Got Strategy? Figuring Out a Rational Social Media Plan
Your social media content strategy benefits from forethought.
Sandra Valez, Content Strategy Leader at Merck, suggests a three-step process:
- Understand your customer needs
- Have a 2-way conversation
- Be on the channels your customer expects to find you
Rather than use a “spray and pray” approach, get to know who your customers are and create a “persona” or archetype of your customers – the HCPs, the consumers and the payers. Figure out their goals and needs, and then listen to them. Depending on your customer’s persona, they will have different emotional needs. So use your data and other intelligence to get to know who they are and meet them where they’re at.
Once you have developed your personas, map the patient journey, develop content to target them and learn their channel preferences.
Social Media Strategy Needs to Align with Business Goals
In a follow-up session on content marketing technology, Martin Johansson, Vice President of Business Informatics at The Medicines Company, cautioned attendees “don’t do technology for the sake of technology.”
Employ a deliberate strategy with three components:
- Diagnose what is going on with your customers.
- Have a Guiding Policy that is executable.
- Develop a list of coherent actions that you can follow through on.
Your plan should not exist in isolation, though. Make sure you tie back your social media strategy to business goals that align with business outcomes.
“Put a plan in place, align it with your business goals, then prioritize your actions,” Johansson said.
(This article was originally published on February 29, 2016)