Guest blog by Andrew Jedlicka 
Marketing Professional & Adjunct Professor
More and more companies are aligning social media with their marketing and communications plans; therefore, the need to create a social media strategy is becoming more imperative than ever!
Organizations need to take a deeper look at their industry, market trends, competitors, and most importantly…their customers. They can do so by being more S-O-C-I-A-L”:
S — Strategize and plan your short-term and long-term goals as an organization, thus focusing on how social media trends in the marketplace can add value to your overall objectives.
O — Optimize and take full advantage of these trends such as utilizing blogs, video and photo sites, social bookmarking, and other forms of social media and marketing techniques.
C — Create and communicate your strategy internally to your employees once determined. No matter how small or large your organization is; it is important that your employees understand your social media strategy to provide optimal value to the organization and its end-users. Create your plan by identifying and segmenting your target market.
I — Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats by creating a specific SWOT analysis as it relates to your social strategy.
A — Align your SWOT-based strategy to make any necessary adjustments and edits to your strategy.
L – Launch your strategy, first as a test and then for real, and continue to measure, track, and evaluate!
According to the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report; marketers want to learn more about blogging. 58% of marketers are blogging, 62% want to learn more about it and 66% plan on increasing blogging activities. A significant 86% of marketers also said that “social media was important to their businesses.”
As marketers increase their knowledge of social media, there is a growing opportunity to create an effective strategy!