7.1 Strategy Management: Usage

Strategy management

Strategy management in pbsm stands for

• the permanent control of the implementation of the strategy in social media (quality and quantity of impact)
• Monitoring the benefits achieved (integration of the benefits from social media into the respective company processes)
• Monitoring the competitive situation
• securing the resource situation
• monitoring the identified risks of the strategy
• adapting the strategy to changes.

Control strategy benefits

The basis for controlling the strategy benefits is the benefits of the social media strategy recorded in the corporate benefits strategy component, the implementation of which should be backed up with the corresponding measurable KPIs.

In addition, we need the results from the use of social media at the company level, i.e. what successes have been achieved from the use of social media in the other functional areas.

In practice, this means, for example, the following information requirement (recommendation):

• List of the company’s benefits from the social media strategy
• List of competitive positions and their business benefits with KPIs
• List of KPIs and their status
• List of social media benefits for the respective functional areas
• List of results of social media benefits from the respective functional areas.

The sources for this are

• Strategy component of company benefit,
• the competitive positions of the strategy (strategy component topics/topic areas) and
• the KPIs of the measures with which the company benefit(s) are developed.

Securing social media benefits in company processes

It is recommended to transition social media use – e.g. B. interested parties from social media, inquiries, etc. etc. – recorded accordingly via interfaces and the recipients report the resulting result.

For this purpose, appropriate interfaces – in which the social media benefits flow into downstream company processes – and standards (quality standards for social media benefits, for example requirements for the quality of inquiries or interested parties) must be agreed.

It is highly recommended to treat these interfaces and quality standards as part of strategy development and to define them in this process.

Management of strategy risks

Strategies are constantly in danger of losing their effectiveness. That is the nature of the situation.

Not all risks of a strategy are apparent from the start, but some are. We will deal with their control here.

Source of risk strategy implementation

Strategies are developed, tested, adopted and introduced into the market with more or less effort. They then have to prove themselves there. Depending on how comprehensive, innovative and complex a strategy is, the more difficult it is to ensure the effectiveness of the strategy. This has several reasons. Change is not always welcome and one change is followed by the next. It can take time for new behaviors to finally become established, and not keeping an eye on the risks of relapse can quickly lead to a gradual end to the strategy in everyday company life.

Strategy management implementation (quality and quantity)

In order to be able to manage the implementation of a strategy, we need criteria for the quality and quantity of implementation and a risk assessment for the points (measures) that are to be realized/implemented. i.e. We should know what could stand in the way of the measures being implemented successfully in the long term. These could be, for example:

• unclear tasks, unclear requirements
• unclear integration of the strategy into existing company processes
• unclear areas of responsibility
• Unaccepted/supported need for change in daily work
• low acceptance of the strategy

Knowing these stumbling blocks is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of the strategy. This also includes knowing which stumbling blocks are of a recurring nature and which can be permanently eliminated with a one-off kickoff. The stumbling blocks of a recurring nature require constant attention.

Sources

• Strategy measures (combined from the strategy components)
• Implementation assessment of the measures (evaluation based on the criteria for quality and quantity
• Risk assessment of the measures (overview of measures)
• Risk list – definition and classification of risks (permanent / one-off)
• Worklist with the implementations to be checked and their intervals (risks, quality and quantity)

Risk Assumptions and assumptions

Not all of our assumptions have to be correct and not all of our assumptions are permanently present. This means that changes such as incorrect assessments are a permanent source of risk that we should keep an eye on. This is all the easier for us because we have carefully defined the assumptions and prerequisites for the success of our strategy. If we fail to do this, we run the risk of being surprised by developments that are actually recognizeable.

Strategy management assumptions and requirements

We review the assumptions and prerequisites on which our strategy is built at regular intervals. The distances should be based on the dynamics of change in the assumptions and requirements. If it can be assumed that certain assumptions can change in the short term, we should take this property into account when determining the time intervals. For each assumption, there is an assessment of the probability of change and the timing of the review.

Sources: Strategy component Assumptions and prerequisites

Controlling competitive quality

The competitive quality of our social media strategy results from the performance of our strategy compared to those of the relevant competitors.

Strategy management competitive quality

We look at the quality of competition at the level of the competitive positions that we have chosen for our strategy. i.e. We develop and maintain / update an overview of the competitive situation in the topics of our strategy (competitive positions) based on the performance comparison (of our strategy with our competitors) in the areas of user benefit, usage formats, motivation, participation, channels in structure, quantity and quality.

Benefit: This gives us an overview of the competitive quality of our strategy in the individual competitive positions and we can react to changes to our disadvantage at an early stage (as long as we always keep an eye on the competitive quality).

We examine changes to determine their expected impact on the competitiveness of our strategy and, if necessary, adapt our strategy at the level of the measures or the overall strategy.

Sources: Competitive positions for the topics of our strategy (strategy component topics / options for action for these topics)

Source of risk strategy decisions/strategy definition

In particular, when we decide to use content that is not always competitive in strategy development – for example for resource reasons – we run a noticeable risk. We should not completely lose sight of this recognizable risk.

Strategy management strategy decisions

Potentially critical strategic decisions are not made unconsciously. i.e. We know at a certain point in time that there are risks associated with a decision. We can record these risks in the assumptions and assumptions or treat them separately.

In any case, we need to assess the impact that will occur when the risk occurs and how we deal with it. For example, if we have decided on the Audience usage format due to our social media expertise and the competitive situation and know that a community is also promising for our topics, we should of course be clear about the consequences of this decision at the time of the decision. Dealing with these consequences – Plan B – should be well thought out and at least fundamentally feasible.

For our Audience vs. Community example, we would analyze whether the community established by the competition is high-performing and competitive and what community alternative could exist at this level of competition. Based on this knowledge and the priority of the competitive positions, we can define and implement appropriate options for action (take up competition at the new level or avoid competition).

Sources: Documentation strategy development – decisions and consequences.

Resources strategy management

Strategy management requires appropriate, permanently available resources. The scope of strategy management depends on both the complexity of the strategy and the organization and technical equipment.

The strategy and company-specific criteria

Social media strategy management in an international company with a large number of country organizations, product areas, languages and social media channels is a challenge for a larger team.

If we are dealing with a few KPIs, one language, a few topics and less than a handful of social media channels, strategy management can be seen as another task of the social media manager.

The technical equipment

Strategy management in social media is information and communication focused. If we can largely automate these tasks, the workload will be reduced accordingly. Crucial to this are KPI systems that independently collect data, evaluate and communicate deviations and are prepared and available to those responsible for strategy management. Creating these systems is time-consuming and therefore only makes sense if there is a high data load and the corresponding cost-effectiveness of automation.

Strategy adjustment

We differentiate between adapting individual measures/strategy components and adapting or redeveloping the entire strategy.

Adjustment of individual strategy components

We adapt individual measures of a strategy component based on their performance/social media impact.

initial situation: the measure does not achieve the expected results (KPIs) in terms of quality or quantity

The cause of the underperformance lies in the competitive situation/weak social media impact.

method: we identify the weakness in the social media impact (competitor comparison). We check to what extent we can improve the social media impact (increase the quality of competition)

• If we can sufficiently increase the competitive quality of social media impact, we will realize this point.
• If we cannot increase the competitive quality of the social media impact, we will check whether we can compensate for this weakness within the strategy. If this is the case, we use this approach.
• If we cannot increase or compensate for the competitive quality of the social media impact, we will examine what significance these measures have for the overall success of the strategy/company success.
• If competitiveness of the measure is essential (indispensable competitive position), we examine a new development of the strategy.

Adaptation/succession development complete strategy

The adaptation of a complete social media strategy or its follow-up development is more of a question of time. Sooner or later the competitive situation, the competitiveness of a strategy or the importance of competitive positions changes. In addition, changes in the business model or company goals may require new development.

The most important criteria for developing a new social media strategy are:

• Business benefit: the existing strategy no longer provides the required business benefit and cannot be updated through individual adjustments.
• Competitive quality: the existing strategy has lost so much of its competitiveness due to changes in the competitive situation that a redesign is necessary due to structural requirements.

You have already worked on the practical development of a social media strategy in the course.