Deme Hill
Assignment: Blog #2
New Media Strategies, PRL 540
California Baptist University
Dr. Pearson
Breakenridge discusses the beginning stages of developing a social media plan, while using an internal collaborator generator, which advises having a small team of individuals (not always senior management), who will work on the concept of preparing a social media plan. The first step is research and the discovery process (Breakenridge, 2012, p. 23-24). Additionally, the information sharing can go through a google doc or some other type of platform to reach maximum capacity, offering members the opportunity to quickly share viable research and updates on the project management. (Breakenridge, 2012, p. 29).
While preparing to implement a social media strategy, the plan should include attempting to determine the best social media tools and or sites for the company, so there is maximum efficacy. Forbes.com reports, “According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers in 2014 claimed that social media marketing was important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites. And according to Social Media Examiner, 97% of marketers are currently participating in social media—but 85% of participants aren’t sure what social media tools are the best to use.” (Forbes.com).
According to Blanchard, the overall effectiveness of the social media launch should have an evaluation tool to determine progress, before assigning resources. This is a critical step in the plan for launching the social media plan, as there must be a determination of how we measure success, and/or effectiveness of the usage of social media. If there is not a measurement tool, project management has no ultimate goal, or focus (Blanchard, 2011, p. 30).
Forbes notes “Additionally, studies have shown that social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing, and a higher number of social media followers tends to improve trust and credibility in your brand, representing social proof. As such, simply building your audience in social media can improve conversion rates on your existing traffic.” (Forbes.com).
Striking out on your own as a company, or even with a team, to enter into a public relations implementation strategy can definitely be a challenge, particularly if the members of the group lack technical expertise, and or knowledge. Blanchard discusses having clarity of vision, and potentially not being able to manage the platform effectively, due to lack of internal resources and/or staffing (Blanchard, 2011, p. 45). In my opinion, prior to developing a social media plan, a company should really consider the implementation strategy, as well as the maintenance factor to prevent scope creep, whereas a project takes on too much scope, and eventually gets mismanaged. An overall assessment should be considered to determine if its cost effective to farm-out or contract with a social media agency, prior to taking on the responsibility internally without proper knowledge or direction. Not being prepared to implement or manage a social media public relations plan could be catastrophic for a business.
References
Blanchard, O. (2011), Social Media ROI, Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization
Breakenridge, D. (2012), Social Media and Public Relations
The Social Observer.com (Image)