Social Media Planning Workbook
Janet Fouts
janet@janetfouts.om
www.janetfouts.com
408.216.7423
Janet Fouts–Social Media Coach :: 408.216.7423 :: janet@janetfouts.com
What is Social Media?
Social Media is a loosely fitting title for a
website that engages the user in
conversation. It used to be that you built a
website and hoped people would come to it,
read what you had to say and then pick up
the phone and call you. Maybe.
Times have changed. Life moves at web
speed these days and a regular website
simply can't keep up.
The Social Media Advantage
Social media is a low cost way to connect
directly with your market, build relationships
with them and give them a sense of
ownership through participation. As opposed
to traditional media methods, social media is
interactive and dynamic and can be suited
to the particular audience quite easily. From
a web standpoint it lends itself to being
indexed by search engines, shared and
republished by the community, allowing your
network to reach farther and faster than by a
website or ad alone.
Traditional marketing takes time and money.
With social media you can get your
message out and adapt it based on user
feedback or market fluctuations. You can
learn tremendous amounts about your new
expanded network by speaking to them
directly, gathering data about habits and
preferences and fine tuning your message
and even your product accordingly.
Social media will change the way you do
business
You may not be connecting with your users
yet, but they are out there. More than
40,000 blogs are created per day. Many
have a broad focus or are in niches that
don't apply to your business. When you find
the ones that are, you have an instant
connection to your target market that you
might not have reached any other way.
You have the amazing opportunity to
connect on a personal level and help them
understand the product, the market, the
competition and yes, you. If you don't talk to
them, somebody else will.
What? Let them talk about us?
In a 2008 study of top CEOs for PRWEEK,
Burston-Marstellar found 50% got industry
information from blogs and 62% felt social
media can have an impact on a company's
overall reputation.
While it is true that opening up your blog to
comments or your forum for discussion
offers a platform for complaints about your
business or practices.
Believe me when I tell you they will do it
anyway. If the discussion happens on our
own blog or forum you have the unique
opportunity to show how responsive you are
to your customer base by responding,
correcting inaccuracies or simply dealing
with the issue. Good customer service will
spread the word about you and your
company.
Making it work
The purpose of this workbook is to give you
the tools to build a social media plan so you
can look at the available tools with an
organized idea of what it can do and how
you're going to use it.
There's no way I can give global advice on
which networks work for you or which are
the must-have applications to use effectively
to meet your goals.
At the end of this workbook are some links
to help you find discussions relating to your
market. From there you can find the tools
and you can join in or start your own!
Janet Fouts–Social Media Coach :: 408.216.7423 :: janet@janetfouts.com
Define your goals
Make a simple list of what you want to achieve. (Don't worry about how yet)
Expectations
How will you measure return on investment and show progress towards your goals?
Who is your audience?
List features of your target audience and what you want them to do.
How do they communicate most often? (blogs, forums, email lists, wikis? )
Where can you find them online?
Locate your competition
List at least 5 below. Answer these questions for each one.
1. Are they key influencers?
2. Are they successful in your eyes?
3. What are they missing?
What is your investment?
Time
Investment in technology
Learning curve
Support
Paid ads
Janet Fouts–Social Media Coach :: 408.216.7423 :: janet@janetfouts.com
Who will be involved?
List potential team members and their level of commitment. Do they need training? How
much time should they spend on this per day? Per week?
Define a clear strategic message
Based on your goals and the thought leaders in the space already create a unique message
to convey. Make it short or cut it up into a number of standalone messages.
● How many ways can you deliver it?
● What are the key points?
● Are you selling products or information?
● Identify the issues not to be discussed or phrasing to avoid.
● Create verbiage that relates to your market, and resonates with you and your
audience. For example, if the market is entry level don't talk over their heads.
If the audience is very technical, don't talk down to them.
● Develop a branding kit for anyone on the social media team. The kit should include
logos, colors, key phrases, links to key pages on the website.
● Make your press kits interactive if possible. Post links, downloadable docs and images
and link to them whenever possible.
Janet Fouts–Social Media Coach :: 408.216.7423 :: janet@janetfouts.com
Social Media Tools Overview
There are many, many more examples of social media, and one of the things you will need to
do is find the one(s) that are going to work for you. Here is a very basic breakdown of what
these tools do.
Social Media Tools
Purpose
Micro Blogs
Twitter, Plurk, Laconica, Jaiku
Sending links, connecting with other influencers,
demonstrate authority in your space.
Blogs
Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad
Longer posts, build your authority, create a place
for discussion and feedback
Forums and Communities
Joomla, Drupal, open source software
Deeper discussion, user submitted content,
creating a place where your users can share ideas
and bond with you and your product.
Podcasts-Video
Audio and visual connection with your audience,
demonstrations of products or concepts
Social Networks
Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Ning,
many specialized networks
Focused communities where users share a
common interest or goal and can easily share that
with their friends.
Social Bookmarking/rating sites
Delicious, Reddit, Magnolia Digg
Share valuable posts and content and rate them
You can locate discussions about your market, product or business by searching for
keywords related to them.
A few good places to start are:
Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com
Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com
Radian 6 http://www.radian6.com
Google Blog Search http://blogsearch.google.com
Trackur http://www.trackur.com
The Search Monitor http://www.thesearchmonitor.com/
Once you complete your social media plan, come back to these sites and identify which ones
suit your needs best, then start finding ways to engage your audience in meaningful
dialogue.
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If this is a team effort, create a place on your intranet or internal documents listing
what each team member is doing.
List each others' profiles and cross link to each other.
Read and comment on each others' post s and book marks, but don't make it obvious
that the only people talking are other team members, or you'll be talking to yourself.
Be yourself. Each person on the team should be speaking in their own voice while
delivering the agreed upon messages.
Janet Fouts–Social Media Coach :: 408.216.7423 :: janet@janetfouts.com