Social media strategy
A social media strategy is a long-term plan that, taking into account the available means and resources, serves as the basis for the social media marketing of an organization (e.g. company, parties, non-profit organization) or individual. Social media platforms are used to achieve marketing goals. Social media services such as Facebook , Instagram and Twitter , but also Pinterest , Snapchat and TikTok simplify these marketing activities, for example by providing dedicated services such as Facebook pagesfor companies, planning and analysis functions, advertising platforms or programming interfaces for social media tools .
The POST model
The first practical description of a social media strategy was published in the book Groundswell by two analysts at Forrester Research , Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff . It was published by Harvard Business Press in 2008 . The authors dealt with the question of how organizations can use the advantages of social media technologies, gave recommendations for action and presented practical examples. A revised edition of the book was last published in 2011. The core of the book Groundswell is the POST model , which provides a framework for developing a viable social media strategy. POST is an acronym and stands for:
- People ( target groups )
- Objectives ( goals )
- Strategy (strategic path to the goal)
- Technology
When developing a social media strategy, you simply proceed in sequence: First, the organization defines its target groups or personas , then the goals to be achieved with social media marketing, then measures to achieve the goals are described and finally the ones required for them Technology selected, which also includes the selection of the social media platforms on which the target group is located on the one hand and which offer the functions required for social media marketing on the other.
The APOSTLE model
The POST model still works well today, but has weaknesses due to its age. When the book Groundswell was published, social media was hardly present in the marketing mix ; Facebook was founded just four years earlier and was still in its infancy. Instagram, for example, didn't even exist. Felix Beilharz expanded the 2013 model to include three additional areas for the APOSTEL model :
- Analysis (analysis of the initial situation)
- People (target groups)
- Objectives
- Strategy (strategic path to the goal)
- Technology
- Evaluation ( success measurement )
- Long-term commitment ( sustainability )
With this extension, the development of a social media strategy begins with the analysis of the existing online marketing presence and the market environment before the target groups are defined. After the selection of the platforms has been completed, success is measured using meaningful performance indicators in order to check whether the goals have been achieved. In conclusion, Beilharz suggests converting the community built up through social media work into long-term and therefore valuable contacts for the organization.
Analysis: Analysis of the initial situation
When analyzing the initial situation, the following elements in particular are taken into account:
- Analysis of general factors and trends
- Analysis of the market
- Analysis of the organization
The SWOT analysis is often used here.
People: target groups
Marketing measures prove to be particularly successful when specific groups of people are addressed ( targeting ). Social media platforms provide special functions for this, such as the custom audience or the lookalike audience on Facebook and Instagram.
Objectives: goals
The Federal Association for the Digital Economy has defined seven general strategic goals that can be meaningfully pursued using social media marketing:
- Customer acquisition
- Customer loyalty
- Improvement of processes
- Recruiting
- Employee retention
- Public acceptance / crisis resistance
- Enabling funding
The goals that an organization sets itself for its social media marketing should be formulated SMART in order to create a commitment on the one hand and the basis for measuring success on the other .
Strategy: strategic path to the goal
In order to be able to operationally meet the goals set out in the social media strategy, appropriate measures are defined. A sales funnel based on the AIDA model is often used , which, however, only works poorly in the dialog-oriented marketing of the social web and is also based on the false assumption of a monocausal stimulus-response model , which says that a certain stimulus leads to a certain reaction trigger. The more complex NAITDASE model is therefore often used as an alternative to the AIDA model that is better suited to social media . This model does not primarily aim to sell a product, but rather a long-term and sustainable customer relationship based on mutual trust and customer satisfaction. In contrast to the AIDA model, it therefore focuses on the interests of the potential customer instead of the provider's intention to sell.
Planning the use of resources is also part of the strategic path. A distinction is made here between human resources , technological resources and financial resources .
Technology: technology
Finally, when it comes to technology, the organization chooses the right platforms. It should be noted that, on the one hand, the target group to be addressed is on the selected platform and, on the other hand, the goals can be pursued with the defined measures.
Evaluation: measurement of success
Success is not measured by reading simple metrics such as the number of followers or the size of the reach , but determined by key performance indicators (KPI) . Depending on the goal being pursued, these can be different key figures that usually represent the relationship between metrics and other values, such as the interaction rate or the conversion rate .
Long-term commitment: sustainability
Finally, it is determined in which way the followers gained through the marketing measures can be tied to the social media presence of the organization in the long term and made to interact. Equally important is the question of whether, for example, new followers can be transferred to other marketing channels in the organization, such as a newsletter or the CRM tool .
swell
- ↑ First think, then talk: Developing successful social media strategies with the POST framework In: t3n.de
- ↑ Facebook company information In: about.fb.com
- ↑ The APOSTEL model for sustainable social media marketing In: felixbeilharz.de
- ^ Gero Pflüger : Social media marketing for dummies . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2020, ISBN 978-3-527-71650-0 , pp. 63-68 .
- ↑ Using Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences correctly In: allfacebook.de
- ↑ Success measurement in social media In: bvdw.org
- ^ Gero Pflüger : Social media marketing for dummies . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2020, ISBN 978-3-527-71650-0 , pp. 99-103 .
- ^ Gero Pflüger: Social media marketing for dummies . Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2020, ISBN 978-3-527-71650-0 , pp. 113-136 .
- ↑ Facebook: Fan Numbers & Interaction Rate - Why many companies work with wrong KPIs and run pointless benchmarking In: thomashutter.com