This document provides guidance on developing an effective social media strategy for EU projects. It recommends understanding goals, audience, and competition. Key steps include creating audience personas, developing targeted messages, choosing appropriate social media channels, and building a content plan. Examples are provided of EU projects that analyzed their audiences, focused messaging for different channels, and developed content like videos and articles tailored for specific groups.

1. www. diginet-project.eu
www. diginet-project.eu
Social Media Strategy
- practical examples of EU projects -
Pantelis Kanellopoulos,
Communications Officer
Vassiliki Zalavra,
Senior Communications Officer

2. Table of Content
• Understand your goals
• Make sure your goals are SMART
• Get to know your audience
• Create audience personas
• Look at the competition
• Develop your messages
• Choose your channels
• Build a content plan
• Make a social media schedule
• Examples: strategy applied on EU projects
www. diginet-project.eu

3. Understand your goals
Why social media presence is
necessary during this current phase of
your project?
www. diginet-project.eu
Set social media marketing goals that
align to business objectives
Align your overall goals and marketing
strategy with your social media goals

4. Make sure your goals are SMART
S
M
A
R
T
Measurable
Attainable / Achievable
Relevant
Timely
Specific
www. diginet-project.eu

5. Get to know your audience
“A successful social-media strategy is all about targeting
the right people with the right messages. To do this, you
need to understand your audience.”
www. diginet-project.eu

6. Create a detailed profile of your ideal
customer/follower/fan..
Create audience personas
 How old are they?
 What is their income?
 Do they have children?
 What do they like or dislike?
 What motivates them?
www. diginet-project.eu

7. Look at the competition
Pick three or four of the top ones and find out which
social networks they’re active on, and study their
content..
www. diginet-project.eu
 Is it funny or serious?
 What kind of cultural references do they use?
 Do they talk about their product primarily, or do they focus
on other things?

8. Look at the competition
www. diginet-project.eu

9. Develop your messages
Based on the personas you have created, choose two or three
messages, then break each one down another level creating a simple
messaging hierarchy.
www. diginet-project.eu

10. Choose your channels
Not all social-media platforms
are the same.
www. diginet-project.eu

11. Build a content plan
The content needs to align with:
overall messaging and
be appropriate for the channels
you are using
www. diginet-project.eu

12. Make a social media schedule
Time matters so make things easier
by using a social media
management tool
www. diginet-project.eu

13. Measure and refine
Do not forget to look back to your
goals and analyze how many of
them you have been able to achieve
www. diginet-project.eu

14. Examples from the latest experience:
EU funded Projects

15. Our Projects

16. Learn your audience &
Choose your channels

17. Co-funded by European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology
(DG CONNECT) Unit for Inclusion, Skills and Youth, under the grant agreement no. ECOKT2014-7 (30-CE-0726730/00-60)
e-Skills Match is a prototype platform that is designed to assist ICT
professionals reach their future career goals.
Addressed to ICT professional, Employers and Course providers
www.eskillsmatch.eu

18. We focused on characterizing our “customers”
on their profession, age, and what motivates
them to participate to our project
www. diginet-project.eu

19. LinkedIn was the
most appropriate
channel to promote
the platform
Result: 1,532 Followers
www. diginet-project.eu

20. ICT4YOUTHWORK project helps youth organizations, youth services and youth workers in
reaching young people and delivering to them activities that will ensure responsiveness to the
trends in society such as the latest progress in technologies and digital media.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union (Contract Number: 2017-1-SE02-KA205-
001722).
www.ict4youthwork.eu

21. We focused on characterizing our “customers”
by the type of the organization & the service
that they provide.
www. diginet-project.eu

22. Facebook Page was the most
appropriate channel to promote
the project (currently)
The upcoming months
Instagram will also be deployed
www. diginet-project.eu

23. Look at the competition &
Develop your messages

24. COMRADES platform helps communities, to reconnect, respond to, and recover from
crisis situations
(such as floods, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes etc.)
www.comrades-project.eu
Addressed to communities (citizens) in crisis zones
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 687847. This material reflects only the author's view and the European Commission is not
responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

25. We checked the “competition”, i.e. similar
projects, under the same topic and we started
using related #hashtags and tagged the involved
organizations and other CAPS projects
(cross dissemination synergies)
www. diginet-project.eu

26. We focused on developing easy-to-understand
messages that non native English speakers would
understand.
A common mistake that we identified from the
completion was the language that they used
i.e. difficult messages for non native English speakers
www. diginet-project.eu

27. Build a content plan

28. Mobile Age ensures the inclusion of seniors in digital public services thanks to the
development of user-friendly mobile applications based on open government data.
www.mobile-age.eu
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 693319. This material reflects only the author's view and the European Commission/REA is not
responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
Addressed to senior citizens, public administrator and policy makers

29. As the main “customers” are senior citizens the
most appropriate way to present the project and
its developments is through videos and
promotional materials
www. diginet-project.eu

30. Videos in partners’
languages with easy-to-
understand content
www. diginet-project.eu

31. Promotional Materials
(hard copies)
in partners’ languages
distributed to
senior citizens
www. diginet-project.eu

32. Platform that informs citizens and public administrations about flood risks and enables possible risk
mitigation solution
www.floodserv-project.eu
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No No 693599. This material reflects only the author's view and the European Commission/REA
is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
Addressed to citizens, public administrator and policy makers in flood risk areas

33. We focused on developing easy-to-read articles at
project’s website (news section) in order to engage more
citizens as well as mayors and help them understand how
they can be benefited from the FLOOD-serv platform.
The articles are promoted through social media of course
but also through partners’ well established networks and
channels
www. diginet-project.eu

34. For communicating the project’s results (publications)
we have also deployed digital publishing platforms
www. diginet-project.eu

35. Ευχαριστώ!
Gracias!
Thank you!
Благодаря ти!
Grazie!
www. diginet-project.eu