Get Instant Access
to This Blueprint

Applications icon

Social Media

Make your social media strategy soar.

Ad hoc Social Media Management causes:

  • Wasted resources on ineffective social media channels.
  • Missed opportunities to capture customer insights.
  • Inconsistent communication to prospects and customers.
  • Insufficient employee guidance for acceptable social media usage.
  • Duplication of effort across business units.
  • Poorly defined roles and responsibilities.

Social Media Research & Tools


Workshop: Social Media

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Do-It-Yourself Implementation

The slides in this Best Practice Blueprint will walk you step-by-step through every phase of your project with supporting tools and templates ready for you to use.

Download Workshop Outline

Project Accelerator Workshop

You can also use this Best Practice Blueprint to facilitate your own project accelerator workshop within your organization using the workshop slides and facilitation instructions provided in the Appendix.


Module 1: Setting Your Objectives for Social Media

The Purpose

  • Understand the major trends and benefits of developing a social media business plan.
  • Determine success of current social media efforts.
  • Establish department-level social media business objectives.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify areas for improvement within social media efforts.
  • A comprehensive, prioritized list of business objectives.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Harness the social media value proposition.

  • Current status assessment results
1.2

Assess current social media efforts.

  • List of capability gaps
1.3

Set social media objectives.

  • Business objective list

Included Resources


Setting Your Objectives for Social Media
Social Media Business Plan Template

Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool

Module 2: Leveraging Social Media for Marketing and Sales

The Purpose

  • Assess the social media maturity of sales and marketing.
  • Select social media channels for the sales and marketing groups.
  • Integrate social media into existing business processes.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify areas for improvement within social media efforts specific to marketing and sales.
  • A recommended list of social media services for sales and marketing based on customer demographics and organization goals.
  • A refined workflow map incorporating social media into marketing and sales business processes.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Build a social channel market coverage model.

  • Marketing and sales social media maturity assessment
2.2

Select social media channels for the sales and marketing groups.

  • Marketing and sales social media services recommendations
2.3

Use social media to sell to prospects and customers.

  • Sample marketing messages
2.4

Select social services to integrate with sales.

  • Sample sales messages
2.5

Embed social media into the sales process.

  • Social media workflow map
2.6

Capture market insights through social channels.

Included Resources


Leveraging Social Media for Marketing and Sales
Social Media Service Selection Tool

Module 3: Enable Customer Service Using Social Media

The Purpose

  • Assess the social media maturity of customer service.
  • Select social media channels for the customer service group.
  • Integrate social media into existing customer service processes.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify areas for improvement within social media efforts specific to customer service.
  • A recommended list of social media services for customer service based on customer demographics and organization goals.
  • A refined workflow map incorporating social media into customer service business processes.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Execute customer service in a social world.

  • Customer service social media maturity assessment
3.2

Incorporate social media into customer initiated service.

  • Customer service social media services recommendations
3.3

Scan the social cloud for proactive service opportunities.

  • Common issue response problem
3.4

Help your customers help each other.

  • Watchword list
  • Social media workflow map
  • Rewards and recognition strategy

Included Resources


Enable Customer Service Using Social Media

Module 4: Technology Enablement for Your Social Media Strategy

The Purpose

  • Understand the benefits of deploying a social media management platform.
  • Assess your social analytics maturity.
  • Review social media management platform vendors.
  • Develop a social analytics plan to track and monitor success of social media.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • An evaluation of current social media analytics maturity.
  • A customized social media management platform vendor shortlist.
  • A robust list of social media KPI specific to marketing, sales, customer service, human resources, and public relations.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Making the case for a social media management platform.

  • Social media management platform vendor shortlist
4.2

Select a social media management platform vendor.

  • Social media management platform RFP
4.3

Develop a social analytics plan.

  • Social analytics maturity assessment
  • KPI list
  • Social analytics business plan

Included Resources


Technology Enablement for Your Social Media Strategy
Social Media Management Platform Vendor Shortlist and Detailed Feature Analysis Tool

Social Analytics Business Plan
Social Analytics Specialist

Module 5: Social Media Governance and Change Management

The Purpose

  • Establish a social media steering committee.
  • Identify implementation risks and create mitigation strategies.
  • Develop a stakeholder communication plan.
  • Identify when to revisit the social media strategy.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Ensure IT and business units have appropriate representation on steering committee.
  • All roles affected by social media are identified and a plan to communicate change and train end-users is established.
  • Proactively identify risks and develop mitigation strategies and contingency plans.

Activities

Outputs

5.1

Put strong governance in place for social media.

  • Roles and responsibilities list
5.2

Mitigate the risks of social media.

  • Social media steering committee charter
5.3

Communicating change around social media initiatives.

  • Risk mitigation strategy
  • Communication plan
  • Training framework

Included Resources


Social Media Governance and Change Management
Social Analytics Specialist

Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template
Social Media Acceptable Use Policy

Blogging and Microblogging Guidelines Template
Social Media Representative

Social Media Manager


Social Media

A Workshop to Develop Your Strategy

Beyond practical research – workshops get you to results

Workshops: leverage best-practices research and get to action
  • Unlike other research firms, we believe it’s important to help our members implement improvements.
  • We offer a 40-hour workshop that allows you to make systematic improvements to your core processes.
  • Workshops are designed to help focus attention, create alignment, and ensure best practices are put to work at your organization.
  • Our workshops help you get to immediate impact and results and are tailored to your situation and needs.
Workshops: focused on you implementing improvements
  • The goal of each capability optimization workshop is to create tangible benefits and clear improvements as a direct result of the workshop.
  • Specific deliverables, goals, metrics, and outcomes are established for each workshop.
  • Successful workshops will leverage our years of analyst experience and written research to provide an engaging experience that focuses on implementing and getting to measurable results.
  • Each workshop begins by diagnosing the current state and then focuses on designing high-impact improvements based on best-practices research.
  • Three- and six-month follow-ups will occur to ensure benefit realization.
Cycle titled 'Capability Optimization Workshop' with steps 'Diagnose Current State', 'Right-Sizing Process', 'Process Design', 'Implementation Support', and 'Measuring Benefits'.
Info-Tech workshops provide the best practices and implementation support necessary to help an IT leader build a world-class IT operation.

Social media is ubiquitous with your customers: it is imperative to have an active and concerted presence on social!

Social media facilitates the creation and sharing of user-generated content.
  • Social media has rapidly displaced traditional e-channels as consumers’ preferred method of interacting with each other and with organizations.
  • Companies must fish where the fish are.
  • If your customers are social media savvy, having a strategy for leveraging these channels is imperative.
  • Social media channels should be used to complement and strengthen existing customer interaction channels.
A line of social media icons such as hashtags, hearts, and likes.
Social media by the numbers:
  • 58.4% of the world’s population uses social media (Smart Insights, 2022).
  • By 2024, 6 out of every 10 people on the planet will be social media users – that means over 4.75 billion people will have a social network account (FinancesOnline, 2022).
  • Users spend an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media daily (Smart Insights, 2022).
  • The seven most popular social networks in the world (Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and TikTok) all have over 1 billion monthly active users (Statusbrew, 2021).
  • Millennials and Gen-Z are the most “digitally connected” generations. The average millennial and member of Gen-Z has 8.4 social media accounts (Backlinko, 2021).
  • 77% of millennials and Gen-Z shop on social platforms (Forbes, 2021).
  • 97% of marketers are using social media to reach their audiences (LYFE Marketing, 2019).

The social media concept model

Diagram of the social media concept model. 'The Social Cloud' with recognizable platforms is above with 'Engagement' feeding into it from the right and it 'Listening' to the engagers. On the left it connects to the table of 'Social Media Governance' below with columns 'People', 'Processes', and 'Technology'.

An overview of the social media workshop

Module Goals Outcomes
Module 1:
Setting Your Business Objectives for Social Media
  • Understand the business case for using social media across the organization
  • Inventory your current social media efforts
  • Gauge your current social media maturity
  • Identify and prioritize top goals
  • Social Media Current State Assessment
  • Rank-Ordered Social Media Objectives
Module 2:
Leveraging Social Media for Marketing and Sales
  • Effectively map and embed social media into marketing and sales processes
  • Apply best practices for each domain
  • Marketing Assessment and Social Media Business Plan
  • Sales Assessment and Social Media Business Plan
Module 3:
Enable Customer Service Using Social Media
  • Effectively map and embed social media into customer service processes to proactively serve your customer base
  • Apply best practices for customer service
  • Customer Service Assessment and Social Business Plan
  • Social Media Acceptable Use Policy for Service Reps
Module 4:
Technology Enablement for Your Social Media Strategy
  • Select and deploy an SMM and/or social-enabled CRM platform
  • Develop procedures for a world-class social analytics program
  • SMMP RFP and Demo Script
  • Social Analytics Maturity Assessment
Module 5:
Social Media Governance and Change Management
  • Create the right social media governance structures (e.g. the SM Steering Committee)
  • Understand how to communicate change initiatives involving social media
  • Social Media Steering Committee Charter
  • Social Media Usage Policies
  • Change Management Plan

Module 1 – Setting your business objectives for social media

1.1 Harness the Social Media Value Proposition

  • Chart the rise of social for customer interaction
  • Understand the social technology landscape
  • Listen and engage through social media
  • Leverage the power of social influencers

1.2 Assess Current Social Media Efforts

  • Inventory current social media initiatives
  • Assess the current state for social usage
  • Place the organization on the maturity model

1.3 Set Social Media Objectives

  • Understand the goal-setting process
  • Set objectives for marketing, PR, sales, customer service, and human resources
  • Prioritize business objectives

Module 2 (Part 1) – Leveraging social media for marketing

2.1.1 Leverage Social Media for Marketing

  • Engage and listen to your customers
  • Build awareness and capture insights
  • Assess marketing’s maturity for social

2.1.2 Build a Social Channel Market Coverage Model

  • Set brand-level objectives and prioritize
  • Determine social-savvy target markets
  • Build the market coverage model

2.1.3 Optimize Your Brand Message for Social Media

  • Understand social media messaging
  • Tips for creating shareable messages
  • Optimize your message by segment

2.1.4 Capture Market Insights Through Social Channels

  • Use social media for marketing analytics
  • Craft product insight workflows with social
  • Leverage social media for public relations

Module 2 (Part 2) – Leveraging social media for sales

2.2.1 Use Social Media to Sell to Prospects and Customers

  • Review objectives for selling with social media
  • Leverage social media across the sales lifecycle
  • Assess sales’ maturity for social media

2.2.3 Embed Social Media Channels Into the Sales Process

  • Identify points to embed social media
  • Adapt messages for different decision makers

2.2.4 Capture Data Across the Customer Life Cycle

  • Use social analytics for sales enablement
  • Keep CRM data fresh using social media
  • Use social media to upsell DMs

Module 3 – Enable customer service using social media

3.1 Execute Customer Service in a Social World

  • Leverage social for different service types
  • Examine different use cases for social media
  • Gauge current service maturity for social media

3.2 Incorporate Social Media Into Customer-Initiated Service

  • Improve customer-initiated service
  • Build a response plan
  • Determine escalation policies and rules
  • Promote your customer-initiated social media service

3.3 Scan the Social Cloud for Proactive Service Opportunities

  • Take advantage of proactive service
  • Determine keywords and service coverage
  • Map proactive CS workflows
  • Train customer service reps on social media

3.4 Help Your Customers Help Each Other

  • Use peer-to-peer support to manage costs
  • Set your peer-to-peer use case scenarios
  • Rewards and recognition for peer-to-peer
  • Set a policy for CSKM

Module 4 – Technology enablement for social media

4.1 Making the Case for an SMMP

  • Understand the value of an SMMP
  • Integrate SMMP with your CRM
  • Select an SMMP deployment model

4.2 Select a Social Media Management Platform Vendor

  • Review vendor landscape
  • Review RFP template and vendor scoring tool
  • Complete vendor demonstration scripts

4.3 Develop a Social Analytics Business Plan

  • Assess your social analytics maturity
  • Select your social media KPIs
  • Complete the social analytics business plan
Social Media preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Talk to an Analyst

Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.

Book an Analyst Call on This Topic

You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert

Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.

Unlock Sample Research

Authors

Ben Dickie

Sean Burkett

Visit our IT Cost Optimization Center
Over 100 analysts waiting to take your call right now: 1-519-432-3550 x2019