Hi Everyone,

How long does it take, on average, to create a social media strategy for a client? Also, how much do you charge to create one?  Are there any templates or tools that you have found useful in creating a strategy document.

Thanks for all your help

I too would like to hear from people (only those who are actually making a living at this) as to what they charge and what they do to elimate the repetitive things that slow them down.

@meganowens I tend to use “old school” strategy techniques and transfer them to the field of social media. Here’s some well known I use regularly. I’ll give you the Wikipedia links, you will find huge amounts of literature and best practices for each of them. 

1) Porters’ Five Forces where you determine the intensity and attractiveness on the market. 2) Scenario planning – here you go through a flexible simulation of your planned market entry process. 3) The Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-Share-Matrix to rank your social media product on the basis of its relative market share and growth rate.

You will need to adapt all of the above, but in the end each and every on- and offline product needs a strategy, does it. And concerning your first question: For an average strategy planning period I give myself at least a week.

@ecumenix I have to agree with Paul, Thomas. Good stuff!

@judithgotwald @meganowens I think that’s the problem.  Lots of people know it’s easy to be a “user” of social media so it appears the management side would be easy but it is absolutely not. I have had friends actually hire me to help them because they promised such work to a client and then realized they got in over their heads.  I don’t like that at all because people need to realize that they are messing with people’s brands and you can just easily screw it up.  I don’t remember who said it but I always think of the saying – “It takes years to build a reputation and minutes to tear it down.” In these days, one wrong tweet can do it.  I won’t ghost post for people on social media for that reason. I actually work with small businesses to help THEM create their own strategy based on their own resources – time, money, people.  I also advise them to do it in stages – they don’t need to be in all places at once or else they’ll look scattered.

thanks for asking this question, the answers are quite helpful @meganowens great links @ecumenix

When I started to work in Social Media I thought It was going to be easy to engage your fans and customers of a small business. But I was wrong! It requires patience, time and strong effort. It’s not so easy to convince your audience about your leadership. I think the most important think is the content: compelling content become viral itself. But, of course, you need to make your own strategy according to your neccesities. People has got accustomed to social so nowadays they don’t click “like” unless they really like some business or brand. As @lorihighby says, content strategy and engagement strategy are the key of a successful campaign. Interesing comments. thanks for sharing!