Talk the Talk AND Walk the Walk

One of the important components of using social media is having a strategic plan that addresses why it’s being used, the key goals and objectives, the target audience and the competitive landscape.

These are issues that must be answered to give a company a clear idea of the what, the why and how before they invest the time and resources to do social media. Many companies embrace this approach by creating well-articulated strategic plans that lay out what needs to happen.

The major flaw, however, is there isn’t enough focus about tactics.

In other words, it’s great to create a plan of what should be done but you also need to have a thorough idea of who’s going to operate your social media programs, the content that needs to be created, how much engagement will happen and how will it be done, and who’s going to be listening and reacting to social media activity.

Far too many companies see their social media efforts either fail or not make the impact they expect because their tactical execution is not close to being as good as it needs to be.

The problem is tactics are nowhere near as sexy as strategy. Strategy involves brainstorming, idea generation, dreaming and mapping out the future. Tactics are grunt work, blocking and tackling and the grind of day-to-day 0perations.

That said, tactics make a social media program hum and resonate with target audiences. Meanwhile, the slick strategic plan gathers dust, and doesn’t get reviewed that often.

Tactics is about the people running your social media efforts and having a plan to drive corporate goals such as higher sales, more leads or better customer service. Tactics are about engagement and offering some kind value of existing and potential customers.

Tactics may not not have a lot of glitter or glamour but, in the scheme of the things, they are crucial.

Article:http://blog.sysomos.com/