This week the VP Marketing of a US based beer company said to me “How do I create a social media strategy for my brand(s)?”.  My response… commitment.

Social Media is not something that you wake up one morning and create a strategy for.  If you set up a twitter profile and start tweeting that is not a social media strategy… your just tweeting! So you might have a facebook fanpage and a blog. That’s still not a social strategy (purposely dropped the word ‘media’ because I disagree with the connotation).

A Social Strategy, in short, is the enabling and amplification of conversation around an object. That object could be you, or could be a brand/business and importantly the conversation is not bound to the online space hence dropping the word media above.  A proper social strategy gets people talking in any form. Since I am a marketer I am going to focus on a brand…  and hey… these are my thoughts… I want to hear yours… add comments below… after all that’s the whole point isn’t it!?

To create a proper social strategy you first need to understand what conversations are already happening around your brand.  Compare the objects of those conversations to what you think your brand stands for. Now find both the similarities and differences in what people are saying and what you want them to say.  Do not start with the assumption that people are wrong about your brand.  Do the reverse. Challenge yourself to understand what your brand really stands for, then create a migration plan that you hope will influence the conversation from perception A to B. I say hope because nothing is guaranteed in a realtime global conversation.

So for example. You think your brand is irreverent, young and spirited despite its very old heritage. But the conversation that is happening naturally around your brand in the social space is saying that you are trusting, have great taste and have a ton of heritage (which you do).  How do you migrate this conversation into one that has a younger more spirited and irreverent tone?  You don’t tell people that you are, they won’t believe you. What you must do, is have them tell you that you are, help them believe it vs. hear it. The community which you enter will choose to believe/accept it or not.

There is not a simple plan to creating a social strategy. Every brand is different.  It’s impossible to compare any 2 brands in the social space and you will fail if you try to copy those that are having success.  Why do I say this? Their success is not found simply because of what they say on twitter or facebook or that cool app they built that sacrificed friends. Their success is found because people believe it. People follow them and amplify the conversation because the brand is committed and constantly talking or giving people things to talk about.  Brands that are successful in the social space are committed to it. Committment is tough to understand and even harder to be… thats why there are so few brands doing it really well.

If your agency starts your social strategy conversation with “so we are going to set up a twitter account or Facebook, youtube, myspace… whatever”  you might want to think twice.

The starting point is deeply understanding what your brand stands for and how it is perceived before setting up any accounts.  Then create a conversation plan that migrates that perception. This takes time and commitement to define and once you do, then an engagement plan is created that outlines the tactics that will be used to start your conversations… ie. twitter.

Twitter is not the strategy it’s a tactic within the strategy.  The strategy is much more complicated and includes brand definition, perception understanding, migration plans, risk mitigation plans, policy development, content creation, measurement and lot’s more… but most importantly a social strategy requires commitment.

These are my 2 cents… now add yours below and then follow me @_ian_barnett or email me ian@spiderms.com and let’s continue this conversation!

thanks for reading.