COURSE

Social Media Strategy from A to Z

LEARNING GUIDE

Course Level: Intermediate

This course is intended for those looking to add structure, rigour, and proactivity
to their social media marketing efforts. The course is best suited for those who
have a business objective that needs social media support, and who want to
approach it in a systematic and effective way.

How to Use this Study Guide

This Study Guide will be your learning aid as you move through each of the six modules in the Social Media
Marketing Certification. Weve broken it down into three main components in order to help you absorb the material:
Certification: Provides an introduction to what youll be learning in the Course.
Course Notes: A summary of the key points and main takeaways from each unit.
Applying What Youve Learned: Questions to help you think how youd apply these lessons in your social media
marketing plans.

Social Media Marketing Certification Overview

Introduction to Social Media Marketing
Optimizing Your Social Profiles

30 minutes

Strategy

Social Media Strategy - from A to Z

45 minutes

Execution

Growing Your Online Community

Content Marketing Fundamentals
Social Advertising Fundamentals

30 minutes
45 minutes
30 minutes

Fundamentals

Exam

Social Media Marketing Certification Exam

45 minutes

60 multiple
choice questions

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Social Media Strategy - from A to Z

Course 3

Overview
Over the last few years, social media has revolutionized communication for people and businesses alike. As your
business adapts to this development, it can be difficult to know exactly how to best devote your resources and
energy. A well thought out, and well-documented social media strategy is a foundational piece of your business
social media success. This course will turn your attention to the elements your business you must consider when
developing a social media strategy, the goals you want your social efforts to achieve and the various ways you may
use social media to support your business objectives.

Course Notes
Before You Start: What is a Social Media Strategy?

The Value of a Social Media Strategy

To minimize wasted effort, time and data, its essential to spend the time to develop a comprehensive
and unified social media strategy that complements your existing marketing objectives.
A social media strategy is a strategic plan for how a company will incorporate social media into its
business.

Overview of Social Media Strategy Components and General Best Practices

The first three key components are the social media audit, the objectives and the online brand
persona and voice.
Once these three components are addressed, you can start considering the strategy component.
Define a set of roles and responsibilities to clarify who on your team is responsible for what. and
develop a social media policy so expectations around appropriate use of social media are clear.
Youll measure the success of your social strategy.

Conducting a Social Media Audit

Analyze and understand the effectiveness of your existing social media efforts with an audit. Log all of
your social properties, follower counts, engagement rates and average activity per week + sync with
your marketing department for information on customers age, gender, buying habits and interests.
From here, move onto a competitive analysis.

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Applying What Youve Learned

List 3 reasons for why its important to invest time and resources into developing a social media marketing strategy.

Pick 2 to 3 competitors and analyze how they use social media. What tactics seem successful and what isnt
working?

Setting Strategic Goals

Setting Objectives, KPIs and Key Supporting Messages

Social media strategy must be guided by goals that directly contribute to the larger business objectives
of your company.
A key message is what you want the public to know about your business.

Specifying Brand Persona and Voice

Maintain consistency in your communications with a document that defines your brand voice.
Consider how this voice will relate to your community building approach and the type of content your
brand will share.

Applying What Youve Learned

List 1-3 social media objectives that align with your larger business objectives.

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

If your brand was a person, what would his/her name be? Now list 10 adjectives that you want to characterize your
brand persona.

Choosing the Right Social Media Strategies

Strategies and Tools to Consider

You can think about strategies as belonging to one of three categories - PAID, OWNED, and EARNED.
Consider the tools youll use to support workflow (e.g., Hootsuite for listening, engaging and measuring
your interactions, Kapost for curating content your audience may find interesting, or Vimeo for sharing
videos).

Setting Objectives, KPIs and Key Supporting Messages

Identifying and defining key dates and timelines for the year is essential when planning your social
media activity to ensure you have enough time to prepare for seasons or holidays that matter most to
your business.

Putting Together a Content Game Plan

Sharing high quality, relevant content can help your brand develop a close relationship with its
audience, establish authority in your industry niche and contribute to overarching business objectives.
Important questions to consider are who will create the content, which channels you will use to
distribute it and how often. A Content Calendar is a great tool to keep this information organized and
give you a visual representation of your plan.

Applying What Youve Learned

Come up with three social media strategies which can help you achieve your social media objectives identified in the
previous section.

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Generate a list of 5 to 10 key dates that should be included into your social media strategy.

Administrative Considerations

How to Set Up the Roles and Responsibilities on Your Team

Review who has access to your branded social media channels.
Determine who will fulfil key roles: Social Media Director, Social Media Manager and Social Media
Coordinator.
Plan for times of high volume social media activity.

Creating Social Media Guidelines and Policy for Your Company

Develop a policy that explicitly outlines the appropriate and inappropriate use of social media by your
employees.
Include a few examples to illustrate what appropriate and inappropriate online behaviour looks like.

Creating a Critical Response Plan

A negative event or customer experience can quickly escalate into a public-facing issue.
A critical response plan consists of four parts - a social listening protocol, a list of designated decision
makers, a step by step action plan for dealing with a particular scenario, and pre-approved messaging.

Applying What Youve Learned

Brainstorm 2 to 3 situations that should be covered in your Critical Response Plan. What actions steps would you
take to resolve each scenario.

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Evaluating Your Success

Applying Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement to Your Social Media Strategies

By measuring your results against your objectives at regular intervals, you can identify what strategies
and tactics work well, those that dont, and adjust course as necessary.
The two types of measurement to consider for your KPIs are Quantitative and Qualitative.

Applying Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement to Your Social Media Strategies

Once youve gathered the data on your key performance indicators, adjust course by either optimizing
your strategy or pursuing a different direction.
You can think of this process in three parts - gathering the data, analyzing it, and taking action based
on the insights the data provides.

Applying What Youve Learned

For one of the social media strategies you identified in Lesson 3, list three KPIs you would use to track progress in
executing those strategies.

Notes:

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY