Handbook: Social Marketing ROAD Map

MarketingSherpa's Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook 

A method for mapping an effective social strategy

Your step-by-step guide includes: 27 real-world examples of what works 11 case studies from leading companies 20 charts and tables 3 special reports 9 checklists and worksheets Social media policy template Special Section: Search and Social Special Section: Email and Social View excerpt Published May, 2010

Get on the ROAD to Social Marketing Maturity (and success)

Social media has created an exciting and challenging world of new possibilities for marketers. The opportunities are vast, but only if you find specific ways to use social media for achieving your marketing goals -- goals such as: increasing website traffic; improving lead generation; generating incremental sales revenue; improving search engine rankings; and maximizing brand exposure.

Marketers are transitioning from the initial trial-and-error tactical phase of the learning curve to the equally-important strategic phase—in many ways, taking a logical step backward to plan their strategies prior to implementing misguided tactics. The Social Marketing ROAD Map Handbook is designed to help you ascend this steep learning curve, providing the practical tools and techniques you need to develop a streamlined process for achieving social media marketing objectives that can be easily and routinely performed.

The Social Marketing ROAD Map: A Method for Mapping an Effective Social Media Strategy

Developing an effective strategy for integrating social media into the marketing mix presents a significant obstacle to the successful adoption of social media marketing. Identifying a critical need to develop a practical method to overcome this obstacle, MarketingSherpa created the Social Marketing ROAD Map, to provide marketers with a clear methodology to plan, implement and manage effective strategies and tactics.

ROAD is an acronym for the following four elements:

• Research – Gather intelligence on target audiences, social use and competition
• Objectives – Define objectives aligned with target audiences and social metrics
• Actions – Create a social marketing strategy with a tactical plan of action
• Devices – Select platforms by their tactical effectiveness and architectural fit

Social Marketing ROAD Map: What it is – and what it isn’t

Based upon our ROAD Map methodology, this handbook is a step-by-step guide to mapping your social marketing strategy. It is loaded with research-based insights on proven practices, hands-on worksheets and checklists, and social marketing case studies featuring the real life successes of marketers like you.

It is intentionally “social media brand agnostic”, meaning that familiar technology brands like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are used only when necessary as tactical examples. The purpose of this approach is to help you develop a strategy that will outlive technology brands that are often here today and gone tomorrow.