Social Listening, Leadership, Virtual Communities, ROI and others: SOSTAC Approach for Digital Marketing (Example Included)

(Note: you can review this post in spanish)

Recently, Kent Huffman published in his blog a serie of posts referring to eight mandates that set the bases for the success of the digital marketing strategy of an organization. These mandates are:

• Start social listening and plan carefully.
• Develop relationships and establish trust.
• Demonstrate leadership and build communities.
• Ensure value (ROI) and continue social listening.

Huffman's approach is simple and straightforward by identifying these key elements in the structure of a digital marketing strategy. The purpose is for these elements to be aligned so that the organization obtains a direct connection with its consumers or users and a greater understanding of their needs, expectations and attitudes towards the brand, organization and competitors.

In that way, to align these elements it is necessary to have a methodological structure that defines the order in which the activities suggested by Huffman will be carried out. In the digital marketing world one of the best known methodologies is the SOSTAC approach developed by Dave Chaffey. This methodology is based on a six-step model and it is my interest to show how these steps can integrate the activities suggested by Huffman, as well as incorporate the concepts of virtual communities and online reputation management (part I y part II) that I presented in previous postings.

Initially, to be clearer with this integration, the six steps of SOSTAC must be grouped according to the three types of strategic plans that make up the digital marketing strategy: digital marketing (general framework), content and communication. Figure 1 shows the details of this grouping.

  Figure 1. SOSTAC methodology and digital marketing plans

Then, by incorporating Huffman's mandates into the scheme of Figure 1, an integrated structure can be obtained that covers both the necessary aspects of the strategy as well as the key factors driving its success. The result of this integration is shown in Figure 2.

 Figura 2. Metodología SOSTAC, planes de marketing digital SOSTAC y factores clave de éxito

Finally, I would like to share the Final Project (in spanish) that I developed in the specialization (online) Marketing with Social Networks of Tecnológico de Monterrey. In this project I could incorporate many of the concepts that appear in Figure 2, in the context of a company that provides products and services for the construction of data centers.