As companies move from tactical experimentation to the strategic integration of social media in 2010, it's important to update the familiar marketing framework to include social media and ensure that its capabilities are being leveraged to their fullest extent at each stage of the strategic marketing planning and execution process.  Every strategic marketing plan starts with a form of Situation Analysis.  It's the foundation upon which a company's marketing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics are built. Whether a company employs the 3 C's, 5C's, SWOT Analysis, or some platypus-like hybrid, each method organizes all of the relevant information needed to create a successful marketing plan. What follows is a potential situation analysis framework, strengthened by social media capabilities.

The 5 Components of a Socially-Activated Situation Analysis

CLASS

Traditionally, this "C" of the "5C's" refers to "company".  We're adjusting the title to increase its flexibility and relevance to various organizational subdivisions.  A company that is truly embracing Social Media will become a flatter organization by necessity, distributing autonomy and authority to a wider group of people. This section of the Situation Analysis should fully define the internal characteristics of the entity (brand, business unit, product category, individual product) that will impact and be impacted by the marketing plan.

Historically, this section was limited to an often dated understanding of organizational structure, approval processes, stakeholder input schedules, sales/life cycle data, pricing information, budget parameters, etc. Today, however, an Enterprise 2.0 organization would have access to real-time data sets that more accurately reflect the day-to-day realities of the internal organization and it's collaborative structure.

COLLABORATORS

This section details the external partnerships that help bring the "Class" to market.  Previously, this section covered suppliers, distribution channel members, cross-promotional partnerships, etc. The ability to monitor, measure and analyze social media interactions has formalized two, very new groups of Collaborators: 

• The Influencer
• The Affiliate Marketer 

Brands can not only identify and monitor those who seem to hold sway over segments of their target, they can also dissect the factors that contribute to that "sway" and measure the strength of each Influencer's "sway" to an unprecedented degree. With such data at a marketing strategist's fingertips, the Situation Analysis can now include detailed profiles of these individuals, and categorize them according to a desired action:

• Empower
• Monitor
• Counteract

CUSTOMERS

One of the most important sections of any Situation Analysis, this section includes everything a company knows about the people that experience its brand and buy its products.  The data that informs this section used to be confined to periodic marketing research studies that, through static data, sought to categorize and define the target's relationship with the category, brand and/or product.  

Through focus groups, surveys, purchase behaviors, etc. marketers tried to delve deep inside the mind's of their target to bring insight to the surface.  This is where the true power of social media shines.  Static studies are limited to a specific period of time, certain artificial parameters, simulated scenarios and the pitfalls observation-twisted results. 

The studied application of advanced social media monitoring, measurement and analysis tools can access the thoughts, motivations, communications and sentiments of customers in a natural, real-time social environment — negating the skewing effects of observation.  The collection of such detailed data over time can often yield nuanced trends that more formal research fails to uncover.

Static market research (surveys, focus groups, A/B testing) all have their place in the Situation Analysis.  Social Media can augment these studies with even richer data or even replace some of the more costly and complex research projects — one of the many avenues to demonstrating social media  ROI.

CURRENT PERFORMANCE

Typically, a Situation Analysis will follow "customers" with "competitors".  In this adjusted framework, we move "competitors" down a rung and place performance benchmarking immediately after "customers".   As the Greek philosophers say, you must first "know thyself".  It is essential for companies to carefully benchmark their communications performance in relation to their targets.

A certain, emerging class of social media analysis tools, called Social Intelligence Engines, make it possible to study and quantify a company's inbound and outbound marketing performance across all communications channels.  While monitoring tools like Radian6, Scoutlabs and Techrigy's SM2 can be great for getting a general sense of conversational themes and a broad sense of segment sentiment, it is important to formally quantify the company's performance in each communications channel and as a whole.  This allows a company fully understand the relationship between marketing effort and return as they deploy the strategic plan.

The more detailed the benchmark analysis, the better!

COMPETITORS

Historically, this section was limited to your competitor's brand and product data (price, positioning, value proposition, etc), marketing spend data and their market share.  Depending on the sophistication of the social media tool deployed, a company can now quickly aggregate publicly available data, measure and analyze it to create a situation analysis for each competitor as robust as the company's own.

Many widely available tools make it possible to study the sentiment surrounding the competition and the product, track conversation themes and trends, identify influencers, monitor share of voice, etc.

A Social Intelligence Engine, however, allows a company to not only benchmark their own performance but, also quantify the competition's performance across each communication channel and, most importantly, develop an understanding of how the competition's performance affects the company's own.

The standard Situation Analysis generally includes a separate section for "Climate" or "Environment" that describes the external, market factors that affect performance.  With a socially-activated Situation Analysis, that information is integrated into each and every section to more accurately reflect the real-world's impact on the strategic plan.

The importance of a detailed benchmark analysis can't be overstated.  An ongoing understanding of performance fluctuations as strategies and tactics are deployed is equally essential.  By quantifying the effect of each tactic deployed, marketing planners have the ability to optimize their plans in real-time, ensuring greater success in the real world.  

How have you integrated the capabilities of social media into your marketing strategy?  Is it limited to outreach or are you leveraging it to inform the foundation of your strategies?

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