Social Media Affinity (SMA)

Definition of social media affinity

Social media affinity expresses the willingness of markets, needs, topics, brands, services or problems to react to social media or to be influenced by it.

Social media affinity defines the framework within which we can influence markets with social media. In addition, social media affinity provides valuable information for social media strategy development. It shows us in which cases we can align our social media strategy directly with the topics of the market or in which cases we should take a detour via other topics.

Importance of social media affinity

Social media affinity describes the framework in which social media can be used to influence markets via the people acting in them and therefore has a comprehensive significance that influences all elements of social media strategy development. The SMA is one of the fundamental principles of the potential-based strategy model with direct and comprehensive effects on the other pillars of the method (business model, competition, growth). It also defines which usage formats of the social media performance potential can be used, i.e. it defines the social media performance potential available in a specific situation.

Representation of reality

Not every topic is equally suitable for social media, not every brand is automatically social media-friendly, not every business model is exposed to social media to the same extent and is confronted with the same opportunities and risks. Social media affinity gives us the opportunity to depict this individuality of markets, business models and company goals, to do justice to their strategic importance and to take them into account when using social media.

Practical benefits

This central element offers extensive practical benefits that allow us to identify problems and strengths in existing social media strategies and strategy drafts. Here are some examples:

Strategy evaluation of existing strategies: The SMA helps us to analyze the causes of less successful social media strategies and to decide whether these strategies can be better adapted or should be redesigned.
Strategy evaluation of strategy drafts: the social media affinity helps us to evaluate strategy drafts. We can identify corresponding problems in advance and either adapt or discard the strategy draft. If we recognize that strategies have focused on topics with a low SMA because these topics have a high priority for the company, we must assume that the strategy is less effective.
Strategy development: we can develop social media strategies that have a correspondingly higher chance of success because they avoid recognizable problems with insufficient SMA. For example, by focusing on topics that are more promising based on their SMA.

Application of social media affinity in pbsm

Social media affinity is covered in several modules of the potential-based strategy model for social media. As an influencing factor, it can be found in the social media performance potential and, based on this, in the development of strategy options and influences the content of strategy components.

Component	Description	Benefit
Social media performance potential	Performance potential of social media for the business model of companies with defined performance, requirements and competitive quality of the individual elements.	Social media strategies that use the full potential of social media for the business model are more powerful.
Social media options for action	The social media options for action show the options for a company to use social media successfully for its business model and what benefits are possible with it.	The company has a detailed picture of the business benefits that social media can achieve for the business model, the necessary measures and the competition.
Strategy components	14 strategy components that include the strategy, the markets, the activities in social media and the management of the social media strategy.	Standardized strategy content ensures the completeness, quality, functionality and comparability of strategies.
Strategy definition	Definition of strategy drafts according to different priorities based on the benefits of social media for the business model and the competitive situation.	Strategy drafts make it possible to find the best possible combination of possible company benefits, competitive opportunities and resource requirements.
Strategy evaluation	Evaluation of strategy drafts according to defined criteria in order to compare the competitiveness and performance of strategies.	Comparability of performance and competitiveness of different strategy designs with different company benefits.
Strategy management	Managing the implementation and performance of the strategy. Monitoring the framework conditions of the strategy, risks, assumptions and requirements.	Strategy management ensures the impact of the strategy and its benefits.

pbsm – the potential based strategy model

Social media affinity always refers to an element and expresses the extent to which this element appears to be influenceable or shapeable through social media, i.e. the extent to which we can use social media to achieve an effect in this element – via social media.

Assessment of social media affinity

Below is an example of a simple assessment of social media affinity of topics in the form of a 6-field grid for cases where the SMA is not immediately clear.

rarely mentioned / thematic platform	frequently mentioned topic / thematic platform	permanent mentioned topic / thematic platform
rarely mentioned / thematic area	frequently mentioned topic / thematic area	permanent mentioned topic / thematic area

Social media affinity and business model

The potential-based strategy model is based on the performance potential of social media. We analyze the effect in the form of benefits and risks for the business model and its components. We use topics that we can examine for their social media affinity. This gives us an overview of which areas/topics of a module of a business model are particularly social media-related. This allows us to recognize which benefits for the business model we can achieve through social media and which benefits are more difficult to realize. We therefore have an orientation as to where the use of social media to support the business model or individual areas is particularly promising.

Strategy links

Training offer

The strategy training of social media managers is not sufficient in terms of scope and quality. To change this, I developed the potential-based strategy model pbsm, which enables even beginners to develop high-performance and, above all, competitive social media strategies. This method is taught in a free social media strategy course.

The free social media strategy course

Course content

Social media strategy requires not only competence in social media but also in strategy. And you can’t just acquire both in a relaxed afternoon. You lay the foundations for this competence with a compact course that is reduced to the essentials and that you complete online on your own. (If necessary, you can rely on support.)

The course includes more than 70 learning units. The pure reading time for the learning units is – depending on your reading speed – 20 to 25 hours. You should hardly allow more than 2 hours of reading time per day.
The course includes more than 200 practical exercises. The time required for this is much longer than the time spent reading the course content.

The course is therefore more of a course lasting several weeks – which you complete more or less independently – than a typical online course for the afternoon.

Completion

You can take the strategy course for free – without proof of qualification and support – or for a fee with the pbsm.strategist qualification. You can find out more about the pbsm.strategist qualification here.

Support

There are various ways to support your learning success in the course. You can find out more here.