Whats Your Social Media Strategy

October 11, 2007 · Comments

Rockstar and Angry Young Man There are so many tools out there, and you’re using a bunch of them to communicate and have conversations and make people aware of the things that interest you. But what are you doing with it all? What’s your plan? How are you tying this all together to make it meaningful, useful, and/or otherwise impactful? What’s your social media strategy? Here are some thoughts to consider.

What’s Your Basic Goal?

Is your goal to make a living creating media? Are you doing audio or video and seeking sponsors and advertisers? Or are you just looking to reach a lot of people and establish yourself as a thought leader? Are you doing this just for fun and expression? You can see how these three examples are drastically different, once you consider how to achieve your basic goal, right?

What is Your Product?

Think hard on this. If you say it’s a podcast, you’re probably wrong. It’s the PAYLOAD of that podcast, the information or entertainment. It’s not the cast itself. Right? GNMParents started out as an audio podcast, but has found much more success as a blog about family matters. The payload stayed the same.

Other products might be information, or it might be that you’re selling something. The Financial Aid Podcast is built to inform, entertain, and also to guide you to the notion of fixing your student loan debt by buying one of the products the Student Loan Network sells. If there were no product at the end of that path, I’m pretty sure Christopher S. Penn would podcast on something completely different.

Consider your product.

Who’s Your Audience?

Not just who are they, but how are they reaching your media? What are they doing with it? Why are they giving you their time? Think about this often. Are they visiting to get ideas they can use themselves? (That’s my crowd, mostly. You guys come here, think about things, and hopefully run off and make YOUR things better). Who are these people and what are they doing with your stuff.

Further, think about how you can message them outside your main media channel. Meaning, have you considered a way to reach them by email? Do you know how many of them would answer your call for something other than your core product? Are they looking for something else outside your current “product?” Think hard on how you reach them.

Where are Your Partners?

In a world where we all have the tools and ability to make media, we forget that it’s not a bad idea to band together and partner and create shared products. My favorite audio podcast right now is Marketing Over Coffee. Why? Because it’s John Wall of The M Show, and Christopher S. Penn of The Financial Aid Podcast (and occasionally me) doing a project that’s not their core project. I love that. Look for partners.

And if not partners to create media, why not partners to distribute? Why not networks? If you’re an awesome video show, why aren’t you looking at GimpTV or Next New Networks or Revision3 as a way to distribute, share market space, and generally grow the product?

Consider who your partners may be, and give this LOTS of thought, because you never know what could grow from something even whackier than banding together.

What Comes Next?

If Apple stopped making things after they got the Macintosh right, look at how things would be different. Why are you stopping at your one good product? What else could you do? What should you kill that you’ve been doing for a while? How does this influence your thoughts? Think even harder on this one.

Is This About Money?

If your media making is about making money, REALLY consider whether what you’re doing is an art or a craft. Make the media people will pay for. Look at affiliate marketing programs. Learn how to work with advertisers. Stop making media for yourself if you’re hoping to get paid for it. Start thinking about how to build an audience that someone will want to reach. Not just build an audience, but one that people will pay you to interact with. Make your audience your jewel, and then figure out a way to bridge RELEVANT advertising to them. (By the way, piss off your audience, and you pretty much can hang up the spurs, Tex.)

And Now, How About You?

What are your thoughts? How are you doing this? What’s your strategy? Have you taken a long, hard look at what your doing and how this relates? Share the guts of what you’re doing.

If you’re NOT already making media, what are your questions? What haven’t we talked about? What do you want to know?

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  • Important things to consider, and not as obvious as they seem. The brand that you create, cultivate and archive on sites like google search needs to serve your evolving purposes, not merely your immediate purposes.

    It's easy to get caught up in what you're sending out to people as opposed to what they're personally taking away from their interactions with you or your products, services or media.
  • Chris, Great list of questions! I'm doing a "Podcasting 101" workshop next week at the IABC Heritage Region conference and a significant portion of the workshop will be spent on "Why?" and "What's the Plan?". The mechanics of producing something like a podcast have gotten increasingly trivial... but the thinking behind it (if you want to do more than just fool around) is the harder part. Great post,
    Dan
  • My social media strategy is forever evolving... and its perhaps too complex for a blog comment.

    I'm an artist, and particularly a sound artist, but a media artist more broadly.. And I'm also kind of uber intellectual.. There's a sense that I could, in a rather entrepreneurial sort way, use social media as one component of a larger strategy to promote / sell / whatever my music and art.. There's a sense that I can explore social media as an art form, there's a sense that social media is powerful for networking and seeing things inside the a more conventional idea of "career." And I have a set of, I think interesting, I guess philosophical.. ideas about.. well stuff. So blogging and podcasting and whatever.. can be an opportunity to share ideas, develop a voice.. and maybe even a platform to sell a book or something.. or in one way or another about establishing myself as an expert.

    But Social Media isn't too terribly linear.. I mean it's like certain strands of Hindu metaphysics.. or it, to old media is like what quantum mechanics is to the classical Newtonian framework.

    So I think it, in some sense, has to be taken as a new thing.. And I think there's this issue of how do we relate to the unknown.. Another words we are in the early moments of a grand revolution and we see a few shiny sparks here and there.. but that aint nothing compared to the larger systemic shift.. I think it's a mistake to base one's strategic outlook too much on the sparks..

    To me social media has nothing to do with trends. Yeah, it's a groovy hip buzz word and we can all stand around feeling hip.. But for me I think about cat's like Michel Foucault who did philosophical histories of power relationships in the prison system, mental health, state power, and sex.. To the degree to which Social Media is fundamentally about power diffusion.. you can see how reading Foucault might have a certain pragmatic value. Or you could look at the media critique of a Theodor Adorno, and what does that mean in light of recent developments?

    Beneath the surface everything from our sense of identity, the conceptual framework through which we understand reality.. is all now in flux. I mean... look at it this way,... power relationships play a huge roll in defining the box inside which some folks can't seem to think out side of.. another words the categories of our language.. What happens when we go from a Dewy Decimal system for organizing all human knowledge to using meta data? The answer is that now we have a framework for understanding reality that values subjective knowledge..

    In a Jungian psychology type system the subjective is favored by the introvert where as the extrovert favors the objective.. If what we normally think of as the developed world is based on an extroverted psychology in it's foundation.. where as the East tends to be more introverted.. With our modern situation with the rise of the India, and China looming not too far over the horizon.. and a huge systemic shift happening in the very way we organize information.. I mean the implications of this sorta thing is amazing..

    So you know.. if you're an artist and you're thinking about this sorta thing... I suppose you're work is trying to work this stuff out.. But also I think the way you approach questions of management science and what sorta business models you should be using.. how you internalize you're sense of strategy and execution... is different.

    So I don't know what kind of a response this is.. but what the hell..
  • If you plan before you rush into things, you will be more successful. If you already have a company, you should just start a blog that is related to your corporate offerings.
  • Melissa Robison
    Great questions! I'm a web producer/account manager. My personal strategy is to meet creative people and get inspiration. My professional strategy is to be involved enough in social media to give my clients innovative, yet sound advice.

    I'm giving a brown bag to our team on developing social media strategies for our company's clients next week.

    One thing to consider when selling a social media strategy to a busy client is the time and effort it will take on their end to project a consistent voice/brand and to maintain relationships across channels and over time.

    A schedule definitely needs to be planned out and followed for a client to successfully implement a social media strategy (knowing that the plan may change along the way). For instance, I've developed informal editorial calendars for some clients to remind them go online, update their online presence, make friends, post comments, etc. There are quite a few dead or unplanned profiles out there that may be working against the original strategy.

    Thanks for the post and the questions.
  • Another view: at what point in the process is it okay to change directions, switch oars or switch boats altogether?

    How do you define whether or not you're reaching your goals, and within what timeframe?

    Flexibility is key, but changing strategies at a schizophrenic pace is not wise in the world of both overnight successes and long tails...
  • Goddamn it Brogan- every time I get nice and cozy in my world you come up with something like this.

    "What Comes Next?

    If Apple stopped making things after they got the Macintosh right, look at how things would be different. Why are you stopping at your one good product? What else could you do?.........."

    I just made a call to two guys who I think would make for a great combined podcast in our niche!

    Knock this shit off man. Now I have the pressure to make this new podcast informative, educate and guide to the listeners.

    Seriously though great post!

    Thank you for the slap on the ass to keep moving.

    your friend

    Mike
  • Thank you.
  • Thanks for the great post! Our product blog is mainly a corporate blog providing information about our software to our audience who have subscribed to our newsletter. Something we will be doing is put up video software demos on the blog soon and listen in on the conversations...what they are saying and basically interact. That may require us to go back to the board and rework some stuff but all to make the product better.
  • Great questions Chris!
    I really liked Sean's post on considering a blog strategy vs a policy.
    http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/09/16/a-b...

    And a brand should be considered, developed & evolved. And please don't forget it's all about people (esp. if you're marketing!)
  • Chris, you posted very relevant questions for me. Specifically, do I really need to spend time banging away here in the social media world when my novel isn't ready and I have no service to provide?

    I'm a social yet technical person, not a server room geek that writes code all day. Social networking geeks are my people, so naturally I want to be here with them. But I'm feeling the pressure to provide a service, an identity, that I haven't fully formed yet. I'm just the little gal with hopes of a published novel sometime in the next 2 years.

    I'll spend some more time watching and learning, and trying to convince people that I truly, honestly am NOT selling ANYTHING, and I'm not sucking up to cc_chapman or stevegarfield to get hits on my site. I met them, I think they are my kind of peeps, I'd love to network. But without a business card that says "Social Media Maker," I feel like I'm ignored. What do you say to this? Should I be here? Is there room for a believer who isn't quite ready to become the next great mover and media shaker?

    Thanks! I learn a lot from your site.

    -Christine (purplecar)
  • Nice post Chris...

    After 2 years I am still trying to define my social media place in the world. I am not looking for money or notoriety, just trying to make a difference in the world.

    My subject matter is not too terribly popular in the sense of what's out there but I feel it is important and social media/documenting can make a difference.

    I have been documenting (via video, photo, WWW) humanitarian efforts around the world. I am still refining my technique and exactly how it should be presented but, it's slowly getting there.

    Your article and blog is inspiring and informational.

    Keep up the good work.
    Earl B
    earlb.com
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