@prprescriptions.com) or go directly to BPRS (bprsdc@gmail.com).
Came here via LinkedIn, and glad I did. Very important point you’re making here. Marketing via social media works according to new rhythms and time-frames, but we need to think in terms of campaigns in order to have milestones, and mark our progress.
Thanks for an important reminder.
I think that social media offers great potential. However, at the same time, social media could start to take over too much of one’s life. To me the key is to make an entrance, gain a following and loyal customers, and then say listen I will update once or twice a week. Thus, social media is still helping your business out, yet not becoming overly consuming. At the end of the day, these social media relationships need to be converted in to true business reality.
@Mary Thanks for your comment. Glad I could provoke some thought. When I sat down to create the illustration, I felt the need to separate the campaign from some of the more ongoing channels of communications. Once I did that, it was easier to think about the cycle of the campaign, how it would start, grow and potentially end.
@Josh As they say, there is a time and place for everything under the sun. This includes social media, but it can and will take over if you let it. Make a somewhat flexible schedule and jump right in.
Your process seems to work, except for when you announce posting once or twice a week. I’m not sure that it’s the best strategy to build the following based on frequent updates and then scale them back. If you feel comfortable with posts once or twice a week, then that is where I would start. The people you are connecting with will know what to expect from the beginning, avoiding any potential disappoint that could result from a frequent start followed by scaling back.
Great food for thought. Social media is a fast growing powerhouse of information, communication and evolving content. The development of innovative strategies like this will help ensure desired results as we engage this viable new media model. Thanks for sharing.
I like this post because no one ever talks about getting out. I encourage and/or require students to participate in social media for different classes that I teach, and I see them — and many other students-turned-young-pros — let their blogs or Twitterstreams fizzle out instead of end. I was often disappointed about that instead of seeing it as part of a campaign. In the future I’m going to recommend that think about an exit strategy before they enter.
James -
I think you bring up some very salient points. First, I’m glad you made the distinction between a campaign and a long-term strategy, and I think you’ve broke the campaign aspect down very eloquently.
It’s something a lot of people don’t think about.
One client I’ve worked with created a Twitter account centered around one event, and it worked great and did it’s job, but there were 1,000+ followers wondering why it wasn’t tweeting after that.
The Masters (golf) did a great job in their Twitter bio explaining that account would be active from, and specified the dates. Simple thing to do, but communicates to your fans the approach.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here with all of us!
@Ken Glad you found it interesting. The “evolving” part is key!
@Karen Very happy to see that you encourage students to partake in social media. When I was in undergrad, social media was not as prevalent as it is now (ex. CNN regularly promoting their anchors’ twitter feeds), but it was still out there and growing. Sadly only a few of my professors saw the value in encouraging us to learn about it and included it in their teachings. Great to hear more stories about it being in the classroom
@Ryan I’ve spoken about this with people before and tend to get the response of “scratch the campaign idea; social media is long term.” The illustration and explanation of layers was another attempt at showing what I meant. It’s good to know that I succeeded in making the distinction (at least how I see it) between campaigns and long term strategies.
And sharing the approach, that could probably be another post in and of itself. Even those these “new fangled social media tools” are changing the way we interact, some things remain the same in terms of how we can engage people. Your point on the Masters (golf) twitter feed brings me right back to my freshman year in high school. The History teaching wanted to give us pointers on how to deliver a presentation: Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, Tell ‘em and tell ‘em what you told ‘em.
We do some of this already. With our first post or podcast episode, we tell people why we’re here. Then we execute the plan, give recaps at milestones and summaries at the end.
I’m two sentences away from starting a whole new post right here, so I’ll stop. Thanks for your comment Ryan!
Having an exit strategy is important. Shel Holtz talks about this issue in his discussion of podfading in his podcasting book. He recommends setting up social media endeavors as a series with a marked end (e.g., having a 10 podcast episodes in a series). If social media efforts are successful, one can launch another series.
I actually haven’t checked that book out. Maybe I should because I definitely agree with that. It helps in terms of planning (going from start to finish) wherever possible and sets you up directly for measurement. Thanks for commenting!