You’ve pulled together a social media team, you’ve set your objectives, you’ve developed an integrated communications strategy that combines online and offline communications, and you’ve won the buy-in you need to start to engage online.
The first part of your system should ideally be listening, after which you can begin engaging in online conversations and launching your own properties. Sounds simple, but there are plenty of questions that can trip you up along the way. You should answer as many of these as you can before you start your social media outreach.
Here are a few, to get you started.
Team Coordination
- Do you need a schedule to coordinate who is responding to online conversations?
- How will you ensure that different team members don’t send duplicate responses?
- Will you disclose who is engaging on behalf of your brand? Where?
- How will you ensure consistency within your team in recording the various facets of conversations that you are tracking?
- Will your team be active on weekends?
- Will your weekend workflow differ from your weekday process?
- Will you assign specific people to engage with specific individuals?
Tracking and Reporting
- How will you record conversations for future reference?
- How will you keep a record of conversations so you can see how you’ve corresponded with people in the past?
- How will you report on the conversations about your brand/industry?
- How will you report on your engagement, against your objectives?
Responding to Conversations
- How will you triage conversations for different types of response?
- Where are the limits – which conversations will you, and will you not, respond to?
- Do you need a set of standard Q&As to frame your responses to common issues?
- Is there a common "voice" that you want associated with your brand?
- Will you set guidelines for your response time to conversations?
- What process will your team follow when they encounter an issue for which they don’t currently have an answer?
Publishing Content
- If you are working with other agencies, have you worked their content into your content timelines?
- How often will you aim to publish content?
- Do you have an editorial calendar for your blog?
- How will you divide-up content creation?
General Outreach
- Will your team use individual accounts on social media sites that require registration, or will they work from one corporate account?
- Will you permit/encourage your team to use their own personal accounts in the outreach?
- Do you have a policy on who you will subscribe to on the various social media platforms?
- How will you approach the influencers in your market?
What other questions would you add to the list?
Just wanted to say hello and see if you got my DM last night? 
Dave, thanks so much for this post. I think with social media being so “hot” right now the tendency is for organizations to just jump right in and get going. Not stopping to think through the mechanics of how an organization is going to engage and respond can lead to a social media presence that looks fractured, disorganized, or even fake. Taking the time to go through these questions as a team would certainly help to avoid that.
@amymengel
Dave,
Just a thanks for all the social media policy type posts over the last little while. There’s lots of energy here about getting into social media, and your posts have been excellent thought generators for me as I try to figure out what we need to do BEFORE we launch anything.
Lisa
What a great set of questions. Most companies get so caught up in technology, I bet they leapfrog the majority of these steps.
Thanks, Dave …great post; what an incredibly comprehensive list.
Social media and real time search are “hot” right now… easy, accessible, time saver and useful but before engaging into it, everybody should read these guidelines.
Monika Lorincz
monika at surchur.com
http://surchur.com/
Blog: http://blog.surchur.com/
Twitter: @surchur
This is a good workflow – HOWEVER, it is important to remember that social media can’t always fit into traditional corporate boundaries. Social media is about relationships and isn’t a black and white formula.
Great list Dave! When I set up Social Media Strategies and Action Plans for my clients, it is often very clear that they know they want to “do” Social Media, but don’t realize how important Online Brand Reputation Management is. The is a great resource for companies that don’t have a dedicated social media content manager. Good checklist!
Great Article Dave. I would love to share it with my fans.