A 3-Step Beginner’s Guide to Monitoring-and-Analysis
Much as traditional PR and marketing campaigns require an initial audit, Page One PR has found that an in-depth analysis of the online landscape is key to launching a successful social media program. You need to monitor and analyze the social media space, messages, influencers, conversations and channels to establish baselines and a roadmap for your strategy. Performing such an analysis allows you to identify and organize the most effective activities before you launch any campaign.
Page One PR has developed a social media monitoring-and-analysis process that we use to start every social media campaign. We’ve broken that process down into a beginner’s guide containing the 3 essential steps below:
Step 1: Analyze the Space – Whether you are looking to create a social media program aimed at increasing online competitive mindshare, influencing online conversations or simply just getting more involved in the social media world to raise your company’s awareness, all programs should begin with an analysis of the current space. It is important to build your strategy based upon fact and informed observations. An efficient way to eliminate a lot of the noise is to create a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat (SWOT) grid of your company within the entire social media space. Compare your company’s social media presence to your top two competitors. If your competitors have a limited presence in social media conversations, compare your company to the social media discussions in the market that are most relevant to your products. Organize the SWOT grid with your findings and use it to identify three main social media trends or observations from your analysis. It is best to illustrate these top three findings with actual discussion examples (e.g., Twitter threads) and proof points (appropriate metrics).
Step 2: Identify Top Three Channels – Avoid the common problem of creating a social media campaign based solely on a channel-centric viewpoint. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube get a lot of press attention, but for your purposes they are just channels for your messages. Don’t be distracted by choice. There will always be new channels and too little time and resources to respond to each and every channel. You need to identify which channels will be the most effective for your campaign. If your first social media plan has more than 10 channels in it, you’re setting yourself up for failure. After surveying the larger social media space (step 1), spend some time identifying the channels your target audience spends time in – this may be Twitter or Facebook or even a niche social network. This step will allow you to identify the top three, most-effective channels where you first want to focus your resources . Test, measure, and then as your online presence expands, scale your social media program up to add more channels.
Step 3: Create Three Message Buckets – It’s most effective to integrate your social media messages with your marketing and PR initiatives so that all programs are working together to achieve a unified goal. Social media works best when it complements marketing and PR to amplify your key messages, so talk with the people in your marketing or communications departments about the three main messages they are trying to push out. If you are the marcom department and you’re still wrestling with the CEO and CTO to sign off on marketing messages, then simply write down the three things you ideally want people to say about your product or company. These will serve as your three message buckets. To keep each message short and simple, you can use the guideline of “140 characters or less” popularized by Twitter. List three to six examples of what has actually been said about your company or product in each bucket, including negative as well as positive comments. If there are no discussions about your product or company, list examples of what is being said about competitors or the market. Once you have finalized your messaging, you can use the channels identified in Step 2 to start developing your social media strategy.
Although you may be anxious to get started with your social media campaign, we’ve found that spending a few weeks upfront on the preparation will really help you to get better results. These steps help focus limited resources on the activities that will be most important to you and your company. Monitor and analyze first, then create the social media buzz.
RT @monkchips: hiring an intern to "do social media" is not a social media stategy. just sayin' # Follow us on Twitter
A 3-Step Beginner’s Guide to Monitoring-and-Analysis
Much as traditional PR and marketing campaigns require an initial audit, Page One PR has found that an in-depth analysis of the online landscape is key to launching a successful social media program. You need to monitor and analyze the social media space, messages, influencers, conversations and channels to establish baselines and a roadmap for your strategy. Performing such an analysis allows you to identify and organize the most effective activities before you launch any campaign.
Page One PR has developed a social media monitoring-and-analysis process that we use to start every social media campaign. We’ve broken that process down into a beginner’s guide containing the 3 essential steps below:
Step 1: Analyze the Space – Whether you are looking to create a social media program aimed at increasing online competitive mindshare, influencing online conversations or simply just getting more involved in the social media world to raise your company’s awareness, all programs should begin with an analysis of the current space. It is important to build your strategy based upon fact and informed observations. An efficient way to eliminate a lot of the noise is to create a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat (SWOT) grid of your company within the entire social media space. Compare your company’s social media presence to your top two competitors. If your competitors have a limited presence in social media conversations, compare your company to the social media discussions in the market that are most relevant to your products. Organize the SWOT grid with your findings and use it to identify three main social media trends or observations from your analysis. It is best to illustrate these top three findings with actual discussion examples (e.g., Twitter threads) and proof points (appropriate metrics).
Step 2: Identify Top Three Channels – Avoid the common problem of creating a social media campaign based solely on a channel-centric viewpoint. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube get a lot of press attention, but for your purposes they are just channels for your messages. Don’t be distracted by choice. There will always be new channels and too little time and resources to respond to each and every channel. You need to identify which channels will be the most effective for your campaign. If your first social media plan has more than 10 channels in it, you’re setting yourself up for failure. After surveying the larger social media space (step 1), spend some time identifying the channels your target audience spends time in – this may be Twitter or Facebook or even a niche social network. This step will allow you to identify the top three, most-effective channels where you first want to focus your resources . Test, measure, and then as your online presence expands, scale your social media program up to add more channels.
Step 3: Create Three Message Buckets – It’s most effective to integrate your social media messages with your marketing and PR initiatives so that all programs are working together to achieve a unified goal. Social media works best when it complements marketing and PR to amplify your key messages, so talk with the people in your marketing or communications departments about the three main messages they are trying to push out. If you are the marcom department and you’re still wrestling with the CEO and CTO to sign off on marketing messages, then simply write down the three things you ideally want people to say about your product or company. These will serve as your three message buckets. To keep each message short and simple, you can use the guideline of “140 characters or less” popularized by Twitter. List three to six examples of what has actually been said about your company or product in each bucket, including negative as well as positive comments. If there are no discussions about your product or company, list examples of what is being said about competitors or the market. Once you have finalized your messaging, you can use the channels identified in Step 2 to start developing your social media strategy.
Although you may be anxious to get started with your social media campaign, we’ve found that spending a few weeks upfront on the preparation will really help you to get better results. These steps help focus limited resources on the activities that will be most important to you and your company. Monitor and analyze first, then create the social media buzz.