Excerpt from A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization by Deltina Hay

Chapter 1: Creating Your Social Media Strategy

Posted on May 28, 2009

Chapter 1 of the book is about mapping a social media and Web 2.0 optimization strategy right out of the gate. A strong message throughout the entire book is to methodically build a solid and optimized presence in the Social Web that you can reasonably manage. Once that foundation is in place, adding and integrating new tools will be almost painless.

The following excerpts are from A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, Tactics, and Tools for Succeeding in the Social Web by Deltina Hay

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Chapter 1: Creating Your Social Media Strategy

There are three general areas to keep in mind when planning a strategy for optimizing your presence in the Social Web: interactivity, sharing, and collaboration. Interactivity can come in the form of writing blog posts, commenting on others’ posts, tweets, or participating in social networking communities. Sharing can be as easy as uploading images and video clips onto media communities. Collaboration can be achieved by contributing to social bookmarking sites or wikis…

…It is easy to get overwhelmed with all of the new social media and Web 2.0 tools and technologies that pop up on the Internet on an almost daily basis. But a carefully planned and executed strategy can alleviate your stress and ensure your successful transition into the new Social Web…

…The one bit of technology essential to your Social Web success is an RSS feed, discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, “RSS Feeds & Blogs,” but, in short, you have two choices:

Start a blog which has built-in RSS feed technology, or
Create your own RSS feed using an XML file…

…The next step in a successful strategy is to decide which tools make sense for you or your business to implement…

Here are other general areas to consider:

Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)
It is a good idea to have a healthy profile on one if not two of these social networking sites.

Micro Blogging (Twitter, Jaiku, etc.)
These sites have become as popular as blogging. We recommend a healthy presence in at least one of them.

Other Social Platforms (Tumblr, Squidoo, etc.)
If you have a lot of content, these platforms are a good addition to your strategic tool kit.

Social Bookmarking and Crowd-Sourcing (StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.)
Building a presence in several of these sites and contributing regularly is highly recommended for any strategy.

Blog Commenting
Becoming part of the conversation is a very important part in any social media strategy. As you are surfing the Web and/or searching for sites and blogs to share on social networking and crowd-sourcing sites, take the time to comment on others’ blog entries.

Media Communities (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)
Sharing your multimedia content is an important part of any strategy, even if you only have a few images.

Social Calendars
Consider these if you host or attend a lot of events.

Podcasting
Podcasts are not difficult to create. They can be particularly effective if you have plenty of instructional material or you conduct interviews.

Vidcasting or Webcasting
These can be powerful viral tools for people or companies who have the resources to create and maintain them.

Widgets and Badges
Placing widgets and badges from other social sites on your Website or blog can help make your site more interactive.

Virtual Worlds
This is one technology that should be given considerable forethought. The learning curve is steep and consultants are expensive. However, for the right product, it could serve as a powerful marketing tool.

Social Media Newsrooms
This tool is ideal for authors, publishers, or other companies who garner a good amount of media coverage or produce regular news releases.

Custom Widgets or Applications
These are your own custom-built widgets or applications that can virally carry your brand into the Social Web.

Hosting your own Blogs, Social Network, Wiki, etc.
These tools are best suited for companies with a large customer base or who have many active advocates for their brand or service…

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This chapter also features 5 real-world social media strategies for you to use as a basis for your own. The resource CD offers further reading, linkable resources, and a fillable PDF form called “Social Web Strategy Worksheet” that you can use to map your strategy.

A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, Tactics, and Tools for Succeeding in the Social Web by Deltina Hay

416 Pages, Indexed, Resource CD with fillable forms.

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