Maximize your social: most businesses need a structured road map to create and manage successful social media programs.

• Author: Schaffer, Neal
• Position: Business & Finance

MANY COMPANY leaders understand that, in order to survive in today's business world, their firms must have a social media presence but, to the detriment of many organizations, strategy is lagging (way) behind. In fact' a survey this year shows that creating a social media strategy remains a major concern for 83% of marketers.

When no strategy is present, here is what happens: individuals from different departments tweet at will, using the company's official handle. Some of these 140-character messages are loaded down with cumbersome language from the company's website copy guidelines; others are peppered with abbreviations like "u," "r," and "2." On Facebook, users who "like" the company's page find that their newsfeeds are bombarded with promotions, surveys, and so called "news." Meanwhile, clients are posting positive and negative feedback on both sites. Sometimes these comments receive responses; sometimes they do not (and that is not even taking into account LinkedIn, Pinterest, the company's blog, and more).

In using such a scattershot approach to social media, these organizations are missing out on major opportunities to engage with potential and current customers, manage their reputations, etc.--and they may be alienating social media users in the process. Without a social media strategy, how do you know what you are trying to achieve, what you should be doing, how well you are doing, what you should be measuring, and what the return on investment of your social media program is?

If your company is going to enter the social media world, you need a strategy because it standardizes messaging, determines how resources are used, defines which tactics you will and will not pursue, serves as a road map, and still Hill carry on its purpose through personnel changes. When formulating a strategy, be sure to look at the implications it will have on all of your internal stakeholders and include them in the planning.

Here are some essential components of a comprehensive social media strategy:

Branding. Be consistent across all channels. Most businesses already have brand guidelines (including naming, color scheme, and imagery), and these should be applied to your social media properties as well. After all, branding is all about consistency, right? The challenge, though, is that most branding guidelines do not include any guidance for the most important part of your brand in social media conversations: your voice.

Although your brand guidelines might make mention of tone and vocabulary for use in website copy, social media will challenge those guidelines when you need to have a conversation with an average person. In most instances it is okay to be less formal on social media channels--just make sure that your updates, statuses, comments, etc. "speak" with a unified voice. In...