What is social media planning and analysis? An interview with Ash Shepherd

Fotolia 20145640 XS What is social media planning and analysis? An interview with Ash Shepherd

I’ve been following Ash Shepherd on Twitter for quite some time now because he always seems to have something important to share. Following is an email “interview” I conducted with Ash about a service he offers called “Social Media Planning and Analysis”. Enjoy!

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What is social media planning and analysis?

Social media planning and analysis is really about two things:

  1. Creating frameworks that keep social media activities mission focused in a sustainable manner.
  2. Taking the time look at if what you are doing is working.

After all, none of us have the time or resources to do anything that is not helping us achieve our mission as an organization or company.

Can you explain what this looks like in practice?

There is obviously a lot that can go into explaining this but the simple breakdown is this: Goals, Strategies, Tactics, Tools and Metrics. The biggest point I think to make here is that picking your tool comes as one of the final steps, not as the first and only one.

This practice of keeping things tied to larger communication goals with specific actions and ways to measure successes as well as shortcomings is the key to sustainability for groups.

If you chase the tools what are you going to do when (and I do mean when not if) they change? You have to start over. With a solid plan and framework the worst case scenario is that you have to adjust that last two steps of the process but everything else can remain consistent.

Can you give us an example?

I worked with the Oregon based nonprofit group “Mad As Hell Doctors” a few months ago to develop a strategic social media campaign.  The primary focus was around a month long car-a-van tour across the country with 26 town hall style events culminating with a major rally in Washington DC before a vote related to healthcare reform.

They had a significant need to build a sense of community and momentum behind their issue in a very short period of time (they came to me 2 weeks prior to the campaign launch). In the end we set up a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account, YouTube Nonprofit Channel and blog that all integrated through the Fan Page.

By developing and using a social media plan they were able to realize three major benefits.

  1. They redefined the community. Social media allowed them to connect, chare and hear from supporters not only from around the country but also from around the world which help drive great participation through a few of their petition and email campaigns.
  2. Increased participation – It allowed them to create avenues for participation and ownership for the campaign with people who were not able to physically participate in the month long car-a-van or town hall meetings due to geographic barriers (or time-off barriers from work).
  3. Stay connected – Accessibility of social media through mobile technology actually allowed them to manage and stay connected with the campaign even while on the road. The power to tell the story as it happened by everyone involved was a major contributing factor to the success of the campaign according to the group.

Questions for Ash? Comment below

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Ash Shepherd is a technology consultant at TACS & NPower Oregon. He is one smart guy. Following him at @TACS_NPower.

Posted March 5, 2010
  • Good post! After all social media is a very powerful tool.
    David Plouffe’s,( President Barack Obama’s point man on social media) innovative strategy not only got Obama elected but also managed to raise the largest amount of campaign funding in election history.
    At the IMD OWP 2010 , David Plouffe will share his insights on the historic Obama campaig
  • I like the idea of clearly understanding the goals of the social media campaign and then deciding on what tools to use (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) Understanding the goals first will facilitate not only deciding what tools to use but how to use them (strategy).

    The one area that social media needs to grow and strengthen is in the area of metrics. However, from a Twitter perspective, the Twitter API innovators are coming up with some great ideas and applications ( e.g. Klout, Tweetaffect, etc.) to assist with this.
  • Lafate,

    Thanks for the comments and I agree. The danger with some of the third party metrics stuff that I see is the context for the metrics. For example, some of the metrics like Klout are based on a sort of curve. This means that you are being compared to and rated against folks like the Ellen DeGeneres Show, BBC, etc that have a crew of folks behind the efforts and not a fair comparison for nonprofit groups just getting started.

    I think a healthy balance of metrics that measure against the bell curve as well as some that simply stand on their own (ReTweet counts, Mentions, listed etc) is the healthiest way to measure true impact and progress over time towards your own organization's/company's goals.

    Thanks again for the comments and feedback.
  • Thanks Renee for the comments. Here is a little quick and dirty to some of your questions.

    How did we know it was working:
    ~The community on Facebook really starting to follow through with the suggestions of the organization (email/phone campaigns to representatives, etc).
    ~The community themselves began to generate and follow through on ideas (i.e. people tied white ribbons on the fence at the white house to represent folks who could not be there for the rally and then shared those images on Facebook, Twitter, etc).
    ~Very high level of engagement on the fan page via comments, user generated links, etc.

    Adjustments Along the Way
    ~Twitter was helpful in managing the car-a-van but harder to manage from on the road so dropped in effort behind it.
    ~Began to capture more then just speakers from Town Hall events in videos to include more the story and activities rather then just message. This lead to more user submitted content as well on the fan page as fans began to understand they were really part of the story.
    ~Short time frame (only brought me on board 2 weeks prior and started from almost scratch) did not allow for a real in-depth plan around monitoring metrics etc so not as much "on-the-fly" analysis and adjustment as I think would have been helpful.

    Hope this helps.
  • Thanks for the additional background. It was really helpful in understanding the nuances of the campaign as it progressed. It seems that these short burst campaigns always have the tiniest of planning windows but the most excitement and community involvement! There must be an iphone app out there to measure SM campaigns on the fly...if not, we should definitely invent one. :)
  • Sign me up Renee! Very short time lines, lots of excitement and a bit of confusion once the rush was over and they had to figure out what to do with this large mobilized community when the deadlines arrived. Very interesting stuff.

    Feel free to track me down directly if you want more in-depth then is good for a blog comment.
  • Hi Ash - I'd like to hear a little more about your analysis and measurement of the campaign. How did you determine that what you were doing was working? If you had to make adjustments along the way, what were they and did those changes make an impact?

    Thanks!
  • Thanks to everyone who has shared or passed this info around. Hopefully it helps answer a few questions for folks.
  • Ash - Thanks for guest posting here. Great stuff!
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