Implementation

The context of social media, implementation refers to the process of putting a planned strategy, campaign, or technical feature into action to achieve specific goals. This includes executing the steps necessary to activate and operationalize various elements of a social media plan—setting up accounts, configuring tools, scheduling posts, creating visuals—that must align with the overarching goals of the strategy. At its most fundamental level, social media management requires coordinating four types of key players: the social media team, designers, copywriters, and strategists.

Each key player has a role in ensuring that what is planned, thought out, and envisioned during the preimplementation phase functions well in the real world across social networks. In addition to these four groups, successful implementation often requires coordinating others, like audience development teams, to ensure that key tasks—which, if done poorly, might result in a plan that looks good on paper but doesn’t work—are achieved. Follow timelines, manage resources, troubleshoot potential problems, ensure compliance, and make adjustments as necessary to describe the implementation tasks that occur during the social media space at the real-world level.