Posts tagged social media social media strategy the POST method

The number of social mediums can be overwhelming, and while it’s important to create content and engage with clients and prospects somewhere online, it’s not necessary (or even feasible) to be everywhere.

Before you begin, it’s important to create a plan. There are many ways to do this. Here’s a simple and effective method from Forrester Research known by the acronym POST.

People: Your audience (clients and prospects) and how they use the internet and behave online.

NEED IDEAS?

1. Look at the demographic (age, gender, occupation) and psychographic (values, beliefs, motivations) characteristics of your customers and prospects.

2. Think about what your clients and prospects do online. Do they fall into any of these seven overlapping categories of social technology participation?

• Creators: posting photos and creating videos
• Critics: reviewing products and services, commenting in forums
• Collectors: gathering photos, products and ideas they like and sharing with their network
• Joiners: actively participating in groups and pages, providing feedback and offering solutions
• Spectators: using and watching social media without contributing
• Inactives: not using social media

3. Follow customers and competitors on various social media. Listen to what they are saying and look at how they are using the various technologies. This will help you brainstorm what might work for you.

Objective: What are you trying to accomplish through social media? Figure this out before you begin. Then, figure out how you will measure it.

At least initially, focus narrowly and choose one main goal, such as,

• Build awareness
• Improve retention
• Increase sales
• Boost loyalty

Strategy: In this model, strategy means the result of your activity. How will your relationship with your customers have changed? Knowing this ahead of time will help you create an action plan.

• Do you want to improve your relationship with your best customers?
• Do you want to more people talking about your products?
• Do you want a place where people will test your products, provide feedback and offer up new ideas?

Technology: Based on the people you want to reach, your objective and your strategy, or end game, decide what social technologies to use and how much time it will take.

• Should you start a blog?
• Do you want to develop your Facebook or Google+ community?
• Should you be more active on Twitter?
• Should you be posting photos and videos to Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest?
• And finally, how will you measure your success–Google analytics, Facebook insights, Hootsuite, blog subscribers?