It can be incredibly difficult to divide your resources when you are part of a small team. Although social networking sites are free to join, to be truly effective your organisation you will need to invest time and resources.
How do you know where to start, never mind how to amplify and grow your online presence. Where should you focus your efforts to ensure your team’s actions are garnering the best results?
Continuous and evolving
A digital strategy is not a fixed document but a continuous and evolving process. This is especially true when resources are tight. To capitalise on what digital communications can offer, it’s important to be agile.
Start with organisational goals in mind:
This is really important if you want to avoid the trap that so many companies fall in to of trying to jump on every shiny new digital trend. It’s not about your digital goals, they come next and should be tied directly to what you are trying to do as an organisation. For example:
The goals above are very simplistic but it is worth starting with the most basic and building complexity from there. In the example above Revenue could just as easily be e-commerce or Online Donations, they all come down to the same thing.
Next relate these to digital actions that you can measure:
It’s important to remember that getting traffic to your website isn’t enough, what do users do when they get there? I would make this same point when it comes to twitter followers, Facebook fans, blog subscribers etc. For large retailers there is always an argument to be made for playing the numbers game if you can do it economically. However, for small organisations it’s much better to build value into each action.
Having clearly set your organisational goals, it’s now time to look at your target audience. Who are they, which social platforms do they use and are they open to your communications while using them? Just because your audience are on Facebook doesn’t mean they are willing to interact with your there.
Go to > Digital Strategy: Targeting your audience
For more digital and social media tips and training, why not sign up for one of my online training programmes. Guided learning in the comfort of your own home from beginner to advanced.
