With the importance of social media I thought it would be good to write a post on how one approaches strategy when you plan online projects. In this little case study I used my own Twitter account as the example.
Requirements
In this case the company requirements and my personal requirements are the same, as my jewellery company is also my name.
Distribute content I produce on protonode, my jewellery website and stringing-beads to Twitter:
- Distribute information on my jewellery
- Redistribute good information on digital project management, running a small business and beautiful objects
- Stay in touch with my friends consisting
- Connect with web professional, crafting and design communities.
- I only want one Twitter account
- I don’t want to spend more than half an hour a day on social media (excluding analysis)
- I generally access Twitter through my PC
User objectives
As we’ve seen when we looked at How Twitter functions, users and business owners are very closely linked. In general:
- People don’t want to be marketed at
- Want to find information they find interesting
- Want to be interacted with
Success metrics
When I decided to change my jewellery brand name I also had to stop using the Twitter account account associated with it.
- I had about 750 followers in my Tangentine account and would like my new account to have the same within 4 months
- I want 20% of my blog post readers to originate from social media sources; 10% from Twitter, within a 8 month period
- I want to be able to do quarterly competitions where you can win a piece of jewellery; at least 100 people should enter each competition and 75% of entries should originate from social media – the first campaign will probably not conform to these criteria as it needs to happen in the next month and a half.
- I want to reach 2500 followers within a year.
Follower demographic:
- Interest: 30% web and design professionals, 60% followers interested in craft related information, 10% friends.
- Location: At least 10% should be South African
Explanatory notes:
- Amount of followers may be considered low, but I believe in organic growth
- Follower demographic criteria are tests for content quality and that I follow the right people
- The location demographic is important to me, because I moved back to South Africa and need to understand the local internet environment better. I want to market my jewellery locally and location is another success metric for local marketing efforts.
Following/ followers:
Science and technology, science fiction, crafts, macro photography, gaming, web design and development.
Communities/ Groups
- The interaction aspect involves these groups and should grow to networks I mention in my success metric list.
- Astro&Neutrino: A group of artists interested in science
- Etsy community: Friends and acquaintances from my Etsy network
- Expat community: A group of friends who all have small craft businesses and have been, currently are or will be expatriates.
- Work mate community: People living all over the world that I’ve worked with
Open Issues:
I’ve used Google Analytics as a superficial means to analyse traffic from social media sources in the past but need more sophisticated tracking.