I recently sat down with a small company who wanted to build a solid foundation for their social media activities. As a way to get started, I asked them a bunch of questions to get started. These had little to do with tactics.

About Them:
What are you talking about when not talking about yourself? What conversation are you inspiring and in what conversations are you participating?

About You:
What do you stand for? What’s your story? How are you telling your story?

Interacting:
In what ways are you interacting with influential individuals and communities?

Sharing:
What are your social objects, i.e., what are you hoping people will talk about/share in relation to FF?  How easy is it for people to share these social objects?

Strategizing:
How are you thinking holistically about social media? About how it integrates with branding, SEO, messaging and other promo?

Executing:
How are you creating content, engaging, researching, experimenting with different platforms/tools/technologies?

Measuring:
How are you analyzing and adjusting?