The document provides steps for creating an effective social media strategy. It outlines setting goals by writing down objectives and refining them to the top 3-4 SMART goals. Next it discusses finding the target audience by brainstorming characteristics and determining where the audience engages online. The strategy then maps the goals to identified online communities. It advises joining communities to test assumptions, starting small and getting feedback, then evaluating effectiveness and making changes based on learnings. Finally, the strategy outlines evaluating efforts with metrics, investing more in successful approaches, and regularly revisiting the long-term plan.

1. Steps to Creating a Social Media Strategy Summary
Setting Goals
1. Write down your goals.
Brainstorm first. Think of all the things that you want to accomplish.
2. Refine your list of goals.
Look at your list. Is each goal SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and
timely)? Focus particularly on whether it is measurable and realistic. Prioritize your
top goals and see if you can narrow them down to your top 3 or 4.
3. Look at your list. Are your top 3 goals in conflict with one
another?
This is not necessarily a bad thing – it just means that you’ll need to keep in mind
that you’ll likely be using different tools and mediums to reach different audiences
in order to accomplish these goals. Or that you’ll need to focus on a single goal to
begin with, and wait until later to try to accomplish the others.
Finding Your Audience
1. Brainstorm the characteristics of your audience
Write down what you know about your audience. Demographics including age,
lifestyle, geography, places they go, things they buy. Defining your audience is often
the most difficult part of the plan, but it’s also the most important. Strategic
communication is audience-centered, so you need to know your audience to
communicate effectively. Don’t worry about the outliers right now, focus on the big
commonalities that you can identify.
2. Figure out where your audience is. Are they online (and if so,
where)? Are they already organized? What do they like to do
online? How do they interact? Do the people you found match the
characteristics you listed in #1?
Testing your assumptions will be very important. You may find that you need to
narrow down your audience definitions, or find the right platform. Birdwatchers
who share photos on facebook may be very different from birdwatchers who share
photos on flickr. Sometimes the platform’s standards and guidelines will define the
community and how it interacts. See what people enjoy doing on these platforms
and think about ways that you could meet your goals based on these activities.
3. Map your goals to the communities you’ve found (or plan to
create) online. Make sure there is alignment (at least in theory).

2. Join in and experiment
1. Listen to others. Join in the existing community. Test your
assumptions and see if you fit in as you expected.
2. Start small. Get feedback. Make mistakes and learn from them.
3. Evaluate what is working and what isn’t. Plan to spend more
time on the things that are working, and think about cutting out or
changing the things that aren’t working.
4. Go back to your goal setting and audience defining steps. Are
there things that you would change based on what you know now?
Change them – it’s not too late!
Evaluate your efforts and make big plans
1. Go back to those measurable goals, and ensure that you have
tools and metrics to match to each of them.
2. Set up a system to track your progress
3. Invest more time, money and energy in those things that are
working.
4. Be ruthless in cutting off the efforts that aren’t working. Think of
this as gardening – if you don’t prune some branches everything
could die.
5. Set up long-term planning so that your efforts are part of your
overall organizational communications plan. Revisit this plan
regularly, as the technology and channels are likely to change more
often than your long-term strategy will.