Dealing with the temptation to skip strategic planning for communications

This is the first of a series where we share about organisations and their challenges when it comes to implementing strategic communications and marketing for their brand, services or products.

We recently advised a consumer healthcare client about a communications strategy for their social media channel. The client relied exclusively on a B2B social media channel to share content, information and updates about their services and marketing campaigns. They have parts of a amplification network set up with access to executives’ profiles and internal processes on the method and frequency of sharing updates through these profiles.

However, the social media channel is regarded as a distribution channel shared across all services and products. This usually results in a queue or ‘first come first serve’ system where the business unit that ‘books’ the slot first will get more use of the channel. The communications function responsible for the channel becomes an administrator and often has to demonstrate how they are sharing the channel with business units equitably.

This is a common challenge many communications teams encounter regularly.

To be clear, the challenge has become one of administration and not whether the social media channel is being used either optimally or in a proper manner.

This is the counsel we shared with the client offering a mid-term perspective and how the communications team can regain control of the channel for the benefit of their internal stakeholders.

Determine objectives, goals and metrics from the start for the social media channel

· Are we looking to do outreach, educate customers or simply to serve as a supplementary information tool?

· Once the objectives are determined, set out a goal for the short and medium term. This can be set by the quarter, half-year or full work-year.

· Decide how to measure the objectives and goals. An outreach objective is measured by the traffic gained that goes to the website, landing page or content asset. An education objective will require an indicator that shows the customer understands the product better. If it’s difficult to find a direct metric, be creative and use proxies for the behaviour to be measured instead.

Build up a framework for executives and stakeholders to support the distribution channel’s efforts

· State upfront that many social media channels are pay-to-play and that the advertising budget impacts the effectiveness of the tool

· Explain how the channel can become more effective by having access to relevant profiles and networks to amplify efforts

· Draw up a framework, parameters of usage and plan that integrate the social media channel with executive and stakeholder profiles. Remember to share and brief the executives and stakeholders so they are clear why they are important to the system.

Integrate the social media strategy and plan with the overall marketing or communications calendar

· This is important to ensure customers encountering or interacting with the brand receive coherent messages that do not raise questions or create doubt about the product during their customer journey

· By following a master calendar with integrated channels, it is also a convenient document to share across business units. Stakeholders understand their products are being taken care of. Importantly, they can also include communications in the business unit planning and this improves the coordination and execution across the board.

Improve the efficacy of the social media channel by engaging with the community from the start; and not only when there is a campaign running

· Many products benefit from the network effect of being known and recognised by early adopters, evangelists, and influencers

· It’s good practice to connect either as a company page, or through executive profiles with the community. This is not about a sales pitch, or a customer journey outcome. It’s about offering value from a brand or product perspective and being engaged with the community.

· The Communications team can own this initiative of tapping onto the community – without selling – when a campaign runs and the organisation is looking for feedback (through a survey, poll), perspective (focus groups), amplification (sharing of information to a wider network) or engagement (events or launches).

We estimated that the client would take between 2 - 6 months to implement the above set of recommendations.

We also suggested that the steps and outcomes be framed to stakeholders as a quarter or half-year social media plan. This provides management and stakeholders with a timeline against a backdrop of accountability; and provides them the opportunity to align themselves with the output and outcome.

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We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, retail, travel and technology spaces.

We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.

Areas of support include:

· Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership

· Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution

· Lead generation: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce

· Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a seconded marketing and/or PR lead for your brand

Discover more about our services at our website or book an exploratory consultation through this link.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash