Last week, several members of the Spiral16 team attended the monthly meeting of the KAIROS Analytics Group. I was outnumbered by our resident technology and analytics geeks, but being on the marketing side of things, I was particularly interested in the presentation, which focused on social media strategy.
Mike Brown from strategy consulting firm Brainzooming was the speaker, and his reasonably titled talk, “Social Media Will Neither Save Nor End the World As We Know It,” was very different from others I had seen before. (Plus, the title had kind of an old-school R.E.M. feel to it, which I’m totally down with.)
First off, due to the venue, Mike had to present without a computer at all. No powerpoint, no video, nothing. He adapted rather creatively with a big tablet of cartoon drawings on an easel, to which he kept drawing on top of to make his point.
Second of all, it was easy to remember. It seemed like common sense.
One section, it turns out, has already been shared on his blog, and its a chart that I really enjoyed that lays out a method for getting your social media strategy closer to that elusive ROI. By planning for and capturing both the easy-to-measure quantitative (“left-brain”) metrics and the more slippery qualitative (“right-brain”) returns, you can get a more “whole-brain” picture of your strategy.
See the full-sized chart at Brainzooming.com.
What I like about this is the fact that its easy to conceptualize and relate to. There’s no complicated formula to gum up the works. (If there’s anything I hate more than Nickelback, it’s math.)
In your campaign, either you are 1) Initiating Activity, 2) Interacting with your customers, or 3) Receiving Returns based on your efforts. It’s as simple as that. Separate those into left-brain/right-brain and you’ve got a complete picture.
Common sense, right?
When planning your social media strategy, you’ll be able to see how comprehensive it is by looking at how you are or aren’t filling the chart out. Saying this is kind of the big buzz right now, but this makes it even more clear:
Social media without strategy is like shooting in the dark.
Do you have an easy way to lay out your social media strategy? What helps you organize your plan?
