We’re very excited to be teaching the Social Media Project course this Fall Semester at UBC. Over the course of the next four Tuesdays in November, we’ll be tweeding up for an evening with our students. We’ll admit, you’re our first students. What can you expect from us? A hands-on, practical approach to developing successful social media plans.
Here’s a little bit about your Instructors, Monica Krake and Kirstin Richter. We bring almost 25 years of combined experience in marketing and PR and social media. We look forward to getting to know each of you.
Session 1: November 6th, 6:30-9:30.
How and where do you begin in order to create a social media plan that will help you reach your marketing goals? There are many, many ways to approach any social media plan. The key is to align the resources you have at your disposal to your overall marketing and campaign goals using the budget and manpower available. When this is done well, it’s pure magic. Here are some questions to consider to help you shape up an effective plan.
- What are the goals of your social media campaign?
- What is the budget you have to work with?
- What are the “big ideas”? Why will your audience want to engage?
- What other resources can be leveraged? (Promotional partners, stakeholders)
- Do you have buy in from all levels of your organization?
- How will you integrate this plan with your organization’s greater (traditional) communications plan?
- What human resources (time) have been allocated to managing the campaign?
We’ve had the pleasure of working on some outstanding social media campaigns which we look forward to showcasing first-hand in our class. For example, Better Together, a project supported by the BC Dairy Association and Ministry of Health, is one of our favourite campaigns. When we were brought on to promote Better Together three years ago, we were told to promote one simple message: It’s important to eat meals together as a family. Sounds easy, right? We’ve taken this message and transformed it into a community forum, using Twitter, FB, a blog and website, to offer information and engage a community of parents who genuinely benefit from the content being shared. One of the ways we’ve done this is through our Hands-on Cook-off contest and through a blog, which provides inspiration and features the behind-the-scenes tips of some high profile people and personalities including Laurie David, Meeru Dhalwala, and Stuart McLean to name a few.
The point is, there is no ONE way to create a successful campaign. It’s a combination of great strategy, creativity and leveraging resources that makes a great campaign. For a slightly different perspective, we’l leave you with this article, entitled Three Steps to An Effective Social Media Plan.
