Social media strategist Dave Fleet says its time to think beyond one line such as: “One in three of our target audience is using Facebook. So, we recommend creating a Facebook page for this program”, and move beyond sheer demographics when we’re planning social media campaigns, and towards more sophisticated analysis like:

• What are the company’s business and communications objectives?
• What behaviour are you trying to motivate?
• What are the norms within the different social networks? Do they fit with what you’re trying to achieve?
• Would you be better served via mass reach, existing niche communities or your own hosted site?
• Do the company’s culture and existing policies lend themselves to social media engagement?
• What existing properties do we have that we could leverage?