Comments on: Creating Your Social Media Plan

By: Scott Ayres

Scott Ayres — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:15:50 +0000

Amazing article! Very informative.. Will be implementing some of these ideas into our social media strategy.

By: Patjevdb

Patjevdb — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:24:02 +0000

Best blogpost on social media I’ve read, so far. And i’ve been reading about it for approximately 5 months now :-)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:38:14 +0000

Great article Lisa. Lots of valid point discussed here. I find the largest issue with the online social world is the inexperience of novice players spouting useless information about them Our community expands if we share our knowledge and hidden treasures that have helped us grow.

By: Phil McCusker

Phil McCusker — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:20:49 +0000

Brilliant post.
Love how you cut the fluff and go for the jugular! I read endless posts and content about SM that reads something like: ‘its all about listening’ or ‘twitter followers bla bla, FB fans blalba’ – frankly pompous / self-obsessed dribble for the most part. You go girl!
Thanks.

By: Weber

Weber — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:08:43 +0000

Thanks for the tips. You surely were right. You must plan everything before putting it into action. “Do NOT enter social media until you know what you want to get out of it.”-it doesn’t mean that once you enter social media it would make you famous. Your goals must be in your head always, the reasons why you want to enter social media are your basis for your success.

By: Julie Weishaar

Julie Weishaar — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:02:46 +0000

Great post. Your first sentence says it all “If you enter into social media without a plan, you will fail. Period.” Very helpful info. Thanks for sharing.

By: Philip Zelinger

Philip Zelinger — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:51:46 +0000

Your willingness to share real world best practices tied to the wisdom of establishing expectations of time and money invested in social networking vs. old world expectations of more quantifiable and conventional short term R.O.I. was refreshing – to say the least! I am often challenged to contribute to posts such as yours since within my own spheres of influence I am considered an “alpha” networker but in your case it isn’t easy!

My only thoughts to contribute would be in the form of suggesting that new technologies and applications designed to develop efficiencies in monetizing relationships in the social networking communities from the inside out through C2C comments vs. marketing to them from the outside in through more established B2B channels may provide some solutions to resource challenged would be advertisers to these online communities of potential partners. Note that I did not reference our online targeted social networking audience as customers, but partners! They are the true social networking managers of tomorrow!

ronsmap.com is a soon to be announced retail automobile industry platform that I have featured in some of my posts on my automotive advertising agency social networking portal – http://adagencyonline.net – that will leverage their presence into the social media via their proprietary applications and I am anxious to share their solutions with you. I will try to reach out to you in the real world to solicit your input and valued advice on some of the social networking based applications that they have built into their applications as well as their unique mobile platform that similarly focuses on the customer’s needs vs. the auto dealers sales quotas.

After all, what are friends for!

By: BrentBillock

BrentBillock — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:12:50 +0000

This is a fantastic article, and I plan on borrowing from it copiously on a proposal I’m putting together. Both in the planning stages and the communicative priorities for ongoing engagement, I think you’ve absolutely nailed it.

What about that tricky in-between step when the company has finished strategizing and is just getting started on Facebook? For some B-to-B companies, running a promotion isn’t necessarily going to draw the right audience. Is it appropriate to directly contact the administrators of pages in the same industry and invite them to join in?

If so, do you have to do this individually, or are there tools available to more easily attract a few hundred targeted users?

By: Jeff Hurt

Jeff Hurt — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:29:40 +0000

I do agree with Chris that sometimes, you have to stick your toes in the water, learn how to swim before your chart your course for an across the ocean swim.

Strategy is so important and you need to understand why and how to create a great social media plan.

By: Chris Bonney

Chris Bonney — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:01:14 +0000

Lisa-
Most of your points I agree with. It’s a good article. The only challenge I pose is that by saying you’ll fail without a plan is actually setting up organizations to fail in another way: analysis paralysis. It can take months and sometimes over a year for certain organizations to run a plan through the system.

For this very reason, I’m a fond advocate of the READY/FIRE/AIM approach to social networking.

Go ahead and dive into the deep end and dog paddle around for a while. You might just naturally evolve into a world-class back stroke. Of course, you could sink to the bottom, too. But that’s kind of the point. Climb out of the pool and dive in again. A lot of major brands have failed miserably the first time they took the plunge, but many have learned from their floundering. A plan does not alleviate a learning curve.

My concern is that with the speed of technology, to ask someone to have a plan before they engage in social media is risking a vicious cycle of being dreadfully irrelevant and perpetually behind the times.