3x Strategy for getting more from ‘social’

Last month, I was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Endurance Sports Media Group in Orlando.

The topic of my ESMG talk was  “Getting more from ‘social’ for your endurance media brand.”   

My goal was to offer practical ways to connect, engage, and interact more with their readers.

 To connect more, we reviewed the social channels, profiles, and how the publications were using them already.

• Facebook
• Twitter                       
• Google +
• Pinterest
• YouTube            
• Tumblr
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

We also determined their baseline Klout scores as one metric of current connections.

As we moved to engagement, I posed the question: “why you want to use social media?”

The current data on engagement shows that social media is:

• Not an end, but a means
• Not something “monetize”, but a way to increase value
• Not something you charge for, but a way to get more people to pay for what you sell

We reviewed examples they referenced as other publications doing social well.  Plus, we discussed examples of personalized brand experiences.

Then, I highlighted what I believed to be their biggest asset = Content

And we got very specific with a social strategy: Leverage Content by 3’s

To move forward, you should choose 3 channels

• one to focus on                       
• one to pilot
• one to observe and learn

Next, feature your content 3 times per day, and leverage partner content 3 times per week.

When you execute this, you can evaluate against a goal of 3 times  the followers.  Finally, you should set a goal to refine after 3 months.