Mapping out our Social Media Strategy (with a Purpose!)

You may have seen our tweets or Facebook posts describing the excitement over our new social media strategy and integrated tools. It’s great to be live.

If you haven’t yet – check out our Facebook Fan pages and become a fan! While you’re at it, follow us on Twitter.

It wasn’t an instant process to get here. We knew that building a social media presence would mean more than setting up a profile and letting it sit. We also knew that building the tools without a goal and purpose would be a waste of resources. Our participation in social media has started with a strategy and some great conversations on what we want to do with these tools.

The challenge we faced was reaching out to and engaging multiple stakeholders in the social media tools they are using. We knew to be successful, we must be where they are online.

Otherwise, how do you capture attention and build a conversation knowing the interests of your audience varies greatly? Some people (still) love email. Others live in Facebook. Lots have flocked to Twitter. Others surf on Youtube all day.

So how do you ensure that each of the profiles update regularly with engaging content and link back to our other sites?  Without a well thought out strategy, the mere thought of maintaining a meaningful presence is exhausting. But as you’ll see from the diagram below, we sat back for a moment to visualize where people are and what tools they are using.

At the end of this exercise, we’ve determined that Facebook will serve as our “hub” which connects to, and grabs content from, our other tools.

Our blog updates to our Timeraiser and Civic Footprint Facebook pages, users can view our Tweets and LinkedIn group through Facebook and the blog, and watch our Youtube videos right in Facebook.  It’s all connected.

Now that we know how each of the tools fit together, it’s time to begin building valuable content.  Once we’ve established ourselves in these tools, we’ll begin to measure their success.

We have written detailed strategies for each social media tool; we’d love for you to check them out and let us know your thoughts.  You can find our detailed strategies in our Technology and Operations Portal. In the coming weeks we’ll be blogging about some of our specific strategies with each tool – stay tuned for a Twitter posting schedule, coming soon.

What does your Social Media Strategy look like?  What are your thoughts on our approach?  Drop us a line and let us know what you think.