Creating A Strategic Communication Plan

Today’s guest about is by Manunya Nookong. I met Manunya through the social networking site, Smaller Indiana. I had an excellent conversation with her about strategic planning and I asked her to write a guest post.

When people hear the term “strategic planning,” they think of something rather complicated, intimidating or time-consuming, and it makes them lose interest. I am a big fan of strategic planning. I use it because it really works and is highly effective, I just want to see if there’s a way to make people think that it is not that hard to do. All it needs are strong attention to details and determination to improve business.

Of course, strategic planning takes time, but think of what a business can gain after it’s done: a new way to do things around the organization that helps employees to perform better. The result of their planning effort is invaluable. Employees will learn more about their business environment and what impact the business’ productivity.

A strategic plan brings business a clear direction and strong sense of purpose. Employees get to be creatively and effectively involved. They will learn what they need to do, how exactly they can contribute, and when their tasks need to be done. At the end of each strategic plan, employees will be able to see and evaluate the result of their effort.

Now, what is strategic planning? Strategic planning is a management process that includes direction and a series of steps that helps a business do things to achieve their goals.

A strategic planning model can be broken down into four different phases.

Research and Analysis

-Analyze business situation: Understand what goes on in the situation. Find out what the issue is.

-Analyze organization: Find out where the issue started, internally or externally, and who is responsible for it.

-Analyze key audiences: Key audiences are people who closely interact with the business’ issue. Find out who they are, define them in the plan and see what they want or expect according to the issue, what their relationship with the organization is, and what their communication involvement with media and society look like.

Strategy

-Establish business goals and objectives and a position of the organization (or its products or services): Develop realistic, specific and measurable objectives that identify business’ expectations. For example, in company A, its use of corporate blogs increases the number of visitors 25% during the first two quarter of 2009. An objective can be to increase (change in behavior) Web visitors (audience) 15% (level of change) through the use of corporate blogs by the end of 2009 (timeline).

-Create action and response strategies: Create action plans and direction for the organization activity and key messages.

-Use effective communication: Find key points about the organization and communicate those through new key messages.

Tactics

-Choose communication tactics: Consider all communication channels (face-to-face, internal media, advertising media, news media, etc.) and find the most appropriate channel to use with each key audience for the organization’s current issue

-Implement strategic plan: Develop time-line and budget to implement the strategic plan.

Evaluation

-Evaluate strategic plan: Assess whether business objectives have been met, and see if they need to be modified/revised, or can continue with the current plan and activities. Measure the effectiveness of each chosen tactic according to the business objectives.

These nine steps will help strategic planners and employees become more organized in their planning and execution. A strategic plan does not have to be complicated. Start with a simple one and get familiar with the idea. Before long, it will become second nature. Employees will start to think and work strategically and they will certainly see improvement in their organization.

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5 Ways to Track Your Competitors Using Social Media

My post on Tuesday talked about the growing trend of social media being used in order to gain more lead generation and marketing potential in businesses across the nation. You are going to need to be online. You are going to need to have a voice in this world of social communication.

Can we talk about another reason to be on social media? Are your competitors using it? This should be a deciding factor in whether or not you get involved. So where do you start? The first thing is to investigate.

1. Sign up for an account at Competitious.

Competitious is a cool tool that allows you to track, organize, and solidify data from your competition. Right now the beta is a free account… jump on over… sign up and try the tool. It also allows you to share and collaborate on different forms of data internally inside of your company.

2. Use the search tool SocialMention.

SocialMention is a keyword based search engine that aggregates different forms on content from across the web. You can search on microblogs, blogs, comments, events, and images (to name a few). Receive free daily email alerts of your brand, company, CEO, marketing campaign, or on a developing news story, a competitor, or the latest on a celebrity.

3. Google Alerts never hurt anyone.

Google Alerts is an awesome tool that allows you to sign up for… you guessed it… email alerts when a keyword is used in any type of content on the web. I have setup keyword alerts for Indianapolis social media, social media, Kyle Lacy, Brandswag, Twitter Marketing, and corporate social media. Check out this tutorial on how to use Google Alerts.

4. Do some investi-ma-gative journalism.

This should probably be step number one but it seems pretty simple… go to their website. If they are using social media in the right way they should be listing the tools in which they use. Follow them… feed them.. watch them. You could learn a ton from the way they share information.

5. Use HubSpot to track down the competition.

Hubspot has plenty of tools that allow you to track and influence different levels of your competitors use of social media. They give you the ability to track conversations online and hook up with different influencers in your industry. This is a paid service but it can extremely beneficial to the long term success of winning over the competition.

Get out there and listen to the net!

Are there any tools you have used? I would love to hear more!

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My Top 10 Twitter Business Applications

1. TwitterHawk

TwitterHawk is a real time targeted marketing engine that allows you to search Twitter on a chosen topic (or keyword) and will either auto-reply to that person or generate a list of matches for you to respond or reject. The point of this application is to hit the conversation while it is happening and they follow up. Make sure you are being sincere when using the tool. DO NOT SPAM.

You also have the ability to link track with an average cost of around .02 cents. The people over at Twitterhawk are feeling blessed and are offing 10 free tweets for signing up.

2. CoTweet

CoTweet is a web application that allows you to manage up to six Twitter accounts through a single CoTweet login. This is a great tool for businesses with more than a couple of employees using Twitter at one time. You have the ability to monitor keywords and different trending topics on Twitter. You can assign Tweets and on duty notifications for your employees! It is an awesome tool. I would recommend this for any business owner.

3. TwitterFox

TwitterFox is a Firefox (the Web browser) extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets on Twitter. The Firefox extension adds a tiny icon on to the Firefox status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. It also has a cool small text input to that you can use to update your tweets from your browser. This may be overkill for some of us that use Twitterific or TweetdDeck, but it is a cool tool to use. You may think it’s perfect if you love Firefox and Web browsing!

4. TweetDeck

There is no better tool out there for managing and organizing your Twitterati than TweetDeck. Imagine a tool that you can use directly from your desktop that manages followers, friends, replies, direct messages, groups, and anything you could possibly imagine. Tweetdeck gives you the ability to create groups that could cater to any type of subject. If you want to pull a feed from Twitter that has to do with Barney and childhood stories it is completely possible to do.

Tweetdeck can also be downloaded on your iPhone and used when you are away from your desktop. The program is easy to use and easy to manage. Built off the Adobe Air platform, it is your social dashboard for Twitter. And in respect to that little tool called the iPhone, there is a feed for that.

5. Hootsuite

Where Tweetdeck gives you the ability to organize and manage followers, Hootsuite is just as powerful when it comes to the world of Twitter productivity. Hootsuite gives you the ability manage multiple Twitter accounts, add multiple editors of the same account, pre-schedule your Tweets, and measure traffic. If you are looking for a tool to help you stay productive throughout your day and not be held hostage by the time suck police, Hootsuite is where it is at!

You have the ability to view clicks and where the click originated based on region of the world. You also have the ability to view your more popular Tweets as well as how many clicks you have received over a given time.

6. Twitterific

Twitterific can be likened to Tweetdeck but is designed more for use on the MAC desktop. Twitterific has an excellent user interface and is small enough not to be annoying. It gives you the same type of abilities as Tweetdeck but offers more keyboard shortcuts for the MAC user. The application is designed to let you view as much or as little information as you prefer when using on your desktop. Twitterific is also available for download on the iPhone as an application.

7. Twhirl

Twhirl is a social desktop software designed by the people who brought you Seesmic the video conversation website. The Twhirl application is still built in the same realm as Twitterific, Tweetdeck, and Hootsuite. It also has the ability to be run on both Windows and MAC platforms. If you are familiar with sites like Friendfeed and Seesmic this may be the tool for you. Twhirl gives you the ability to connect to multiple Twitter, Iaconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic accounts.

You can let Twhirl run in the background while working and it will give you random pop-ups that display new messages. There are a couple of other cool features worth mentioning for this productivity chapter. You can cross-post messages to multiple profiles on other social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. You an also record a video and share it on the video social network, Seesmic.

8. NearbyTweets

This is a tool for those of us who would enjoy connecting to individuals in our general location. NearyTweets is a website that allows you to search based on geography in order to build customer relationships and monitoring in real time.

NearbyTweets is still fairly new but they will have some awesome tools coming up in the future including premium business tools, ability to show nearby business on Twitter, and a page for setting your default location.

9. TwitterGrader

Hubspot, the people that brought you Website Grader, realized that there was a need to track and rank users based on a certain criteria on Twitter. TwitterGrader was the answer to that question. The site allows you to track and measure your (and others) relative Twitter power. The calculation is based on a combination of different states including your number of followers, the power of your followers, number of updates, clicks, retweets, and completeness of your profile.

10. Twilert

Twilert is the tool for the paranoid in all of us. Twilert gives you the ability to receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service or any word you could possibly want, really any word. The service is extremely easy to setup and you will be able to stay on top of the conversation surrounding your specific keyword.

You can also use the service at search.twitter.com but Twilert gives you a more consistent feed from the world of the Twitter.

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Balancing Perception and Reality in Social Media

Is social media everything we really make it out to be? Is there an imbalance between perception and reality when it comes to social media? I would venture to say yes. Before we get into the underlying argument of the two terms… let’s define them (from dictionary.com).

Perception: a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.

Reality: something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

There is probably a universal argument of perception versus reality in terms of marketing. We are going to touch on that briefly. The majority of marketing communication exists in order to balance the worlds of perception and reality among consumers… among your clients. When it comes to social media  there is an imbalance of the two worlds. There seems to be more perceived value of the tool than the the actual reality (at this given moment).

We can talk about the growth of networks and the stats surrounding the baby boomer adoption of Facebook. We can talk about the growth of Twitter and the role it plays in international foreign policy. However, the fact remains that only 22% of the globe (350 million) has adopted social media as an  avenue for communication.

We are still in the infancy of this communication medium. That is the reality.

However, I am not discounting the value of perception. If a tool is perceived to have high value… it is my belief… that mass adoption is going to come much, much quicker than previously anticipated. What happens when perception turns into reality and your company is left behind because you didn’t change… you didn’t adapt?

There will always be the balance of perception and reality in any form of communications advancement. Did anyone really perceive the true value of television before mass adoption? What about radio? Newspaper? We tend to only leverage a communications medium after mass adoption.

It only makes true business sense to stay ahead of the curve. It is your job as business owners, marketing directors, and C-level employees to watch for the perception turning over to reality.

What do you think? Do we actually have an imbalance?

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Screw Stats. It is about Portability and Experiences

I am co-hosting a webinar tomorrow with Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware entitled Getting a Grip on Social Media. The first slide of my presentation simples says: Screw Stats. The whole concept behind the slide is the idea that we can run around statistics and figures all we want but the most important thing to understand is the future of portability and experiences in social media.

Portability

Portability is mobility. The mobile phone domination is going to grow even larger in the next couple of years and social media will be right behind it. There is no better way (other than text messaging) to utilize the iPhone or Palm Pre than securing applications that can be used to strengthen a users social media experiences. I don’t think the concept of social media is going to die because of the power of being mobile. Customer service is going to be dependent on securing social media because of a users ability to automatically tweet or post an experience the moment it happens… that is powerful.

Experiences

Selling is now almost completely dependent on the experiences of the customers. Peer recommendations have always been a staple to sell your services… referral and word of mouth marketing are inherently connected to success. Social media has made experiential marketing and referral marketing extremely powerful because of the ease of sharing a message. Social media is strengthen by the experiences customers share online. It is extremely important for a business to understand the ability and the important of using social media to empower your customers to share your message.

There are other reasons to join, research, and implement social media but the future of tool is in the ability to leverage portability and customer experiences.

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Video: My Thoughts on Social Media Productivity

This video was made about a year ago when Brandswag was still working out of my apartment in Fishers, Indiana. Please ignore the dresser. I wanted to repost it because of the content relating to the productivity of social media.

Balancing Client and Social Interactions in Social Media

I was recently asked by Duncan Alney from Firebelly Digital on a recent Hoosier PRSA blog post to detail how I balance client interaction with social interaction in the social media realm. Here is the question:

“BTW Kyle – perhaps you should share with those that don’t know – how you balance client and your own social media interactions. I know how you do it (now) but clearly – there are others that are dying to know ”

With such a great question posed how could I not answer it? Duncan is a great guy and an awesome social media advocate. I would encourage you to check out the blog over at Firebelly.

I am going to take a stab at this question and form my own opinion on what Duncan meant by client and social media interactions. The idea of being able to balance personal social experience with client lead generation is a valuable commodity when using social media. It is extremely hard in the long run to balance both without taking to much time in both categories. I would venture to say that you shouldn’t try and balance the two… they should be intertwined.

Time is a huge commodity when using social media. How do you take the time to truly use social media without wasting the day away… because we all know… time is money. When the importance of productivity is realized

The social world is beginning to change the way consumers look at brands. Are they viewing the brand as a logo or as an experience? In my humble opinion… the user is viewing the brand as a person… as an experience… as an extension to their daily lives.

I use social media to show my personal side… to show that life is revolving around more than just a balance sheet, an income statement, and an accounts receivable report. Social media is about giving a perspective into the daily lives of the individuals that make up a company. People buy from people and the importance of showing more than just a product is being lost by many individuals using the communication systems provided on the Internet.

When writing a blog, using Facebook, or connecting on LinkedIN… you should be making it a point to deliver a half/half balance of life as well as business. Your potential clients want to know about your knowledge in your given industry but they also want to know about your daily routine… what makes you tick.

I try to balance the two by using Facebook as my social interaction tool and my blog as my business side of my life. How do you balance the two? Do you even try to balance the two?

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Should a Not-for-Profit use Twitter?

The first step in utilizing a social tool like Twitteris to understand the human element in relation to social media. The human element can be referred to as an underlying form of authenticity when using social tools for communication. When consulting with a company, I tend to recommend two separate accounts. You should always have social media tools for your personal life, which could be separate from your business. There are (of course) different argument for both accounts.We can go into that at a later date.

When a person is seeking out information on your company they want two things concrete information (hard data, contact info, about us, etc) and the human element (owner, employee, company mission, etc). Twitter, not to mention every other social media outlet, gives you the opportunity to show a more human side to your business/organization.

Next step: Just try it out. Start an organization Twitter account (ie. Comcastcares). Search for people in your area and start following. See what happens.

Put some HUMAN into your COMPANY. Believe me, it is worth it.

After all, an empty, heartless logo is the last thing a donor will give money.

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3 Steps to Being Productive in Social Media

Everyone loves social media. That is not the issue. There is really one huge issue that keeps individuals from using social media and that is time. Time can be an ugly thing if you are not productive with the tools and time given to you. How are you productive and manage your time effectively? I use the four-touch point model.

Step 1: Use the 4-Points Model

When using social media you should keep in mind the 4-points model. There are 4 points social media applications should touch in regards to your daily life: Business, Local Business Networking, Social, and Information. Choose four main networks where you spend the most of your time.

I use LinkedIn for business applications, Smaller Indiana for local business networking, Facebook for social application, and Twitter for information. LinkedIn can be described as my connection Rolodex. Facebook is to keep me updated on my friends and acquaintances from college and high school. Twitter is a wonderful information aggregation tool where you can follow influential people and the information they share. Smaller Indiana is a great place to connect to local professionals and share ideas on how to make Indiana a better place.

Step 2: Commit Yourself

You get what you put in. How many times have we heard that? When using social media commit to a set amount of time a week to using your applications. You will find yourself spending to much time on your applications if you fail to designate a certain amount during the week.

I try to designate an hour of each day to information sharing (writing blogs, commenting on blogs, perusing my Google Reader) and an hour a day to using my other networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Smaller Indiana).

Step 3: Be Authentic

I get numerous e-newsletter in my inbox everyday, most of them vary from mundane to outright boring. When posting on your social media applications, try to add some authenticity and personality to the information you are sharing. When I am reading blogs and posts on social applications the last thing I want to read is an impersonal e-newsletter. I want to know that the keystrokes behind the information is an actual person. Be personal. Be Authentic.

There are the three steps I use to get the most out of Social Media. Cheers!

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All That Matters Is Your Story

We are experiencing a change in the world of customer communication. It is no longer the company that is controlling the brand management but the consumer. Forget the concept of social media… we have been witnessing this transition for the past decade… and since the inception of the Internet as a worthwhile tool for communication.

Customers are now talking about you at a staggering pace using sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIN… and the list goes on. I was watching TV today and taking note of the increasinly terrible advertising that is taking place on the cable networks. I began to realize that I (along with millions of others) are no longer making buying decisions based on traditional advertising. You can take the definition of traditional advertising any way you want but in my terms it means old ways of doing business.

A great book to read from the Heath brothers is Made to Stick which talks about the concept of creating a story to push your company into the next decade of communication. I have read, reread, and read again the excellent points made throughout the book and began to realize one thing… if you do not create a story that your customers can retell you will lose market share steadily over the next couple of years.

We might not be seeing a steady decline because social media and the Internet is still bleeding edge when it comes to market penetration in a global sense. My question is simply this: What happens when we do reach the peak of market penetration for social media? What happens when your customers ARE using the tool and using it effectively? What do you do when you reach the point? Are you ready for the onslaught? Is your communications department familiarizing themselves with the tools?

All that matters is your story. You are going to be creating a story based on a marketing process but we might come to the point where it doesn’t matter what you want your story to be… your customers are going to create a story anyway. Experience is the key to the future of marketing and customer communication. They (your customer) are going to be talking NOT about your sales or PR release but how they personally experienced your product or service.

Are you preparing yourself for the new age of communication?

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