MIB605- Lecture 11

Strategic Planning with Social Media

Prof. Cui
Learning Objectives

 Strategic Planning and Social Media Marketing Planning

 Three phases of social media marketing maturity

 Social Media Planning Process

 The social media policy

 Develop a Planning Structure in the Organization

Strategic Planning and Social Media Marketing Planning

• Marketing Planning is a written, formalized plan that details the product, pricing,
distribution, and promotional strategies that will enable the brand in question to
accomplish specific marketing objectives.

• Strategic Planning is the process of identifying objectives to accomplish, deciding

how to accomplish those objectives with specific strategies and tactics, implementing
the actions that make the plan come to life, and measuring how well the plan met the
objectives.
Social Media Marketing Planning
Most Social media marketing plan is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a
product or service.

Most of these social media platforms have their own built-in data analysis tools, which enable
companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of social media process.

On a strategic level, social media marketing plan includes the management of the implementation of a
marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope and the establishment of a firm's desired social
media "culture" and "tone".

identify the overall objective develop the specific tactics they will use reach goals

Functional
Corporate
Business level areas of the
level (mission)
organization
Characteristics of social media marketing planning

 Social media can be a communication tool to create buzz and e-word of

mouth communication, which deliver promotion offers to customers.
Consumers interact with the social website directly, which can be more
popular to users.

 Of the top ten factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search,
seven are relate to the social media. If brands are less active on social media,
they tend to be less on internet search.

 Social media also serve as an efficient way to manage customer service

relationships and build relations with loyal consumers.
Structure of marketing plan VS social media marketing plan
Typical marketing plan Social media marketing plan
Internal environment Internal environment
External environment External environment
SWOT SWOT
— Set marketing objectives
— Gather target audience
4P Strategies Create social media zones and vehicles
• target and positioning • community zone strategies
• product • publishing zone strategies
• pricing • entertainment zone strategies
• promotional • commerce zone strategies
• supply chain
Implement plan Create an experience strategy
—Manage and measure Establish plan
— Manage and measure
Social media marketing maturity in three phases

• Many marketers currently use social media marketing tactics without that level of
maturity. Many just experiment with infant stage (like creating a Facebook page)
rather than include social media as a fundamental component of their marketing
strategy.

• A major study of marketers in both Europe and North America found huge differences
in the level to which respondents use social media and integrate it with their other
initiatives.
Social media marketing maturity in three phases

• Companies are eager to jump into the social media game, but many still in the
process of figuring out just how these approaches can go beyond the novelty stage
and actually help them to meet their objectives.

• In 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmarking Report surveyed 2,300 marketers.

The findings suggest that marketers are spread among three phases(trial, transition,
and strategic) of social media marketing adoption.

Trial Transition Strategic

Phase Phase Phase
The Steps of Building a Strategic Social Media Planning
Situational Analysis: LU an example!
The MIBMSc program on Facebook and Wechat!
 Review the firm’s environmental and SWOT analysis
The internal environment refers to the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.
The external consists of those elements outside the organization-the opportunities and threats
currently occurring in the whole industry.
 Reviewing the existing marketing plan and any other information
can be obtained about the company

 Review the competitors approach

 Reviewing the firm’s objectives, strategies, and performance metrics

Situational Analysis: Benjamin Moore
With a history going back to 1883, recognized as a manufacturer of high quality premium paints and finishes,
Benjamin Moore has weathered many changes in the “build” and “home improvement” industries. However, the
recent past has been difficult for the brand as it faced a challenging external environment and limited internal
resources for brand building.

As the United States dealt with a debilitating housing and construction slump, sales of paints and finishes declined.
Not only did demand fall, but buyers were more price-sensitive. As a premium paint brand, the company was
hesitant to discount on price-though the leading competitor offer big discount for customers.

To add salt to the wound, other premium paint brands had much bigger budgets for promotional spending. But
here’s a case where an apparent weakness presents an opportunity: Necessity is the mother of invention, as the
saying goes. Because they had high budgets to buy advertising in traditional media, competitors had not yet tapped
social media as a promotional channel. For instance, Duron Paint and Valspar both had Facebook pages, but both
brands had under 200 friends and low levels of activity.
SWOT Analysis
Benjamin Moore’s SWOT Analysis

Strength: Weakness:
• Loyal customers • High price point
• High brand equity • Limited media budget
• Unsolicited testimonials from design
community
• Quality products
• High levels of earned media in traditional
media outlets

Opportunities:
• Social media as a cost-efficient channel
• Do-it-self mentality
• Competitors focused on traditional media
or in trial stage of social media marketing
Threats:
• Declining demand in hard-hit industries
• Competition with large media budgets and
lower-priced products
 The return of confidence unleashes a consumer rebound

Leisure travel bounces back but business travel lags

The crisis sparks a wave of innovation and launches a generation of entrepreneurs

Digitally enabled productivity gains accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Pandemic-induced changes in shopping behavior forever alter consumer businesses

Supply chains rebalance and shift

more than 20 percent of the global workforce could work the majority of its time
away from the office—and be just as effective.

Green, with a touch of brown, is the color of recovery

65 percent or more say they intend to continue new ways of shopping, conspicuous lack of brand loyalty among online buyers.
Identify Social Media Marketing Objective and Set Budgets
Increase brand awareness

Improve brand or product reputation

Increase website traffic

Budgets Objectives Amplify or augment public relations work

Against which to be Improve search engine rankings

measured!
The characteristics of a well-stated objective
Improve perceived customer service quality
 Be measurable
Generate sales leads
 Include a time line
 Be specific (what, who, when, where)
 Specify the desired change (from a baseline) Reduce customer acquisition and support costs
 Be consistent and realistic
(given other corporate activities and resources) Increase sales(sales revenue)
Identify Social Media Marketing Objective and Set Budgets
Social Media Objectives
Phase I: Trial Phase II: Transition Phase III: Strategic
8%
Increase sales revenue 8%
15%

Reduce customer support cost

8%
11%
18%
Results to deliver
Reduce customer acquisition costs
6%
14%
22%
兑现
17%
Increase lead generation 19%
30%
24%
Improve customer support quality 23%
33%
27%
Improve search engine rankings 28%
34%
33%
Improve public relations 42%
49%
33%
Increase website traffic 33%
52%
34%
Improve brand or product repuation 43%
52%
40%
Increase brand or product awareness 47%
63%
 Set Social Media Marketing Budgets
Other online
Online display
marketing
advertsing
Search 6%
6%
engine
Social
optimization
media
SEO
11% Social media is not free?
10%

Where will this money be spent?

Email Website
19% 27%

Paid search
21%

Marketing Budget Allocated to Social Media

Components of Every Social Media Budget
 Software and tools （Facebook WeChat）
An all-in-one social media management Software
and tools
 Management
The person or team management fees
Campaigns
 Creative and Branding and
promotions
Management

Design the look and feel of your online presence

social
 Content
Hire freelance copywriters and copy editors media
budget
 Paid advertising Creative
Paid
Promote social message performs well
advertising and
• Cost per click (CPC) Branding
• Cost per a thousand impressions (CPM)

 Campaigns and promotions Content

Hire an agency or consultant to help launch and drive the campaign
Software and tools - Hootsuite
How should it allocate?
1. Variation method Start-up costs
allocates a percentage of online marketing Planning and development $25,000
funding to social media. Training for blogger $10,000
Ongoing costs (annual)
2. Competitive parity method Blogging platform $25,000
uses competitors’ spending as a benchmark. Brand-monitoring service $50,000
IT support $3,000
3. Objective-and-task method Content production $150,000
considers the objectives set out for the Review and redirection $20,000
campaign and determines the cost estimates
Total costs for first year $283,000
for accomplishing each objective.
An Illustrative Budget for a Corporate Blog
Profile the Target Audience of Social Consumers

• The target market for the brand will have been defined in the brand’s marketing plan in terms of
demographic, geodemographic, psychographic, and product-usage characteristics.
• It will include the market’s social activities and styles such as their level of social media
participation, the channels they utilize and the communities in which they are active, and their
behavior in social communities.
• The strategic planner must assess what it means to speak to the audience in the social media
space.
• Who is the core target?
• How can we describe the key segments of that core target?
• To whom will the conversations in social media be directed?
• How do they use social media? （text， video）
• How do they interact with other brands?
• The insights from the consumer profile that was done for brand’s overall marketing and marcom
plans will be useful to understand the overall profile of the target market.
Profile the Target Audience of Social Consumers

Planner should understand:

Industry End
Professionals Consumers Differences

Do-it-yourselves Two existing markets

Architects (remodeling,
Contractors renovation,
construction) Platform

Premium choice: Interested in Strategy

working with
paints & finishes designer
How and when to interact in communities
Select Social Media Channels and Vehicles

Industry End
Link(off-site) Professionals Consumers
Facebook Post
Select Social Media Channels and Vehicles
SMO (Flickr photostream)
Industry
Professionals
Select Social media channels and vehicles

SMO (Flickr photostream)

Industry
Professionals
 Paid media
Drive traffic

Owned Media: Paid Media:

• BenjaminMoore.com • Magazine ads

• Living in Color blog • Co-branding with
• Facebook profile and other brandings
Experts Exchange posts
• YouTube channel
• Retail storefronts

Social Media platform and seeding technologies

Earned Media:

• Influence impressions generated throughout social web You are seen as an

• Influence posts shared via Benjamin Moore’s social experts important source
• Questions and comments posted by brand fans to Facebook
Wall and to Experts Exchange, and as comments to social of information and
publishing on blog. YouTube, and Flickr. an influencer!
Select Social Media Channels and Vehicles

Once the organization understands who it wants to reach, it’s time to select the
best social media mix to accomplish this. The zones of social media make up
the channel and vehicle choices available for social media mix.
Create an Experience Strategy
In Benjamin Moore’s case, the brand’s position is the choice of experts and the social persona that supports that
position

Invite experts to do endorsement for this brand

Establish Campaign Timeline: GANTT chart

For social media, though, campaigns are not necessarily events with fixed start
and stop dates. Conversations in communities continue over time, and a
brand’s social media marketing presence should do this as well. This is
particularly true for brands that rely on social media for customer service and
customer relationship management.
Establish Campaign Timeline
Brand implements a social media marketing campaign for a specific period of time.
 Consider the movie actress Julia Roberts with great fanfare in 2010.
 The timing of the social media marketing strategies and tactics were tied to launch date for the movie in
theaters; this allowed time for people to spread the word, talk about the book, and make plans to see the
movie.
Execute and Measure Outcomes
• The initial imperative is to have
a presence in the community
of interest
• Brand assets are underutilized
and underperforming in terms
of the objectives set for the
campaign
• To take it successful, the brand
must be active in the space
Staffing
Content
• The failure to introduce new,
fresh, relevant content and
develop interactivity, respond to
visitor feedback
• Require an ongoing human
resources commitment to make
it success.
• Take months to build awareness
or fail.
• The overall effectiveness and
efficiency of the social model can
be well worth the patience and
resources required.
Time Horizon
Execute and Measure Outcomes:
-- data on identifies, clicks (attribution) and other metrics
such as conversion!
• Focus on desired outcomes
rather than action steps .
Take a short-term tactical
approach rather than long-
term strategic approach.
• Social media-the value lies in
accomplishing marketing
objectives.
Focus of
objectives
Benefits to
Users
• Emphasizing the growth and
• Social media lives or dies on the popularity of the media as
quality of the content reason enough to develop a
Increase
• How will weengagement by
distribute our content? presence in the space.
responding • Measuring outcomes ensures
• How can wetoengage
comments
target on
Twitter and Facebook within
audiences? that the organizations is
learning from what worked
24 hours
• How canofweposting,
develop anposting
ongoing and what didn’t.
streamstatus
three of relevant, fresh content?
updates per
business day, and adding Measurement
links to social media accounts
on the corporate blog.”
The social media policy (can, cannot, how, like in D&G)
A social media policy is an organizational document that explains the rules and
procedures for social media activity for the organization and its employees.

If you plan to tweet about any professional matters (such as about the
business of Microsoft or other companies), in addition to referencing your
Microsoft email address, whenever possible use the service’s profile or
contact information to assert that you are a Microsoft employee and/or
affiliated with a specific group or team at Microsoft.

Whether in the actual or virtual world, your interactions and discourse

should be respectful. For example, when you are in a virtual world as a Sun
representative, your avatar should dress and speak professionally. We all
appreciate actual respect.

Consider content that’s open-ended and invites response. Encourage

comments. You can broaden the on vernation by citing others who are blogging
about the same topic and allowing your content to be shared or syndicated. If
you make a mistake, admit it. Be upfront, and be quick with your
correction. If you’re posting a blog, you may choose to modify an earlier
post-just make it clear that you have done so.
 Standards of conduct

 At a minimum, all
online statements about about the business be honest
and transparent.

 Further, good manners must be used in social communities.

Disclosure requirements
When using posts on social networks, It is
recommended that the poster use hashtags
#ad #sponsored to disclose the nature of
relationships reflected in the posts. If they
are receiving material compensation or gifts
in exchange for posting, this must be
disclosed.

Disclosing affiliations ensures that readers

can still find the posts credible and
trustworthy. (hashtags vs. full disclosure)
Respect for and Protection of Consumer Privacy and Customer Data
Not to be monetized without consent!
Develop a Planning Structure in the Organization
Who “owns” social media within an organization?
 A discipline “silo” (marketing department, PR)
 A center of excellence model that pulls people with different kinds of expertise from the
organization to participate. （Intel and American Express）
Three basic organizational structures to support social media marketing. This eliminates the
internal political issues relating to who in the company has primary responsibility for social media.

Businesses should take decisions on the level of resources to dedicate because

social media is an ongoing conversation. Some businesses dedicate multiple
employees to manage the conversation calendar whereas others assign a single
person to improve social media situation.
Three basic models for social media structure

The social media department

function at a senior level that
report to the CMO or CEO and is
responsible for all the social media
activations.
 Centralized structure
Risk: customer care may not be
good if social media marketing is
under marketing department rather
than customer service department.
 No one owns social media. So
all employees represent the
brand and work social media
 Distributed structure into their roles. This is
implemented by training.
Rish: Tools can end up off
message.
This involves both centralized
practices and decentralized
process. The brand establish a
committee of social media
 Combination structure
leaders to make decisions on
the social media position and
v o i c e , and spread in the
company.
The L’Oreal Case:
L'Oreal encourages its staff to use the hashtag #lifeatloreal to
showcase the culture of the organisation.

The fairly obvious thinking is that this organisational

transparency will help with recruitment but also retention, by
putting all the perks of the job front and centre.

This is an incredibly simple tactic, and one that other brands

have adopted, too (see Oracle, Google, Deloitte and many
more. -- Policies, briefing, training, management!

empower 赋能
The NASA Case
(or NSF live streaming on Laddible/Facebook):

NASA’s social media is just as inventive and compelling as their space missions
NASA has over 500 distinct social media accounts.

It’s a bottom-up approach, where all those accounts and programs work directly
with their center leads.
“When new content comes in, we have a really strong calendar to tell us when stuff
is coming down the pipes.”
BREAK

• Followed by leading discussion group 8