Two weeks ago, I spoke at Rochester Institute of Technology's Social Media And Communication Symposium (SMACS). In my talk, I used the analogy of a cupcake to social media strategy. For cupcake business owners, this analogy would be quite appropriate.
Cake: Start with the cake of a cupcake. The cake is the foundation. With social media, the cake is you, your brand, your product or service, as well as your message and mission.
Filling: Whether it is gooey caramel, cream or jelly, cupcakes often have a filling. For a social media strategy, the filling is the content. With every social media strategy there needs to be a content strategy. The content strategy is what you say, when you say it, and how often. Content strategy is also who you listen to, who you are talking to and what are you sharing. As Clay Shirky said at the conference, "Sharing facilitates serendipity".
Frosting: Some people believe that a cupcake is just a delivery channel for frosting. Similarly for social media, there's more focus on the delivery channels than the content. Twitter and Facebook and pretty essential channel, but don't forget blogs as well. Blogs are where you can write longer than 140 or 420 characters. Cupcakes Take The Cake uses Blogger, but we also use Tumblr. If you are doing social media for yourself, not a business or brand, then Google + can be effective. However, if it is for a business, you may want to hold off using Google+ as a delivery channel until business profiles for Google+ become available. All these delivery channels have a different audience and the challenge is to figure out how much time should be spent on each.
Sprinkles: For cupcakes, the sprinkles are often optional. When it comes to social media, sprinkles work as long as they fit the flavor of your strategy. If the social media strategy is for a storefront business, then using geo-location services like Foursquare, Yelp, Foodspotting, Google Places may be great for you. If you want to offer deals, then you can check out Living Social or Google Offers. If you or your product is photo-friendly, then sites like Instagram and Flickr is great. The point is to figure out which sprinkles are effective for executive your strategy. When the sprinkles work, they add an extra oomph to the social media strategy. If the sprinkles don't work, then brush them off and enjoy the cupcake.
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