Social Media Strategy – constraints

Last week I kicked off a social media strategy meeting with a client. My role was to help forge a strategy out of the multitude of social media options available. Should the client use Twitter, Facebook (personal accounts, group, Fan Pages?), Linkedin, Flickr, Foursquare, Blogging and on and on and on…

It’s very easy for clients to get snow blinded by the options!

…which is why a good starting point can be to consider the constraints which are in place. This may help whittle the above list down to something more manageable.

What are the constraints?

All clients are unique but the following list of constraints will generally apply:

Resource

What staffing resources does the client have at their disposal (or is willing to upscale to) to handle the social media account management and/or content creation/editorial work?

Time

How much time have your resources got to work on this project? You can’t simply add “oh! update Twitter will you?” onto regular workloads and not expect something to give.

Also with regards to time (and probably more importantly) is this; when is your campaign going to kick off? When are you expecting it to yield results? Social media does not tend to be a silver bullet or a quick fix so realistic timescales need to be established from day one.

Budget

Closely linked with resource/time is money. Does it exist? If so,  how much? How can it be spent?

Other

Ok “other” is a bit of a cop out but it’s a catch all for everything else. For example, many companies have over arching brand policies or IT security policies which will inhibit certain on-line activity. These are typically cast iron and really must be considered from early doors.

So, if you’re snow blind with options as to which social media elements to engage with; why not consider some of the constraints in place and see if that helps clarify the situation.