Strategy models: the pbsm.strategy model for social media

Strategy models

Definition strategy models

Strategy models are toolboxes for strategy development that contain a methodological framework and processes for strategy development that make strategy development more tangible and easier.

Benefit strategy models

The advantage of strategy models lies in their methodologically sound approach. Strategy models are or should be self-contained and causal and logical in their effects and benefits.

When we work with such valid strategy models, we no longer have to deal with methodological issues such as the completeness of our strategy elements and their causal relationships. The method guides us through the necessary processes and makes chains of effects and interactions recognizable and usable.

Disadvantages and risks from working without a strategy model

If we work without a valid strategy model, we run the risk of not taking necessary elements into account or not weighting them sufficiently and have to ensure the causality of effect and benefit “manually”. This requires significantly more experience and overview.

Social media strategy

Explanation social media strategy

We define a social media strategy as a course of action and behavior with which we as a company use the potential of social media to an individually defined extent in order to achieve corporate goals that can be realized through social media (opportunities) and to reduce the risks that have arisen and arise from social media.

The strategy is defined by the social media performance potentials for the company and its business model and how we use these – within the scope of our possibilities / resources and competitive situation – for our (corporate) goals.

The social media strategy is part of the corporate strategy – in other words, a sub-strategy. This reminds us that social media should contribute to business success. The company’s success is based on its business model. The social media strategy thus leverages the performance potential of social media for the success of the business model.

pbsm.strategy model

Here, the potential-based strategy model is presented based on its distinction from conventional methods of strategy development.

Components of the pbsm.strategy model

Strategy development begins and is based on the social media performance potential and proceeds through the analysis of the business model and the benefits of social media for the business model to the resulting options of action in social media (for the realization of the selected benefits from social media) to strategy definition and strategy evaluation. The contents of the modules are described below.

The pbsm.strategy model is based on the modules

1	Social media performance potential	The performance potential of social media for companies structured according to the most important elements with which impact is achieved.
2	Social media performance potential for the business model	The performance potential of social media for a specific business model.
3	Options for action	A company’s options of action in order to realize a specific benefit through social media for its business model in a specific competitive situation.
4	Strategy components	The elements with which a strategy achieves impact in social media and the resulting elements for day-to-day business and strategy management.
5	Strategy definition	The definition of a strategy to achieve defined benefits for the business model according to the company’s priorities and resources.
6	Strategy evaluation	The evaluation of defined strategy drafts / strategy versions based on their benefits, requirements and risks.

The content of the developed social media strategy itself consists of the following strategy components

1	Topics and subject areas	The topics and subject areas are, figuratively speaking, the field in which we can create value and must compete.
2	User benefit	The benefit to the user from the social media strategy that delivers or supports attention, support, engagement and motivation.
3	CorporateBenefits	The concrete corporate benefits that are to be realized with the social media strategy.
4	Social media usage formats	The social media usage formats used for the strategy.
5	Social media channels	The social media channels used for the strategy.
6	Participation.	The participation offerings and structures for users and their benefits for users and the company.
7	Motivation.	The motivational methods and structures with which the social media strategy works and by which it is supported.
8	Competition	The competition that the strategy must face and the strategy’s competitors.
9	Communication	The cornerstones of communicating our strategy.
10	Range	The required scope of the strategy and its quality.
11	Target groups	The target groups we want to reach via the strategy.
12	Targets	The goals of the strategy and its KPIs.
13	Resources	The resource requirements from the strategy.
14	Prerequisites, assumptions, risks	The conditions and assumptions for the success of the strategy and the risks associated with the strategy.

The strategy components include the respective measures required for the implementation of the strategy in social media such as the management of the strategy.

Benefits and advantages of the pbsm

Valid strategy model

The pbsm.strategy model is a self-contained method based on the performance potential and the resulting potential benefits of social media for business models.

Benefits for the overall success of the company

The method presents the possible benefits of social media for business models in great detail and maps the requirements for realization from social media itself as well as from the competitive situation.

options of action and competition

We can base the strategy definition on the potential benefits for the business model and the content required for it in great detail. This means that we can say in detail what social media can do for the success of the company as a whole – not just for individual functions – and what we need to do to be successful in competition, and roughly estimate how likely this success is in detail and possibly also what resources are required for this.

Integration into the company

Strategy development via the business model integrates the use of social media at the level of the business model and thus also in the individual functional areas. Social media and social media strategy are thus holistically integrated into the company. The contents are the consequence of common priorities.

Transparency

The strategy model enables end-to-end transparency and traceability starting from the benefits of social media for the individual areas of the business model through the competitive situation to the strategy content for the desired benefits. In addition, resources and the assumptions and requirements for the success of the strategy become clear in the causality to success.

Differentiation from other strategy models

The pbsm differs fundamentally from other strategy models in that the

• it is based on a comprehensively defined social media performance potential.
• supports the business model as a whole and maps the benefits for the business model in detail,
• clear options of action the benefits of social media for the business model and the corresponding competitive situation.
• Social media and social media strategy are holistically integrated into the company.
• the method creates transparency from the benefit to the evaluation of the strategy.

About the strategy model

The potential-based strategy model was developed by Wilfried Schock from 2015 and is also based, among other things, on his experience in social media (since 2006) and in marketing (since 1980) on the insights gained from training company employees for social media and from training social media managers.

The decisive factor for the development of the method was the inadequacy of the existing strategy models and the need for a strategy model that corresponds to the performance potential of social media for companies and their business models.

The inadequacy of existing strategy models is based above all on the fact that the

• the performance potential of social media is not clearly defined in terms of its competitive quality. While we know the usage formats and the elements, the combined view with a view to performance and competitive potential is not even the exception.
• existing strategy models only support individual functional areas and thus do not do justice to the potential of social media for the entire business model.
• strategy models often start with a fixed usage format without addressing the individual opportunities social media can offer the company.
• Strategy as a whole exists as an “undefined black box” in the strategy models and is thus arbitrarily defined in terms of content in practice.
• The scope and structures of the strategy are vague or not defined at all in the strategy models.

These and other shortcomings are corrected by the potential-based strategy model. The pbsm itself still has potential for development. Once for other application areas, but especially for the support by database-driven systems.

Social media performance potential

The potential-based strategy model pbsm builds on a defined performance potential of social media for companies. This distinguishes the pbsm from other social media strategy models, where social media performance potential as an element of strategy development is non-existent or reduced to a part of the performance potential.

Importance of social media performance potential for strategy development

If there is no clarity about the resources that a strategy has or can have, the resulting strategy is inherently questionable.

Justification: If it is not clear what resources are available for a strategy

• both in terms of resources for strategy,
• but above all in terms of the methods and procedures for using social media,
• their effect in social media
• as well as their competitive quality and not least
• their performance for the company’s success / business model

it is very unlikely that a strategy can emerge in this situation that does justice to the opportunities and benefits of social media for the company.

If we don’t know what is strategically possible in a situation and then design a strategy, we don’t know what we are doing.

In other words, a valid strategy emerges only from knowledge of the possible. Most methods of strategy development do without this basis of strategy development.

Practical benefit: check – if your company has a social media strategy – whether it meets this requirement for a valid strategy. If nothing is documented in the strategy development, you can assume that the strategy does not meet this requirement and is of questionable quality at best.

Social media performance potential in pbsm

In the potential-based strategy model pbsm we use a simple and pragmatically defined performance potential of social media for companies, which is based on the

• Social media usage formats (the organizational forms in which we use social media, i.e. audiences, networks, communities and their hybrid forms and variants)
• Impact methods in social media (i.e. information, motivation, participation, networking, benefit).

based. The way in which the general social media performance potential can be used by individual companies depends not least on the social media affinity of the topics and the company’s business model. Therefore, we also distinguish between general social media performance potential and individual social media performance potential

The difference:

• the general social media performance potential for companies is the performance potential that is fundamentally available to companies in the form of social media.
• the individual social media performance potential for a company is the performance potential of social media that this individual company can use based on its business model and its social media affinity.

Whether a company can leverage its individual social media performance potential depends on its capabilities and resources. Whether this company actually uses the individual social media performance potential it can exploit is a question of its strategy.

Distinction: the potential-based strategy model is the only strategy model with a defined performance potential of social media for companies in which both usage formats and social media impact formats are included and described in terms of their effect on markets and competition.

Differentiation from other strategy models

To my knowledge, the potential-based strategy model is the only strategy model that has a defined social media performance potential for companies, on the basis of which both the benefits of social media and its practical implementation as well as the competitive situation between different forms of social media use can be derived.

This unique position supports the definition of social media strategies with high competitive quality. Business model

A company’s business model describes the activities and behaviors that are critical to the company’s success. In other words, the business model reflects how the company achieves its success.

Advantage of social media strategies for business models

Social media can support individual measures of the company, one or more functional areas, or the entire business model.

Aligning social media strategy and, correspondingly, social media use with the business model has a variety of benefits. As their most important I consider

• the broader contribution of social media to business success. The more comprehensively social media can support corporate success via the business model, the higher the contribution of social media to corporate success. The prerequisite for comprehensive support of the business model by social media is the ability to meet the requirements of the business model and the opportunities and risks of social media for the business model. This can lead to a more complex social media strategy, but it doesn’t have to.
• the integration of social media into the business model and corporate processes. The involvement of key functional areas in strategy development and the resulting integration of social media into their processes leads to a comprehensive integration of social media in the company. Social media is no longer the task (and benefit) of one functional area but of the entire company. The implementation of social media as a service by a functional area is unchanged from this.

Differentiation from other strategy models

The potential-based strategy model pbsm is the only social media strategy model that is focused on supporting the companies’ business model.

The potential-based strategy model pbsm differs from other methods of deriving strategies for social media by its methodical focus on supporting the entire business model – without resulting in highly complex social media strategies.

The pbsm works with a topic-based analysis of the business model, in which the requirements from the business model and its individual components are translated into topics and summarized.

It is in the nature of business models that the topics from the individual components of a business model overlap in parts. This enables a social media strategy to support various components of the business model.

Ultimately, this results not only in the best possible support for the success of the business model through social media, but also in a social media strategy that takes comprehensive account of the possibilities of social media for the individual company and the competitive situation.

Information quality

The potential-based strategy model is based on a high information quality which leads to a correspondingly high decision quality, true to the old insight “the higher the information quality, the better the strategy”.

If we know which topics are important for the success of the business model, whether and to what extent these topics can be supported by social media, and whether and how we can shape the competitive situation in social media in these topics to our advantage, it is possible for us to develop significantly more powerful, economical, and competitive social media strategies than would be the case without this quality of information.

Advantages of the potential-based strategy model

Since we base the pbsm.strategy model on the themes of the business model, for each relevant theme of the business model we identify

• which corporate benefits are possible through social media for the individual areas of a business model defined by topics.
• what priority these topics have for the success of the business model.
• what social media affinity the subject has.
• what the competitive situation for this looks like in social media.
• what performance our strategy – for these topics – must deliver in order to secure the benefits.

Information quality through overview

The pbsm makes it clear which options of action result from social media for which benefit and which performance the social media strategy must provide in order to be successful in the respective competitive situation.

This gives us an overview of what our strategy needs to do in terms of content in order to support the respective topics of the business model through social media.

Strategy quality through information quality

From this overview – and the priorities of the topics – it is easier to develop strategies for the use of social media,

• that enable the best possible benefit from social media for the business model.
• positively shape competitive situations or build competitive advantages.
• feasible with the available resources.

This quality of strategy becomes a competitive advantage in social media.

Differentiation from other strategy models

Its informatins quality distinguishes the pbsm from all other methods and makes it unique

• in the quality of information that can be achieved with it.
• in strategy quality, because better strategies can be derived from the higher information quality.

Competitiveness

Social media strategies that don’t take competition into account are unrealistic.

When using social media, companies are competing on performance – that is, competing with other companies offering comparable services – but also on attention – competing for the attention of social media users.

Strategies that do not take this competition into account assume a situation that is out of touch with reality. Developing competitive strategies is a given, but in practice it is anything but.

Sources and types of competitiveness

Competitiveness arises from equal or greater performance from the perception of the potential customer.

For this, at least the performance of the competition must be known as a benchmark. One’s own performance must not fall below the performance of the competition – at least where this is intended by the strategy.

Competitive advantages arise from significantly better performance with corresponding relevance for the potential customer.

Structural competitive advantages are competitive advantages based on structures. Permanent competitive advantages are competitive advantages that are permanent, i.e. cannot be leveled out by competition.

Advantages of the potential-based strategy model

In the pbsm.strategy model, the competitive situation is mapped in detail – at the level of the business model topics.

That is, we know

• what the competitive situation in social media looks like for each area of the business model,
• what the social media strategy must achieve in the individual areas so that the benefit for the business model (the company) can be achieved in this competitive situation in social media.

In addition, we can anticipate the possible reactions of competitors to the contents of our strategy – on the basis of their options of action – and take them into account in the strategy definition.pbsm makes structural competitive advantages easier to identify.

Differentiation from other social media strategy models

Other methods of social media strategy development focus on content distribution – very often without considering competitive situations.

The pbsm distinguishes itself by a very comprehensive consideration of the competitive situation in the strategy process. I.e. in the strategy definition we know and consider the competitive situation for each relevant area of the market / benefit for the business model. The methodical approach allows possible competitive reactions to be taken into account in the strategy definition.

The transparency in the interaction of social media performance potential, competitive situation and benefit for the company / business model distinguishes it from other methods. From this transparency, more powerful social media strategies can emerge.

Integration in the company

Integration into corporate strategy and business model

Social media strategies with the pbsm are created for business models and are therefore both part of the corporate strategy and linked to the business model. As part of the key activities of the business model, they become part of the business model.

Distinction: Social media strategies according to the pbsm are both integrated and linked to the corporate strategy as well as to the business model. No other social media strategy model does that.

Strategy integration in corporate processes

Social media strategies according to the pbsm are developed holistically. The functional areas of the company that are affected by and benefit from social media are involved in strategy development and set priorities for the strategy via the priorities of the business model topics.

In addition, social media management and functional areas define the support of social media for the business model and the day-to-day work of the individual functional areas based on the corporate benefits from social media. In this context, the definition of the interfaces as a transfer of the social media benefits into the company processes and the day-to-day work of the functional areas is of particular importance.

Distinction: Strategies according to the pbsm are aligned with and integrated into corporate processes and day-to-day work of the functional areas. Alignment happens through focus and priorities, and engagement happens through the intersection of business benefits through social media.

Summary / Overview

Overview of the potential-based strategy model, its modules, benefits and advantages over other strategy models for social media.

	Component	Description	Advantages	Practice
1	Social media performance potential	Performance potential of social media for companies with defined performance, requirements and competitive quality of the individual elements.	Defined performance potential that makes clear the competitive quality and aspirations of various forms of social media use and facilitates the impact of social media in its elements.	You know what benefits social media enables for your company in detail.
2	Social media performance potential Business model	Performance potential of social media for a specific business model	They know the potential business benefits that social media can bring to a specific business model.	You know the specific performance potential of social media for a specific business model. So you know what is concretely possible with social media for an individual company.
3	Social media options for action	The social media options of action show the possibilities of a company to use social media for its business model and what benefits are possible.	A detailed picture of the business benefits achievable through social media for the business model, the necessary measures, and the competition- for all relevant topics. .	You know which competitive situation your social media strategy needs to most in order to realize a defined benefit for your company through social media.
4	Strategy components	14 strategy components, which include market cultivation and social media strategy management.	Standardized strategy content ensures completeness, quality, functionality and comparability of strategies and supports strategy management.	In pbsm, strategy components not only define the tasks and goals for day-to-day work, they also enable effective strategy management and serve as a warning system for changes that require an adjustment of the strategy.
5	Strategy definition	Definition of strategy drafts according to different priorities from the benefits of social media for the business model and the competitive situation	Strategies that are geared to the optimum benefit for the business model that is possible and realizable through social media and whose competitiveness is secured within this competitive situation.	You know which possible strategy alternative enables the greatest realizable benefit (according to your priorities) for your company.
6	Strategy evaluation	Evaluation of strategy designs according to defined criteria in order to compare competitiveness and performance of strategies.	Comparability of performance and competitiveness of different strategy designs with different business benefits.	Strategies can be evaluated in advance and compared for their benefits.

pbsm.strategy course

The potential-based strategy model pbsm is available as a strategy course online at pbsm.info.

Overview of the course content

Contents	Learning units	Reading time	Exercises
Social media performance potential	20 learning units	290 min.	124 exercises
Social media options for action	13 learning units	260 min.	46 exercises
Strategy components	16 learning units	270 min.	54 exercises
Strategy definition	9 learning units	160 min.	27 exercises
Strategy evaluation	4 learning units	120 min.	4 exercises
Time required depending on daily workload 1 – 4 months*.

*Depending on personal knowledge level, daily time commitment and number of exercises performed.