Social Media Assessment Part 1 of 7
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Today’s social media podcast is part 1 of a 7 part series on assessment. Before any major endeavor we need to take inventory of our assets, attitudes, and liabilities. Working with everyone from one person businesses right up to fortune 500 companies I have developed a social media assessment process that helps take that inventory. It’s a work in progress and in it’s present form has already helped me develop strong direction and focus with my clients. I’m sharing this process to help my readers and listeners, and also of course to get feedback — what do you like? What am I missing?
This is a process we developed working with our clients at Socialized! and it takes an inventory of the following:
- Your existing website: Is it socialized with a blog, integrated with the major social networks and well optimized for search engines?
- Your social profiles: Are you maximizing the use of the major social sites that are relevant to your audience. This entails not just creating content but having relevant conversations and engaging?
- Social Media Policy: Do you have a personal or corporate social media policy that fosters a social culture and creates accountability?
- Social Media Plan: Do you have a strategic plan for launching and sustaining focused social media communications.
- Trained staff: Is your team trained in the rules of engagement and in the technical aspects of the tools they will use?
- Integration: Silo? Online/Offline? Bi-directional?: What best describes your social media use. If only one person or one department is using it then you will be faced with bottlenecks and a one dimensional communications strategy.
- Metrics, Monitoring and Measurement?: Are you using social media monitoring tools like Twitter Search, Post Rank, Google Alerts etc. to find business intelligence, identify stakeholders and get involved in the conversation.
Today’s Podcast is focused on part 1 of the assessment: Your Socialized Site or Blog and asks 12 major questions (covered in the podcast)
| Area of Focus | Score /10 |
| 1) Website/blog platform: Is it based upon a platform that is social ready? | |
| Notes: | |
| 2) Is it easy to upgrade and keep pace with social media advancements? | |
| Notes: | |
| 3) Does it offer multiple channels/media for two-way communications? | |
| Notes: | |
| 4) Does it aggregate online conversations about your brand and industry? | |
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| 5) Does it provide a launch point to your social media outposts? | |
| Notes: | |
| 6) Does it provide industry standard blogging capabilities and plugins? | |
| Notes: | |
| 7) Is it search engine friendly? | |
| Notes: | |
| 8 ) Does it allow community contribution of content, ideas or questions? | |
| Notes: | |
| 9) Does it include multiple methods and media to learn about how you can help? | |
| Notes: | |
| 10) Is it easy for visitors to share all of your content on the web? | |
| Notes: | |
| 11) Are you proactively participating in communications and conversations on your site? | |
| Notes: | |
| 12) Is the content consistently updated and current? | |
| Notes: |
The most important thing to realize here is that most of the questions are focused on how you are using your blog and site. Some of it focuses on basic functionality but most is about the application. I will be posting Part 2 “Your Social Profiles Assessment” in the next few days.
