The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for evaluating social media strategies

• Many social media activities are still emergent and not comprehensively planned.
• A systematic literature review shows a lack of attention to social media strategy in literature.
• A social media strategy framework is developed and tested.
• Twenty-one interviews at nine organizations show that social media strategy is not yet well developed.
• The nine case organizations show a diverse variety of social media strategy plans.

Social media is growing rapidly. Providing both risks and opportunities for organizations as it does. The social strategy cone is developed for evaluating social media strategies. This framework comprises of seven key elements of social media strategies as based on a systematic literature review and case studies. The results of 21 interviews have contributed to the construction of the social media strategy cone for analyzing social media strategies. Three levels of maturity of social media strategy are proposed: initiation, diffusion and maturity. Initiation includes the key elements: ‘target audience’ and ‘channel choice’ while all case organizations studied payed attention to these elements. Diffusion includes the elements: ‘goals’, ‘resources’ and ‘policies’. Maturity adds the elements of ‘monitoring’ and ‘content activities’. Only 3 of the 9 organizations studied are in this phase of maturity. Although, theory suggests the importance of the element of ‘monitoring’ our research shows the need for more attention in practice.