The plan you create based on the Listen, Engage, Articulate, and Demonstrate social media  strategy should be reviewed on a regular basis to make sure that the objectives for each phase are being met.

I recommend you schedule the following reviews into your social media plan:

Monthly review – This review should look at how effective you are at executing on your plan. For example:

• Are you listening for the right things? Are you getting any results for the keywords or phrases you have chosen?
• Are you responding to comments in a timely manner?
• Are you engaging with customers on Facebook and Twitter.
• Are you finding the weekly schedule too difficult to manage?
• Are you able to produce content at a reasonable and consistent rate?

You should record, but not necessarily act upon follower and friend counts.

Quarterly review – At the end of each quarter you should take time to review trends in your metrics. Since you should have some more data to work with, your review should be focused on improving your success metrics as you have defined them. Some things to consider include:

• Are you gaining or losing followers and friends?
• How many mentions are you getting compared to the previous quarter?
• Are you able to see referral counts in your analytics?

How have your referrals change since the last quarter?

6 Month review – During the six month review you should take a hard look at your plan and determine whether or not you are seeing the results that you want for your chosen success metrics. This will be a good time to ask:

• Should you be listening for other phrases keywords, if so, what are they?
• Are there other social networks that may be more effective?
• If there are no social networks for those interested in learning more about carbon management should you consider creating one?
• What other promotions can you develop around your chosen networks and communities.

Are your success metrics the right ones? If not, what should they be?

Stephen A. Joyce has been working as a travel & tourism technology consultant since 1995. In 2005 Stephen and his company, Sentias Software Corp., began development on Rezgo.com, a next generation Web 2.0 tour and activity booking engine for SME travel suppliers and tour operators.

In June of 2007, Rezgo.com was officially released and now boasts a user base of 900+ companies. Stephen is also very active in fostering tourism technology and is co-chair of the Board of Directors of the OpenTravel Alliance, a non-profit organization whose mandate is to develop and foster messaging standards for travel e-distribution.

http://tourismtechnology.rezgo.com