The perfect social media management plan, as you might imagine does not exist. The question I am seeking to answer today is how brands can create a plan that works.

As with a building if the foundation is not right then the structure will not last. You will use your resources patching walls, fixing roofs, & trying to hold everything together. Until you or someone else like you demolishes the structure and starts again.

Like any objective effective social media management starts with planning. Do we understand what we are trying to achieve by using social media, what are the risks, and where are the leverage points for us as a brand? Today I am going to break this into three key areas that are a must to creating the ideal social media management plan.

1. Research: This begins with mapping some key areas of your business internally and externally.

* Who are your key stakeholders, internally and externally?

* How is your brand known in the market? Not your perception, but rather the words used by your customers or consumers.

* Who is doing it right in your industry or outside of your industry?

* What platforms are they publishing on, and are those the right platforms for you? Or are there platforms your competitors are not using? Like Instagram (fastest growing social media network).

* Establishing a performance baseline, what traffic are we getting today? What is our sign-up rate like, what is our starting point?

2. Social Channels and Architecture:

All social media platforms do not integrate well with each other, and others do so seamlessly.

As some social media channels are directly competing for the same target market. Therefore trying to leverage those channels together is a mistake and one made by many.

A very quick example would be that if you upload Youtube videos to Facebook. Those videos will not get the same organic reach as if you upload your video directly to Facebook.

Another important aspect is deciding what channels you have the resources to use. Are you prepared to allocate advertising funds to LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter? Are you prepared to create native content for each of the platforms consistently?

The priority in any of this being where does my ideal client reside?

Other questions you might ask.

What is our home base? Blog, E-commerce site, Social Media Platform, or Content Hub

What channels do we use? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. You can see how there are many options available.

How do we connect the social platforms?

How do we leverage the social platforms and our audience?

3. Social media management attribution

If the baseline of traffic and leads has been completed accurately, then the obvious next step is to create goals. Or an attribution model that says we need this return for this amount of resource.

Social media management and planning should never be a me-too brand play. It should be about driving business growth. As more consumers become multi-platform users, the 1st screen is now the mobile device. Your brand needs to identify how you market to the device and consumer in a way that drives conversions.

This is where capability and functionality are increasing every single day.

Without exploring these capabilities in great depth:

• We now have click to call on Facebook
• Instant purchase coming on Google
• Download your App directly in the Twitter stream

And multiple ways to sell across the social media platforms, or drive leads.

I will explore all of these capabilities in a future post about frictionless commerce.

Effective social media management starts with asking the right questions, planning, and then taking action.

This approach can put you years in front of your competition.

And what a great place to start?