Tactics
The tactics of your plan are specific actions you take to implement the strategy. This is when the advantage of setting up a strategy becomes clear: you can probably think of 100 actions that will motivate people to contribute, but narrowing down these actions will help you focus on those that create the highest value.
Example of tactics:
- Welcome every new user
- Highlight the most interesting content on your homepage every month
- Build relationships with the top contributors
How to come up with tactics
The best way to choose the best tactics is to think of which situations provoke the necessary emotions as listed in the strategy. Here’s an example:
Emotion: ‘Ensure contact creators feel respected and valued for their work’
Possible tactics:
- Show a list of top content creators in the platform.
- Give 3 top creators a special role in the platform.
- Let community members vote for the creator that creates the most interesting content.
- Interview members and ask them which content provides them with the most value in the community (and by who) and why they appreciate it.
It’s best to list various situations and the possible tactics to achieve your goals. Then you can determine which ones would provide the most value. FeverBee scores each tactic via a formula: priority = tactic reach x impact depth x impact length.
For example, a tactic could be ‘welcoming every new member and point them to the start’. This is a great tactic! However, it may require a lot of effort and might not always generate the most value for your end goals.
Your main lesson here is that it’s better to execute a few tactics very thoroughly than executing many tactics simultaneously. The more time you spend on a tactic, the better results it will yield. More dedicated time means that you can put more effort in the level of creativity or professionality (writing content, designing pages, creating videos, etc.).
After you have rated the tactics (FeverBees approach is great but you can also come up with your own way of determining the value per tactic), pick the ones that have the highest score and move on to your action plan!
Action plan
The action plan is relatively simple; it’s a list of the steps you need to take to execute your strategy.
For example, if you want to set-up an interview with a user, you might need to:
- Determine which user (in which month).
- List your questions.
- Choose your tool.
- Set-up a meeting.
- Create a nice outcome page, etc.
Your action plan also needs to specify who needs to be involved, who will execute a step, and the frequency of the action (is it a one-time action or do you need to repeat it every month?).
You are basically creating a detailed plan for your strategy. If you need to manage a lot of different people, this is where project management skills could come in handy!
Here are a few templates you could use:
- Hubspot Content Planning Template
- Feverbee Strategic Plan
- Strategic Community Management Project Plan