Social Media as a Strategy

It’s not uncommon to see social media stated as a strategy, but the question is how does it fit? Is social media a strategy, tactic, or both?

We’ve seen the social media "strategy" where there is a stated goal with a list of activities that include tactics such as creating a Facebook page or using Twitter to connect with customers or users. There are marketing plans or even advertising campaigns that list social media as a plan or online strategy.

Social Media as a Strategy: Strategy refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a goal. Figure out your goals or objective to define your social media strategy.

Facebook ideas for marketing
Facebook can be used to education your customers to learn more about our products and services and as the primary place for potential and current customers to engage with your brand. Think about product info, product education, marketing, and communications. Easy to post photos and videos. Create a custom Facebook fan page.

Twitter ideas for marketing:
When using Twitter, the goals could be to provide high-quality customer service or information.

You can post answers to questions (i.e. text), provide links to more detailed information (i.e. text, video, etc) and create video-based responses to FAQ. Share information about your company. Hold contests. 

Final words on social media
You can have a social media strategy or a plan to help get your brand into public awareness, but achieving success with search engine optimization (SEO) is a work in progress and these tools and one part of the big picture.