Think Before You Engage: 100 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign

From the Author: Excerpts from a Sample Social Media Strategy

Author Dave PeckFacebook
Facebook's multifaceted use allows people to connect and reconnect with family, friends, colleagues, and common interest groups, as well as allows businesses to develop stronger relationships with customers with real-time communication. With more than 200 million active users, and approximately 70% of its users outside of the USA, Facebook is currently the largest social networking site in the world. Facebook allows content to be shared across groups of people that are not otherwise connected. Every time a user engages with you, the activity is shared with their network.

Short Term Objectives
Post all retailer events
Ask the community about their thoughts on the Peninsula
Encourage discussion about relative events or news
Participate in dining and shopping conversations

Success Trackers
Fans
Likes
Impressions
Clicks on links

Twitter
Basically a messaging tool, Twitter can be used to communicate many types of messages. On the Twitter web site, a short sentence at the top of the page reads, What are you doing? Tweets don't necessarily have to respond to that question, and instead often consist of more detailed content such as:
Links to articles or media
Personal conversations between one or more people
News or event headlines
Tips and tools
Retweets are tweets from users that are rebroadcast by others. This often happens when a tweet contains information that others find useful, funny, or just worth repeating. For example, if your company tweeted a news article, another user may want to rebroadcast the message in order to notify his or her own list of followers. While there are no specific guidelines regarding tweets, content should be relevant to your brand and to the image you want to portray. Tweets should also have a balance of announcement and engagement. Because Twitter is truly a conversational tool, best practices show that ensuring your stream flows two-ways helps build your brand.

Short Term Objectives
Compile list of your company's customer Twitter users
Promote your company's blog posts
Communicate customer service issues from social media to support team, ensure follow-up
Promote other social networking activities/sites through Twitter

Success Trackers
Friends/Followers
2nd-order followers (follower's follower count)
Velocity- avg. of first- and second-order followers attracted per day since the account was established
Social Capital- influence of twitter followers
Centralization- how much influence (reach) is invested in a small number of followers
Pages ranking on key terms from micro-blogging sites

Check out the full sample social media strategy from the author.