Nowadays, businesses have to integrate social media as a part of their marketing and publicity plan, and there needs to be a roadmap to get the company and everyone involved on track so that the message will be clear and communication mistakes will be avoided. One great way for a company to focus their message is a social media plan, and an example of that is the Social Media Mission Statement, created by Dafna Michaelson of the Journey Institute. 
The mission statement is a form that companies can fill out to set their communication goals and messages. There are three questions that have to be answered in just two minutes each: What do you do? Why do you do it? What’s the benefit for people who do business with you? After answering each question, you boil them down to one sentence each, which becomes your social media mission statement.
Social media is more than just a bunch of Tweets, announcements on LinkedIn or Facebook, or a few posts on your blog. Just as you created a business plan to run your company and have set goals in your marketing efforts, social media has to have a similar structure. Because a lot of consumers use social media and it seems like a mysterious platform for marketing, business owners have been mistaken about its casual nature. The communication style might be casual, but behind whatever you do, you need a social media plan so that you can measure its effectiveness in overall sales.
One company that didn’t seem to follow a social media plan was KitchenAid, which tweeted a negative message about President Obama’s grandmother’s death just before he was elected. Even though they deleted the tweet and issued an apology, the damage was done and it became an embarrassing situation for the brand.
It just goes to show that if a company does not train their employees and take social media seriously, their reputation can become tarnished, as in the case of KitchenAid.
Do you have a social media plan, or any stories to share? Let me know in the comments below.
