Let’s get to the point: there is a lot of talk about Social Media and everything related to digital communication, without taking into account the steps that have to be followed to put together a strategic plan. There is a lot of loose term that must be placed in a space to see where, when and why to apply the actions.

There are many social networks and not all are for the same. There are different ways of differentiating ourselves and promoting ourselves. And we have to build a strategy from scratch to make things happen, whether we are a company or our own personal brand.

For this reason, a Digital Communication Plan requires to rethink from the outset what the objectives are going to be. The ideal is to take paper and pencil (or pen, birome, pen, according to the country) and draw the following in a box, which I elaborated from the famous 6 W of journalism: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How).

• Who. Who I am, who is my company. Here it would enter everything related to Corporate Identity: history, trajectory of the company, projects and corporate culture.
• What. What I want to communicate in the digital field. We can talk about greater exposure of the brand, increase of traffic, generation of a community. Always, the goal is to reach as many people as possible. But, it’s no good to include a digital communication plan: for that we stay where we are.
• Why. Respond to item 2 Why do I want to insert myself into the digital field? To get more contacts, future customers, to gain popularity, increase the exposure of the brand? Everyone will know what their essential objective is. Being to be generating nothing is worse than not being.
• How. One of the most transcendent areas: involves creativity and differentiation. That’s what Content Marketing is all about. What are we going to give? What are we capable of generating? how are we going to make it?
• Where. What channels will I use, depending on my goals and resources. I can choose to be in the different Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Google +) or only in some. Or boost the website with a corporate blog that serves as a base, or invest in digital advertising paid in media, Google, Facebook, etc. Or just email marketing. Or do everything.
• When. The frequency and constancy with which we will perform all our actions. In this case, if you do not have the necessary tools of knowledge and time to do the work, ideally you should hire a Community Manager, either in a free lance – if we are a SME – or fixed, in the case of companies bigger.
• Measure and analyze. The last item, and the one that must be done after completing the first 6 steps, did my authority, my influence, my traffic increase? The results are not immediate: the network is overpopulated and you have to arm yourself with patience and will, but this overpopulation will also mean that there is always a niche market for any sector or sector. Once this is done, it will be necessary to correct, revise and redefine, in case our objectives have not been fulfilled.

As always, the external assistance of a consultant or a specialist in the field is essential so that this investment of time and resources is closer to being profitable and successful. And something more: all digital communication must be consistent with the communication and corporate image of all offline actions.