The S.W.O.T. Analysis

For Week 3, our assignment was to read Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of "Social Media for Strategic Communication." There was a lot of material covered in these chapters, but I want to discuss the S.W.O.T. Analysis. Most people are familiar with this type of analysis, but I feel like it is one of the most important analyses a business can perform because it measures your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

The S.W.O.T. is a crucial analysis to perform if you are looking for ways to improve your business. This can help you outperform your competitors by improving your business in these four categories. The analysis is part of the communication and marketing campaign process, but it is crucial for the social media strategic planning process.

Strengths 

You want to begin with what you are the best at regarding social media within your organization. These should be things that separate you from your competitors, giving you the advantage over them in specific categories. These strengths can be separated into categories to help with organization within your company. You should be able to back up each strength with solid data from the social media communication audit. Even if you find a strength, there may be a way to make it better.

Weaknesses

After strengths, you should tackle your weaknesses. These are things that you have proven to be below par, needing extra time and focus to improve. They are setbacks from achieving the goals the company has set. If your competitors know what your weaknesses are, they will target them because they know they will be stronger than you, pushing you farther away from catching up to them. Having data to support your weaknesses will give you a better understanding of what needs to be worked on. Therefore, it is important to concentrate on your weaknesses, finding ways to improve them.

Opportunities

Opportunities are a way to develop a new approach or idea that may benefit your organization. They can be any size, it doesn't matter as if you are increasing competition because the goal is to be #1 in your industry. Research should be collected by a team and ideas should be deliberated throughout to see the opportunities to potentially make your organization stronger. New opportunities will allow you to gain on your competitors or they will create a larger gap against your competitors. 

Threats

The last step in the analysis is threats. This can be anything that your organization believes may cause harm to them in the future. Nothing should be overlooked in this part of the analysis because any threat, big or small has the potential to delay your organization's success. If you see a threat, collaborate with a team on how to neutralize the threat because if you don't, a competitor is going to overtake you and put you out of business. Adapt to changes and find ways to improve if a competitor steals an idea from you. 

The S.W.O.T. Analysis is not complex and can be performed by anyone in search of becoming stronger in their industry. It is a great way to grow and outplay your competitors, but you must know how to use it.