Social Media Strategy Check
This page explains how an existing social media strategy can be checked for its basic quality. If any of the following content is missing or not documented in such a way that decisions can be understood, the strategy should be updated.
This page provides you with the content for an individual social media strategy check. It explains the requirements in the first part and lists the key functional elements of the strategy that should be in place in the second part. The extent to which the content of a specific social media strategy meets the requirements can only be determined by the corresponding individual check, for which this page is intended to provide suggestions and structures.
Why and how we check strategy quality in social media.
There are 2 times to check the quality of a social media strategy. Once at the end of the development process and later in the – regular – audit.
Development process: we check whether a strategy draft meets the requirements for a promising strategy. This includes the structural-functional check as well as checking the quality of the content.
Strategy audit: we check whether the strategy is still relevant. Both on the basis of the results achieved and by checking the assumptions and prerequisites of the strategy.
This page deals with the structural-functional audit.
Reminder: the task of a social media strategy
A social media strategy has the task of ensuring the greatest possible benefit of social media from the available resources for the success of the company. Social media strategies are decisions about how we use the performance potential of social media under certain competitive conditions and available resources in order to realize the best possible benefit for the company’s success (more specifically for the success of the business model).
Without a social media strategy, profitability, competitiveness and corporate success suffer. A social media strategy ensures the profitability of the resources used by focusing on areas that have the greatest benefit for the company’s success. Competitiveness is ensured by avoiding competition that cannot be won and focusing resources where this is the case. These two elements ensure the best possible contribution of social media to the company’s success. If a company uses social media without a valid social media strategy, profitability (of the resources used), competitiveness (in social media) and the company’s success (due to the lower contribution of social media to the company’s success) suffer.
We orient our social media strategy to the success of the business model because the business model contains everything that makes a company successful. If we base a social media strategy solely on the success of marketing, social media inevitably contributes significantly less to the company’s success.
When aligning the social media strategy, changes to the business model – e.g. new focal points, new markets or products and the impact of social media on the business model and its individual modules – must be taken into account.
Core function of strategy: focusing resources on the best possible result.
Strategy check: what a social media strategy must cover
A social media strategy defines what benefits a company wants to realize from social media, how it wants to do this in the face of existing competition in social media and with what resources.
Strategy and documentation: a valid strategy not only defines the content, it is also transparent. In other words, it makes it clear why the strategy contains this content. If this is not comprehensible, it is not only the quality and relevance of the strategy that is questionable. Missing or inadequate strategy documentation prevents good strategy management.
Benefits of the social media strategy: the purpose of a strategy is to give us a clear goal. In other words, the strategy must give us one or more specific benefits of social media for the success of the business model. Focusing resources on one or more benefits is also the nature of strategy itself. In other words, strategy is always the decision in favor of one or more benefits and the well-founded decision against many other possible benefits. If there is a lack of focus, i.e. a lack of well-founded and comprehensible decisions for and against benefits from social media, we are not dealing with a social media strategy. If the decisions are not well documented – including the assumptions and prerequisites on which they are based – the strategy is at least qualitatively questionable.
Competitive situation and success in competition: a social media strategy demonstrates how we can – specifically – realize the benefits of the strategy in the existing competition in social media. Or at least make a well-founded assumption. This includes at least an explanation of the means by which we can achieve the necessary competitiveness or superiority. Here, it is highly recommended to point out the clarity and justification of the means and their effect. It is of little help to believe that a certain combination of means can be successful in competition.
It is the strategist’s task to find a combination that can be proven to be more successful in a specific competitive situation than that of the competition and that can also be realized by the company in the long term and also makes economic sense.
Strategy resources: no success without sufficient resources. Sufficient stands for quantity and quality as well as for their permanent availability and resilience. If the competitive situation and its design are clearly defined in the strategy, it is easier to derive the appropriate resources to ensure the required competitiveness.
It is in the nature of social media that we find ourselves in a dynamic environment. Accordingly, we must also be able to respond to changes with the appropriate measures and methods as well as the corresponding resources.
Understanding the securing of resources as part of the dynamic process based on the success of the strategy is a sign of a major misunderstanding or questionable wishful thinking and has no place in serious strategy development. When defining the necessary resources, attention must also be paid to the risks involved in recognizing possible changes. At the very least, the assumptions and prerequisites for availability should be defined.
Clarity: Clarity in the goals and the way to achieve them is essential for a strategy and should be a matter of course in the areas of benefits, competition and resources. It is nevertheless necessary to point out this self-evident fact because its absence in practice makes the strategy as a whole questionable and less useful.
Strategy check: basics of strategy and documentation
Requirements for a social media strategy: A social media strategy must include what benefits a company wants to realize from social media, how it wants to do this in the face of existing competition in social media and with what resources.
The quality of the strategy depends not only on what it says, but also on which decisions and on which foundations the strategy is based. In other words, the decisions and their reasons must be documented in a comprehensible manner.
Clarity: Strategies are decisions about what we do and don’t do and therefore also decisions about the direction of activities. If the direction of a strategy is unclear, ambiguous, contradictory or unfocused, the strategy will fail to have the desired effect. The direction should be communicated clearly and comprehensibly both in the core formulation and in the documentation.
Decisions. If the decisions on which the content of a strategy is based and the situations, assumptions and prerequisites on which these decisions were made are not clearly documented, the content of the strategy is questionable. Without this knowledge, we cannot react to changes in good time.
Information basis: if the information basis of the strategy is insufficient, the strategy is also questionable. The information basis on which the strategy is based should therefore be clearly defined. This also includes recording any information deficits.
In addition, assumptions and preconditions on which the success of the strategy is based should be so clearly defined that they can be monitored. Missing or incomplete information or inaccurate assessments – for example of competition, assumptions, prerequisites and interactions – make the success of a strategy unlikely.
Limited competitiveness: a limited information base on competitiveness (not all relevant competitors are considered) or functionally insufficient (the competitive quality of social media measures or structures is not taken into account), the statement on the competitiveness of content is questionable.
Unjustified competitiveness: if the competitiveness of the measures is not comprehensibly justified, this competitiveness is questionable. We must be able to demonstrate in a strategy why we believe we will be successful with this approach in the respective competition – compared to the relevant competitors – and the quality of the respective competitiveness or competition advantages.
Benefits: the documentation of our strategy should clearly show why we have chosen these social media benefits and why other social media benefits that are also possible and relevant to the success of the business model were not included in the strategy.
At the same time, the conversion of social media benefits into business benefits should be clearly described. It must therefore be clear how the social media benefit becomes a contribution to the company’s success.
Resources: The securing of resources for the implementation of the social media strategy should be defined. Possible risks to the security of resources should also be defined (e.g. if the necessary skills are only available to one or a few employees).
Completeness: a strategy is not complete if the content of the strategy is incomplete, for example if key components of the strategy are missing or incompletely defined. The content structure of a social media strategy must be complete and clear. In addition to the definition of the desired benefits, completeness and clarity also include the specific definition of competitiveness in these areas and the definition of the resources required for this and how to secure them.
Strategy check: recognizing “wrong” social media strategies.
False social media strategies are concepts and measures that are referred to as a social media strategy but are not a social media strategy due to their content.
Missing core components: the paper lacks specific content on the benefits of social media for the business model, competitiveness and / or the resources required to realize the strategy. These deficits indicate that the paper/concept is not strategy-capable because it cannot fulfill the basic function of a strategy.
Clarity and unambiguity: the paper lacks clarity in one or more core functions and the content is not clear in terms of the content and direction of the strategy. Where objectives and measures are not clearly defined, we are not dealing with a strategy but with other categories. The same applies to strategies that are ambiguous.
Strategy check: notorious mistakes
Some errors are particularly common. This makes it easy to find them.
Benefits and the cardinal error of lack of focus. We want everything that seems possible or cannot agree on priorities for the benefits and thus on a focus.
Social media can contribute to a company’s success in many different ways and different areas may also have different priorities for these potential benefits and their significance for the company’s success.
If we do not focus, this means a significantly higher resource requirement for the company. At the very least, it is important to critically question how long-term competitiveness or superiority can be ensured in a social media strategy with a broad focus on many benefits in the individual benefits and their competition. If the necessary resources appear to be secured at the time of the strategy decision, this alone is not sufficient.
Benefits and the cardinal error of user ignorance. We see social media as a static machine that works well when we pull this or that button. In social media, we have no shortage of “buttons”, but we are dependent on the reaction and, if necessary, the active participation of users in order to be successful. In marketing, we hope for the effect of psychology and make up for weaknesses and mistakes by being pushy and ignorant. In social media, we realize much more quickly that this is not recommended behavior. User benefit should be no less an integral part of the social media strategy than the benefit that social media should contribute to the company’s success. The one – the user benefit – is the underestimated driver and success factor for the other – the company benefit from social media. Ignoring this and seeing social media users as a disposable mass is counterproductive for strategy development.
Competition – cardinal error total ignorance of competition: it may be hard to imagine, but competition is completely ignored in some “social media strategies”. In other words, the field of competition is completely ignored. As a result, this “strategy” is no strategy.
Competitiveness: competition is present in the form of measures that are used to be competitive. The extent to which the strategy actually achieves the necessary competitiveness through these measures is not documented. So there is no factually based competitiveness, just a list of measures.
Competition and structural ignorance: the strategy ignores the structural competitive quality of the measures. Structural competitive weaknesses are therefore not an issue. (Structural competitive weaknesses result, for example, from usage formats that are structurally less efficient than other possible usage formats)
Resources: Resources are not permanently secured, are subject to fluctuations or are dependent on other factors.
Clarity and unambiguity: the strategy lacks clarity and concretization (SMART target model). Goals are contradictory or ambiguous (in the sense of both). This includes strategies that aim in different directions.
Social Media Strategy Check
Core Elements
Below you will find 8 core elements that should be included or documented in your social media strategy. If elements are missing from an existing social media strategy, a revision is urgently recommended.
Social media potential
Social Media Options
Business benefits
Social Media Strategy Core Components
Assumptions and requirements
Resources
Risiks
Target system
Recommendation
If your social media strategy is missing core elements, you should update your strategy and make it effective.
The potential-based strategy model pbsm offers the know-how for this with its online courses.
- Create advanced list items
- Options to choose list design
- Beautiful interaction transitions