Finally, The ACCESS Model! As I described in my previous post, Lon Safko and David K. Brake’s The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success outlines this model that was crafted for social media development success! Below is their ACCESS Model, along with further questions I have brainstormed for thorough insight on your social media strategy.
THE ACCESS MODEL
Audience
An audience consumes content and represents opportunity for an interactive relationship.
Internal Audience – Intercompany
External Audience- Customers, Prospects, and at times, Investors/Stockholders, and Vendors
Whether internal or external, each major audience can be further categorized into smaller audience segments called personas. Seldom does one audience have narrow enough interests for you to reach them with one broad message or approach. By creating four or five personas, you can find common characteristics that allow for a three-dimensional characterization of each persona; you’re trying to put a face on the persona.
1) Who are our external audiences? (Be specific)
2) What is the audiences’ demographic data? (Age, education, location, household income, ect—These will be found with a Google search, there are many companies that specialize in market rearch of this sort)
3) What purchase patterns does the audience have? (In this case– Do they use the service once? Or do they keep coming back?)
4) What are their general attitudes, values and beliefs towards the service?
5) What are their attitudes, values and beliefs towards social media?
6) What are the audiences’ needs and preferences? How can the use of social media help meet their demands?
7) What professional, social, or service organizations might our target audience belong to? How can we tap into these networks?
8) Who are the key influencers or promoters relevant to our service category? How can they influence our audience?
9) Create four or five personas according to our audience.
Concept
Every business has a concept that highlights the value propositions for its intended audience. A value proposition describes the intended benefit that the features or attributes of a product or service will provide the consumer. In using social media, we will be providing content for a community, that content has an underlying concept as well. It is likely that we may propose several operable concepts.
To come up with effective concepts, it is necessary to think about the community you want to engage; take a good look at the target audience personas for a better idea. Think in terms of the needs of your potential community rather than the needs of your business. Yes, the business needs to make and sell stuff to provide goods and services that make money. However, we will likely not be successful rallying people around the business’ need to generate revenue. But—there ARE people who need to know something about the area of expertise or are interested in certain aspects of the business.
1) What concepts can we use? What topics can we discuss? Write anything that comes to mind!
2) Create a brief vision statement involving our social media concept that can be shared with anyone in two minutes or less. Here is an example:
• An online community for people who are interested in organic gardening. The community would feature expert advice on how to grow a wide variety of vegetables. The website for the community would feature photos and videos showing the different aspects of starting and maintaining an organic garden. Community members would be encouraged to upload their own photos, videos, and share their organic gardening experiences. Community members would also be able to rate and comment on different products available to organic gardeners. The website would also offer a vegetable exchange center where people could barter and trade their organic produce.
Competition
It is necessary to understand our competition so we can do things better!
1) Who are our top competitors? Do they employ social media?
2) Look at the competition through the eyes or our personas we defined earlier. What do they do well? Where can they improve?
3) What can we do to surpass our competition?
Execution
Great concepts have failed, the reason being: the execution of the concept of the concept failed to live up to the promise of the concept.
There are at least two theories of proper execution. The first theory being to simply get your content on the market and accept the face that it’s not perfect. Once it’s out there, you can refine and iterate on the fly. This works well if you have an audience who can be relied on to collaborate with you—one of the main tenets of social media. However, if you are entering an area where the competition has great media and an engaged audience, the cost of entry may be high enough that you cannot risk entering with sub par content.
The second theory is what we have began with utilizing the ACCESS Model; it is to do your research and analysis, take careful aim, and fire when ready. This strategy may not give “first mover” advantage but will keep us from making mistakes that could derail our efforts.
According to social media, execution is the sample content that gives your potential audience the flavor and feel or the finished offering. This could include video, audio, photos and other applications or content from the social media world. It is not necessary to show everything, but we must offer enough to accomplish two things: demonstrate to your audience that your concept statement can be realized and highlight at least a few of the comparative advantages of your concept over the competition.
1) How will we execute our concept?
2) What content will we execute?
Social Media
1) What are the best social media outlets for our content?
2) How will we use each outlet?
Sales Viability
As we know, any business will fail without sales and demand. The rise of social media has made it possible to incorporate other revenue models into business strategies. There are other ways to profit from social media communities. Here are six of these revenue models:
• Products, services and information
o The most traditional model, it lends itself to both online and offline environments
• Advertising and sponsorship
o Involves selling a variety of advertising opportunities to businesses that want to get closer to your community. This might include site or event sponsorships.
• Transactions or commissions
o Revenue generated by taking a commission or a small transaction fee resulting from your site playing a role in a customer-seller transaction.
• Subscriptions
o If your content has high enough perceived value, it may be possible to sell subscriptions in the same way that newspapers, magazines, and newsletters have traditionally done.
• “Freemium”
o A combination of the words free and premium. This refers to a revenue model that offers something free but also offers upgraded or premium versions for an additional cost.
1) What business model does the company employ?
2) How can we use social media to generate increased profit?
