State the Problem- Why am I using social media?  How will I use it?  What benefits will it bring my company and community?  The purpose of social media is to reach a broader audience and connect with key people that are using these platforms

Form a Hypothesis- I predict that if I research this properly and use surveys to ascertain where and how my audience is using social media, I will then be able to reach certain marketing and retention goals. 

Experiment- I will make a Facebook page for my community.  I know how many people in my community use Facebook, so I will reach out to them and invite them to become fans of my page.  I also know that local businesses use Facebook, so I will also reach out to them.  I will daily try different content on my page and use a recording method to track my results.  I am interested in statistics such as how many new fans I have, who are they and why are they fans, how many interactions did I have on my page, did my page result in clicks to my community website?  I will use Google and Facebook analytics to help track my progress.

Analysis- When experimenting with different content and posts, it had an impact on the interactions.  When content was not regular, this seemed to affect website traffic.  Reaching out to local businesses that have become fans has built up interactions on the page.  New fans are not all residents but potentially could be.  When mentioning good news about a resident on the Facebook page, this also increased interactions.

Conclusion- By being thorough in my initial research, I was able to reach the people that would mean the most to my community.  This experiment has contributed to reaching marketing and retention goals as part of a collective effort from my business plan.  Ascertaining what platforms my residents and my local community are using did enable me to connect with them and contributed to the initial and continued success of my Facebook page.

 My son and I were going over his biology papers and I could not help but apply a traditional and aged method of analyzing a process to what we face each day.  Is this how you approach your social media strategy?

Written by Jonathan Saar- The Training Factor