Here’s the secret: You wouldn’t start a new billboard campaign without careful planning, would you? Of course not. Yet many companies seem to jump right in to a social media campaign without giving this type of marketing the careful consideration that other types get. Why? It is a new medium to many, and we’re still learning the ropes. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others can be very effective – if done with a little planning.

Here’s a 10 point road map to help you plan to make the most effective use of a social media campaign, taken from a recent webinar presented by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer. Already using social media? Review to see if there’s a new idea for you.

1. Competitive Assessment: What are your competitors doing in this space already? What can you borrow from them?

2. Internal Situation Analysis: How much awareness is there of social media within your company? Is there an understanding that it can be measured and create a positive ROI?

3. Major Objectives: What are you trying to accomplish with your social media campaign?

4. Consumer Thought Process: What is the typical sales cycle for your product? How much trust do you need to build before you can make a sale? (Hint: The more expensive the product, the more trust needs to be built.)

5. Key Strategies: What approach are you going to take in order to have a successful program?

6. Brand Essence: What is your brand essence and how are you going to communicate that using social media?

7. Positioning: How is your brand currently positioned in the marketplace? Where do you want it to be positioned as a result of your social media campaign?

8. Essential Message: What is the essential take-away you want consumers and prospects to have after engaging with your brand via social media?

9. Tactical Plan Overview: Which social media platforms are you going to use for your program? Which tools are you going to use to measure the success of your program?

10. Executional Roadmap: What are your SMART Goals for this plan? How are you going to be held accountable for them?

Careful planning will make the time spent well worth it, and make you look like the whiz that you are. Just don’t forget to have fun and be creative with your campaign. You may be the next trend setter, with competitors following your example!

As part of Expedition 206, a team of three young people will visit more than 200 countries where Coke is sold.

The Mission: to discover what makes people happy and to share that joy with the rest of the world.  The journey will bring Coke’s “Open Happiness” campaign to life as the travelers meet people from different cultures and share their stories online.

The  Guides: After an extensive search, Coca-Cola selected nine finalists. Fans around the world will make the ultimate decision by voting at http://www.expedition206.com/ through Nov. 6. Anyone can vote once per day throughout the three-week voting period. The winning team will be announced Nov. 16 at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta.

The Adventure: The Expedition 206 journey will begin in Madrid on Jan. 1, 2010 and culminate at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta on Dec. 31, 2010. The expedition will make stops in cities big and small, visiting everyday people and marquee global events, such as the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Canada, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China.

New Media: The unique social media experiment will play out online at http://www.expedition206.com/, as well as on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. As with other Coke social media initiatives, fans will drive the experience. In addition to selecting the travelers and following the journey, visitors to the Expedition 206 website and other online destinations can vote on where the team goes, what they do and who they visit in each country.

A Tradition of Happiness: “Coca-Cola has been inviting people around the globe to enjoy the simple things in life for more than 120 years, and that spirit of positivity and optimism is at the heart of Expedition 206,” said Cristina Bondolowski, Senior Global Brand Director at Coke.

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Here are some tips that you can use from Coke’s social media marketing strategy:

1. Pick an emotion that matches your product, and leverage it in your social media campaign. The marketing team at the Coca-Cola Company had lost its way for many years in the late 1990s and early 21st century. But they have their marketing mojo back and are leveraging it with their “Happiness” campaign. You can do the same thing Coca-Cola does — that is, pick an emotion that matches your brand essence and promote it vigorously via social media.

2. Match your marketing vehicle to your target market. Millennials love social media. They’re also a primary target market for Coca-Cola. When you match the two together, you have a winning combination. The same holds true for the other end of the spectrum — if your target market is age 55+, you’ll want to run something like a direct mail campaign rather than a social media campaign. By matching your marketing vehicle to your target market, you’ll have a better ROI.

3. Get your consumers involved. A brand isn’t defined by positioning anymore. It’s defined by how people engage with your product or service. The Coca-Cola Company gets that and, as such, allows consumers to vote on the team, track their progress and engage with them in other ways, too. When you’re thinking about your brand, be sure to get your customers and prospects involved. The more involved they are with the campaign, the more successful your program will be.

4. Think really big. Really big. You don’t have to be Coca-Cola to leverage the world wide web. Anybody can do it, and that includes you. So be sure to think big and to think global — it’ll help you grow your market share and your revenue. Better still, you’ll be able to tell your CEO that “We’re using the same marketing tactics that the Coca-Cola Company does!”

Visit http://www.expedition206.com/ to learn more and vote for your favorite team.

We’ve divided the story from DMNews into steps you can take with your business.

1. Run a Campaign That Invites User Action: Bridal retailer  is running a social media campaign with the Brickfish social networking Web site. The effort, which launched October 12, runs through November 16 and is called “How does Priscilla of Boston inspire you?”

2. Have a Clear Goal in Mind: Priscilla’s goal is to build awareness of its line of wedding gowns to young women that are members of the social network. The company’s customer demographic is women from their teens to their 30s.

3. Involve Your Customers’ Creativity: Users can enter contests and communicate about various retailers and brands on the social network. This initiative calls young women to create photo collages of gowns that inspire them, along with stories about why they do, for the Priscilla of Boston Web site.

4. Offer a Prize: The grand prize winner will receive a trip to New York to attend the Priscilla of Boston April Runway Show. The runner-up will win a free bridal accessory.

5. Encourage Spreading the Word: The “Most Viral” winner, who shares her entry with the highest number of other consumers, will win a dress.

6. Offer More Free Prizes: Priscilla of Boston is also calling consumers to listen to its bridal show on October 17 on www.brides.com/pob. The show calls listeners to enter a drawing to win additional prizes.

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Is Fantasy Football The Best Marketing Program Ever? Yes!

by Cory Treffiletti

This past weekend marked the opening of the NFL season, which reminded me of the simple brilliance that is fantasy football. Without a doubt, fantasy football is the most perfect example of integrated marketing in existence today. It marries the best of online marketing and social media with real-world events and that most basic of human traits: pure, unbridled competitiveness.

First and foremost, fantasy football is an integrated marketing platform. It takes an offline event, one that is still considered appointment viewing in television and is less likely to be DVR’d and time-shifted, and marries it with online tools that allow you to keep track of the games no matter where you are and what time it is. It generates enormous page views and it is also one of the fastest growing online video plays.

Fantasy football is also a social networking opportunity, with more and more people engaging in competitive leagues each year for money and bragging rights alike. There are numerous platforms for creating and managing a league.

Active fantasy team managers don’t just wait till Sunday to log in to their teams. They are interacting daily: checking injury reports and waiver wires, reading local news on their star players, etc. Some fantasy team managers log in and spend as much as 30 minutes or more just doing research (much of which is likely done at work).

Fantasy football is also an open, distributed platform, much like Twitter and Facebook Connect. Fantasy football apps are all the rage this time of the year.  It would appear there are just as many people accessing their teams through mobile devices as through the Web and the standard PC interface.

And of course, fantasy football is the ultimate social lubricant. Just the other day I was in the elevator talking with my wife about our fantasy teams (and yes, she has a better team than I do) and the guy next to us jumped into the conversation. Fantasy sports, especially fantasy football, are a unifying factor in the U.S. for just about all casual sports fans because they force you to watch and root for multiple teams beyond just your hometown.

If I were a sports marketer, I would examine the NFL and the ways they’ve embraced this pastime because it can provide valuable insight into how to engage with my consumer. Even CPG marketers can see that marrying together social and standard online media with an offline event can help tap into the innate passion for a product and drive consumer engagement.

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Cory is president and managing partner for Catalyst SF.

One of his most popular blog postings was called “50 Steps to Establishing a Social Media Practice.” We’ve re-posted it here. If you’d like to read the original post, just click Social Media Tips.

“You’ve told the boss that you’re going to implement social media stuff for your organization, and in your mind, you’ve decided that means an account on Twitter and a blog. Maybe there’s a bit more to it than that. For instance, what are your goals? Are you there to show customers and prospective new customers that you care? Are you there to solve customer issues? Are you building awareness and attempting new forms of digital marketing? Knowing this up front makes a world of difference.

In the mean time, here are some things you might consider for when it comes time to implement. They range from ideas for starting out, things to augment your efforts with, writing ideas, next steps, and metrics. You’re welcome to share this with others. Please link back to [chrisbrogan.com] and especially this post if you use it.

50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice

1. If you’re blogging, make that a home base for all your other efforts.
2. Re-read the “passports” section of this post and use it to think about your blog promotion efforts.
3. Pick 3 social networks to join based on where your customers might be. 3 might sound like too few, but it probably will be too many.
4. On those networks and on your “passport” accounts, make sure you link everything back to the blog.
5. Get a second (maybe even a 3rd) person in the company to build accounts on these places. Nice to have backups, in case you get busy.
6. Build an editorial calendar to think about your posting schedule and subject matter.
7. Subscribe to 50 or more blogs in a similar space as yours, including competitors, and any industry blogs.
8. On all your presence points, be human, and write a human-sounding profile. Use a human-seeming profile picture. (Did I mention “human?”)
9. After you’ve written your first blog post, take some time to comment on some of those 50 blogs, but NOT about your first post.
10. Set up a few searches as explained in this post.
11. Make sure it’s easy for people to subscribe to your blog, via a reader and also via email. (Nearly 50% of my blog subscribers are receiving [chrisbrogan.com] in email).
12. Run periodic checks of your blog/site using Website Grader to see if you’re technically sound and findable.
13. Use tagging and other metadata to improve your blog’s search features. Most newer blog software has this built in. If not, look for plugins.
14. For whatever reason, graphics in posts improve audience. Check out Flickr’s Creative Commons pool for how to use which kinds of graphics appropriately.
15. Consider a nice clean theme for your blog’s design. There are many free themes for different blogs, and some inexpensive ones like Thesis that are worth every penny.
16. Outside of your blog, be sure to update/refresh the information on your social networks every two or three weeks. USE the networks more often, but refresh your profiles and other info.
17. Seek out opportunities to guest post on more popular blogs in your space. Don’t be spammy and over-link to your own site/posts. Add value.
18. On social networks, look for ways to contribute, even when it’s not directly related to your company/product.
19. Continue building relationships outside of having a specific need. Don’t ONLY try to build relationships with customers, for example.
20. Remember that social networks are a great place to look for hiring prospects, competitors, etc.
21. To create consistent content, read daily, and not just for your industry. Skim, synthesize, and post.
22. Use notepad files to jot post ideas down when you don’t have a moment to write. Return frequently.
23. Riff off other blog posts you like, and add some value beyond linking back to those original posts (and always link back to those posts).
24. Go to the grocery store news stand and find popular magazines. Convert their story titles to blog post titles for your field. (Hat tip Brian Clark, who taught me this).
25. Skim news aggregator sites like Reddit or Digg (or what’s appropriate to your industry), and create posts from there.
26. Ask your audience what they need, what they’re struggling with.
27. Revisit a month of posts and see what you’ve covered the least.
28. Think about things your customers/stakeholders/prospects might need and write about that, even if it’s a bit off-topic.
29. Check your stats to see what people are searching for, and address it.
30. Use these blog topics posts for inspiration. (Wow, I write on that a lot).
31. Look into creating additional materials like an ebook or online course from your best materials.
32. Branch out your blogging into video and audio where appropriate.
33. Look into building a community platform around your content platform.
34. Invite your audience in to guest post where appropriate.
35. Add social bookmarking plugins like Add This to your blog to improve distribution.
36. Look for cross-promotional opportunities for like-minded blogs in your space.
37. Consider starting groups on your social networks (such as a Facebook group) to further discuss the space you’re covering.
38. Remember to comment on other people’s blogs frequently, and show your participation in the communities where you have presence.
39. Occasionally produce PDF versions of your better posts and email them to customers and prospects to encourage growing your audience.
40. Consider a conversion engine like a free offer to help sort prospects from fans and audience.
41. Move towards measurements quickly, as these are often where companies decide their vote.
42. Create a simple report on how you will report what you’re doing for upper management.
43. Work out which numbers might matter. Comments received. Links in. Times bookmarked?
44. Rank each blog post on effectiveness based on your own criteria. Review weekly and monthly.
45. Figure out a “downstream” metric that drives real business value. Reduce costs to call center? Sales leads?
46. Never count # of friends or # of followers as a valuable metric. It’s quality in that case.
47. As soon as you can, find ways to tie your numbers to marketing and sales numbers where appropriate.
48. Move to automate the numbers collection parts early. Keep the sentiment reporting parts human.
49. Set 3 month goals to review progress with upper management. Determine if this is having any impact.
50. Though these last 10 tips are about numbers, NEVER treat people like numbers in social media.

Your mileage may vary, and some of this advice ranges from dead simple to over-simplified. It will also require some customization, depending on your industry, goals, and interests. But consider it a starting point.

What else would you add?

There are hundreds of different Social Media tools available, so it’s easy to get confused by all of them. One of the key concepts we discussed was how to categorize these tools so that they’re simpler and easier to use and understand.

There are three primary categories of Social Media — tools that help you network, tools that help you promote and tools that help you share content.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we consider to be the top 13 Social Media tools broken down by category:

Networking tools — These are tools that help you connect with customers and prospects:

• MySpace: Think of MySpace as a social media tool that’s a little like a music festival. There’s a lot of energy, a lot of passion and, unfortunately, a lot of noise. It’s great if you’re targeting the youth market.

• Twitter: Think of Twitter as a cocktail party. There are a lot of different conversations going on and you can move from one conversation to another conversation.

• Facebook: Facebook is like a pub. It’s a great place to meet people on a more casual basis and have relaxed, off-the-record conversations with the people you meet there.

• LinkedIn: Think of LinedIn as a trade show. It’s a little more professional than Facebook and you’ll want to meet and connect with people there in a more businesslike manner.

Promotion Tools — These are tools that help you promote content about your product or service:

• Flickr: A great place to upload photos of your most recent company parties, conventions or product launches. Not the most important tool in the world, but worth checking out.

• Podcasting: Don’t make the mistake of doing a podcast that just regurgitates your press releases. Make your podasts fun, interesting and relevant. Don’t waste your time if you’re just going to have the CEO ramble on about your latest new product launch.

• YouTube: What can we say about YouTube that you don’t already know?

• HowCast: Ahhhhh, here’s something that’s interesting. HowCast feeds “How To” videos to a growing community. Perfect if your product requires a video tutorial.

• TubeMogul: Do you have videos you want to share with the world? Then go to Tubemogul, where you can upload your video once and let them send it out to YouTube, MySpace, Vidder and a gazillion other video sharing services.

Sharing tools — These are tools that help you share content that would be helpful to your prospects or customers:

• Google: You already know about Google, but did you know about Google Alerts? Just plug in a keyword and Google will send you an email a day that lists when that keyword was discussed in a blog. Perfect if you’re interested in staying on-top of things. Also great if you’re a big brand and you want to respond to negative comments about your product or service.

• Blogs: We’re going to do an entire webinar on blogs and blogging in the coming weeks, but for now, remember this — don’t do one unless you can write something relevant at least 4 times a week.

• Article Marketer: Do you have articles that you’d like published around the web? Then check out Article Marketer. We haven’t officially used it, but at first glance, it looks like a very useful tool.

• Digg, Del.icio.us and other bookmarking tools: As you know, these tools allow you to tag articles and other content that you think might be useful for others. We’ve found that it’s best not to abuse these tools or to try to milk them. That’s just abusing the system.

Are there important tools that we’ve missed? Which tools do you use? Share your thoughts and comments on them with our readers!