General Program Components

General Program Components are the infrastructure items that you should have in place to support you social marketing initiatives. They include People in the right positions, Processes defined, Budgets allocated, Technology implemented and Governance understood.

• People: Many of the skills that you need to be successful in Social Media Marketing are already in your organization, but piling more work on existing resources is not a blueprint for success. Make sure that you can identify who is going to do what, and how existing roles are going to evolve to include new responsibilities. If you don’t have the internal skills, consider using outside experts.
• Process: Steady State Initiatives and Campaigns will have different process requirements. Different Processes will need to be established and enforced to ensure consistency and repeatable success.
• Budget: Where are the $$ going to come from? New funding or existing programs.  Either way, budgeting has to be allocated for the long-term. Social Media Marketing is not a quick hit activity and it is not cheap (though not as expensive as most print or TV advertising).
• Technology: There are a lot of different technology options that can be used to manage your social media initiatives. For the most part, the different technology options map nicely to the Activities of Monitoring, Contribution and Measurement. Which tools you choose is less important however than your strategy and how you use them.
• Governance: Every organization should have some level of Social Media governance. IBM has a good bullet point version, or you can use a simple statement like the following: {Anything you do online needs to be well thought out, professional and comply with the company’s code of conduct. When in doubt, ask yourself: “Would I show this to our CEO or our biggest customer?” If ‘yes’, go ahead and contribute it.}

EXAMPLES

People (Roles)

• Community Managers
• Engagement Specialists

Budget (Line Items):

• Monitoring & Contribution Programs [internal or agency run]
• Blogging [ghost writer]
• Video production
• Facebook Campaigns
• Izea blogging program
• Tools [#socmktgapps

Process (Workflows / Process Maps):

• Monitoring processes
• Measurement process
• Contribution process
• Content approval processes
• Engagement processes
• Program Review process
• Integrated Marketing Coordination processes  

Technology:

Monitoring Applications:

Filtrbox
iGoogle
Radian6
Biz360

Contribution Applications:

Seesmic
Social.com
HootSuite
Tweetdeck
Ping.fm

Measurement Applications:

Google Analytics
Hubspot
Ominiture 

Governance:

• Social Media Statement of Conduct
• Legal Guidelines (mostly for financial information or regulated industries)