Chapter 4: Social media marketing strategy
Chapter overview
Chapter 4 introduces the strategic planning process which guides the development of social
media marketing strategy – whether a part of an overall integrated marketing communications
(IMC) plan or as a stand-alone social media marketing campaign plan. A sample social media
marketing strategy plan is provided in the appendix of the text.
The steps in the strategic planning process are illustrated using coverage of GT’s Living Foods’
comprehensive social media marketing plan.
The chapter also reviews the general structure for social media marketing responsibilities
within organisations and social media policies to govern employee behaviour.
Teaching tips and resources
Instructors may wish to assign teams to create social media marketing plans as a semester
project. These plans may utilise local clients (i.e. client-based projects) or follow materials
provided by competitions like that provided by Marketing EDGE each year. In my experience,
full strategic plans are best assigned for graduate courses while undergraduate students benefit
from more numerous activities of smaller scope.
• Ask students to complete a social media audit using the template provided in Figure
4.1. Note this can be part of a larger plan assignment or a more simple activity tied
to the chapter.
Hootsuite Academy offers social media marketing instructors and their students the access to
its video tutorials and certifications. The basic level certification is free for students in a registered
course.
Learning objectives
When students finish reading this chapter, they will be able to answer these questions:
1. Where does social media marketing planning fit into an organisation’s overall
planning framework?
2. What are the phases of social media marketing maturity? How does social media
marketing change for companies as they shift from the trial phase to the transition
phase and eventually move into the strategic phase?
3. What are the steps in social media marketing strategic planning?
Chapter outline
I. Strategic Planning and Social Media Marketing
• 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.
• IMC plans or marcom plans provide in-depth detail on the execution of the
(traditional) promotional portion of a brand’s marketing plan.
• Table 4.2 provides the structure of a social media marketing plan.
A. The Phases of Social Media Marketing Maturity
1. Stunts are one-off ploys designed to get attention and press coverage.
2. Social media marketing maturity is a result of time and experience, in that
we tend to see applications that start as one-time ‘experiments’ often morph
into more long-term and carefully thought-out elements that the organisation
integrates with all the other communication pieces it uses to reach customers.
3. Three phases of maturity
• The trial phase is the first phase. Organisations test out social media
platforms, but they don’t really consider how social media can play a role
in the overall marketing plan.
II. Social Media Campaigns: The Strategic Planning Process
A. Situation Analysis
1. The situation analysis details the current problem or opportunity the organisation
faces. It will typically include a social media audit.
2. Figure 4.1 provides the social media audit template.
4. The internal environment refers to the strengths and weaknesses of the
organisation – the controllable elements inside a firm that influence how well the
firm operates.
5. The external environment consists of those elements outside the organisation –
the organisation’s opportunities and threats – that may affect its choices and
capabilities.
B. Identify Social Media Marketing Objectives and Set Budgets
1. An objective is a specific statement about a planned social media activity in terms
of what that activity intends to accomplish.
2. A well-stated, actionable objective should include the following characteristics:
• Be specific (what, who when, where).
3. Social media is not free. In planning a social media campaign, a budget must be
allocated that ensures sufficient resources to accomplish the goals – just like in a
traditional ad program.
C. Profile the Target Audience of Social Customers
1. Social media profiles include demographic, geodemographic, psychographic and
product-usage characteristics.
2. The strategic planner must assess what it means to speak to the audience in
the social media space. However, the planner also must understand how and
when his or her customers interact in online social communities, as well as which
devices they use to do so.
D. Select Social Media Channels and Vehicles
1. The social media mix describes the combination of vehicles the strategy will
include to attain the organisation’s objectives.
2. The options are chosen from the four zones of social media: relationship
development in social communities, social publishing, social entertainment and
social commerce.
• Figure 4.3 illustrates Honda’s zones of social media marketing.
E. Create Experience Strategy
1. Message strategy refers to the creative approach we will use throughout the
campaign.
2. A positioning statement is a single written statement that encapsulates the
position the brand wishes to hold in the minds of its target audience.
6. Discovery is the term used to describe the research stage of the plan. Planners
may rely on secondary and primary research as they seek to discover insights that
will be useful to the creative team. These insights will be presented to the team
during the briefing. The creative team will then go through a process of ideation
and concepting. Eventually the chosen ideas will be further refined and designed,
and prototypes or mock-ups will be developed.
7. The brand is represented in social media as a social persona. The social persona
may be the brand’s corporate image or a spokescharacter.
F. Integrate with other Promotional Components and Establish Campaign
Timeline
1. Campaigns are not necessarily events with fixed start and stop dates.
2. Campaigns can mix short- and long-term goals.
G. Execute and Measure Outcomes
1. There are several common mistakes made in social media marketing.
• Have a presence in the community of interest. Focusing on presence can
result in brand assets that are underutilised and underperforming in terms of
the objectives set for the campaign.
III. Managing Social Media Marketing in the Organisation
A. The Social Media Policy
1. A social media policy is an organisational document that explains the rules and
procedures for social media activity for the organisation and its employees.
2. Organisations must decide on:
• Standards of conduct
• Disclosure requirements
• Standards for posting intellectual property, financial information and
copyrighted information
B. An Organisational Structure to Support Social Media
1. A centre of excellence model pulls people with different kinds of expertise from
across the organisation to participate.
2. Table 4.4 provides guidelines.
3. There are five basic models for social media structure:
1. In the centralised structure, the social media department functions at a
senior level that reports to the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) or CEO and
is responsible for all the social media activations.
2. In the organic structure, no one person owns social media. Instead, all
employees represent the brand and work social media into their roles.
C. Social Media Management Systems
1. Regardless of the structure a company uses or the policy it develops, it must also
devise a day-to-day system for managing social media activities, tracking content
from development to distribution, managing social ad campaigns, analysing
effectiveness, monitoring and listening and capturing and analysing social data for
market research.
2. HootSuite offers a useful system and people can become certified in HootSuite. If
you haven’t done so yet, check out HootSuiteAcademy.
IV. A Framework for Strategic Social Media Marketing
A. The framework for social media marketing describes an organisation’s use of
social media marketing along four dimensions:
1. Scope – Does the organisation use social media marketing internally and
externally to collaborate with stakeholders or is social media predominantly
limited to use as an external communications channel?
B. Figure 4.6 illustrates the strategic social media marketing framework.
Chapter summary
1. Where does social media marketing planning fit into an organisation’s overall planning
framework?
Social media marketing should be a part of an organisation’s marketing plan. Like IMC plans,
2. What are the phases of social media marketing maturity? How does social media
marketing change for companies as they shift from the trial phase to the transition phase
and eventually move into the strategic phase?
The phases of social media marketing maturity are trial, transition and strategic. In the trial phase,
organisations are pursuing social media tactics in an ad hoc manner, with a focus on gaining
3. What are the steps in social media marketing strategic planning?
The social media marketing strategic planning process consists of the following steps:
• Conduct a situation analysis and identify key opportunities.
• State objectives.
4. How can organisations structure themselves to support social media marketing?
Companies can structure themselves as centralised, decentralised, hub and spoke, dandelion, or
5. What are the key components of an organisational social media policy, and why is it
important to have such a policy in place?
Policies may include several guidelines such as standards of conduct, disclosure requirements and