So, what do you mean by “What is your social media strategy”?

This question came in by email, and it’s a good one.

Especially because we don’t want you using this to generate yours.  That would be bad.

My first impulse is to translate that question as:

“How can you use social media to build audience– or, more appropriately– community for your project?”

Or:  How can you use social media to find the people who should love you, and make them aware of why they love you?

… and (full disclosure) being a newbie in this area myself– I’ve never launched an enterprise with a “social media strategy” either– I’ve done some poking around, and some thinking.  Here are a few thoughts:

1.  The first question to answer is not how you can use social media (i.e., what you will do), but why use it (i.e. what do you want from it)? Thanks to this post from a sales-type guy from Arizona for this insight.  And this post from the Social Media Examiner helps too.

2.  Decide on some concrete, measurable goals:

“By [DATE], we’d like to have xxxx people following us on Twitter”

or, perhaps more meaningfully:

“By [DATE], we’d like to have xx people interacting with us on Twitter each day (or two, or whatever)”

— where “interacting with” means responding to things you’ve written.  Or sending messages directly to you.  Or — maybe– re-tweeting your stuff.  (Having people re-tweeting your stuff seems like it might be a separate goal– related to growing awareness.  Which is good. But it’s not the same thing as interaction.)

Another kind of  goal might be something a little more specific:

“By [DATE], have meaningful interactions with [CERTAIN SPECIFIC PEOPLE WHOSE STUFF YOU–AND THE LARGER PUBLIC YOU ARE TRYING TO REACH– ADMIRE]”  You don’t have to name all the people in this pitch.  But you should probably name at least one.

The goals you set should be specific.  They should be time-bound.  They should be ambitious,

AND they should be completely appropriate for your enterprise.  Which people, and how many, you want to get into conversation with will depend on the overall goals of your enterprise.

Those are the two biggies.

If you’re looking for more to think about, I found all of these kind of interesting.

But frankly I haven’t digested them all yet.