Sometimes time completely escapes me – and posts or items that I had every intention of sharing completely get missed. This is one such case. A couple of months ago I wrapped up a project for an outstanding nonprofit organization, Freedom States Alliance (FSA). Like many nonprofits, they were trying to navigate social media options and establish the best way to integrate it into their organization.

The result was the realization that social media was only one component of a much larger picture, a much greater need. The question that surfaced was where does social media fit within the organization’s strategy? Was it appropriate to develop a social media strategy, if other critical strategies hadn’t yet been pursued?

Sequence of Execution. Sequence of execution is an approach to strategy development that leads organizations through a hierarchy of strategy development. The result: a more successful and sustaining implementation. Furthermore, it puts social media into context. Meaning that it ensures that any social media strategy is integrated and derives its purpose from the organizations larger mission and goals.

Sequence of strategy execution:

• Develop your organizational mission
• Develop and align your marketing communications strategy/plan
• Develop primary messaging to go across all channels
• Identify your target audience or audiences
• Develop a social media strategy that supports the mar/comm strategy

Social media strategy is a powerful opportunity for an organization, but only when it’s been implemented in the right order. I am increasingly convinced that social media is not intended to live inside a vacuum, but rather as a piece of a much larger ecosystem. How can an organization implement social media tools, like Twitter and Facebook, if they don’t have a social media, communications, or organizational strategy to drive the success use of such platforms?

The actual deliverable offered to the FSA was a comprehensive presentation that included an in-depth needs assessment, recommended actions, training documentation, and best practices in communication and more specifically social media. Most importantly, the guide started with a step-by-step review of how to best develop an appropriate and effective strategy for the organization given their intended mission, audience, and goals – and later concluded with a look at social media integration.

Recently, Colin and I transformed the outcome of that project and took this same ideology to create something that could benefit an even greater community of nonprofits. The following presentation is the marriage of that work (no pun intended), which Colin offered to Cambridge area nonprofit organizations last week.

[Image: Jump on the social media bandwagon courtesy of matthamm, Flickr]