Starting point: your social footprint and team

• Tell me about the social channels your team actively manages today, and which brand or regional accounts are included
• Walk me through a recent week of publishing, from content brief to approval to go-live
• Describe how you currently compile social performance for leadership and which report goes to the CMO
• On average, how many posts does a typical regional account publish each month Options: 0–10, 11–50, 51–200, 200+
• Who on your team is formally responsible for crisis response and which role is notified first when an off-brand post appears Options: Social Director/Lead, Regional Manager, Head of Communications/PR, Agency/External partner, Shared responsibility, Other
• Can you share a concrete example of a recent post that caused public concern and what actions followed
• Given a short two-week trial on your primary channels that proved publishing safety and reporting improvements, who could approve starting a pilot Options: Director of Social, VP of Digital, Head of Comms, Procurement, Other

Where brand safety actually breaks and what that costs you

• What single post or recent incident would make you walk away from your current approach to social governance
• When that incident happened, where in the process did the approval checks fail and who missed it first
• Which content types have caused the most concern for your brand Options: Promotional posts, Local event posts, User-generated content, Influencer posts, Paid creative, Other
• To what extent do local teams or franchisees publish without prior corporate approval today Options: Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never
• Share how leadership reacted in the hours after the last major incident and whether any lasting process changes were made
• Estimate the immediate reputational or revenue impact from that incident over the following 30 and 90 days Options: Minimal (<$10k or no public fallout), $10k–$100k or limited coverage, $100k+ or national coverage, Unknown/not measured

The other options on the table — incumbent, build, or do nothing

• Who would need to be persuaded to stay with your current toolset rather than switch to an outside platform
• List the alternative approaches you're actively evaluating, including internal builds, incumbents, point tools, or agency-managed options Options: Internal build, Current incumbent vendor, Point tools for publishing or analytics, Agency-managed solution, No alternative under consideration, Other
• Which outcome would have to be demonstrably true for you to remain on your current approach instead of changing Options: Faster time to publish, Zero brand-safety incidents, Clear CRM attribution, Lower overall cost, Simpler local autonomy
• Has anyone on your team proposed solving this in-house instead of buying, and who is leading that effort Options: Yes — Marketing Ops, Yes — Engineering, Yes — Regional Ops, No internal proposal, Unsure
• If you stayed with the incumbent, what single thing would they need to fix within 30 days to keep your business
• Select the most common objection you've heard internally to switching vendors Options: Cost, Integration complexity, Change management/resistance, Time to implement, Loss of local autonomy, Procurement constraints

How you'll measure success and what will make this a no-brainer

• Assuming you run a two- to four-week pilot on primary channels, which single metric would prove the pilot is worth rolling out
• Across your KPIs, which three metrics get the most attention from the CMO or revenue owners Options: Engagement rate, Response time to comments, Lead or conversion volume attributed to social, Share of voice/sentiment, Impressions/reach, Other
• Describe your current time to publish from draft to live, and what an acceptable improvement would look like
• Rate how critical CRM attribution from social is to the business case for this project Options: Critical, Important, Nice to have, Not important
• If the pilot reaches your target metric, who has the authority to sign a rollout and within what timeframe would you expect that to happen
• Name any technical or business acceptance criteria that would immediately disqualify a vendor from consideration

Can we actually connect to your systems — constraints that stop configuration

• Where are the hardest integration gaps that could prevent configuration from starting
• Identify who owns the API keys, data sets, and access permissions we would need to connect for pilot reporting Options: Marketing Ops, IT / Engineering, Regional Managers, Agency partner, Other
• List the external systems that must integrate for attribution and measurement Options: Your primary CRM, Ad accounts, Web analytics platform, CDP or data warehouse, Social ad reporting APIs, Other
• Do the social accounts you want to connect have a shared corporate admin, individual regional credentials, or a hybrid setup Options: Shared corporate admin, Individual credentials per region, Hybrid (some shared, some individual), Unsure
• Estimate how many hours of engineering or vendor-integration time your team can commit during the pilot window Options: <10 hours, 10–40 hours, 40–100 hours, 100+ hours, Unsure
• Are there legal, compliance, or privacy reviews that will gate access to social data and integrations Options: Yes — formal review required, Maybe — depends on scope, No formal review process, Unsure
• Select which data constraints apply to your program Options: Restricted PII policies, No export of user data allowed, Data residency requirements, Need for hashed identifiers only, No special constraints, Other

Who will make this work inside your organization

• Name the day-to-day owner for approvals and confirm whether they have the authority to enforce new workflows Options: Social Director, Regional Manager, Marketing Ops, Head of Comms, Agency partner, Other
• How many people will need formal training before go-live and which roles do you expect will be hardest to retrain
• Explain the approval cadence you would accept so that safety checks do not block timely local posts
• Identify the final approver for pilot acceptance and confirm whether budget sign-off will be required at that stage Options: Director of Social, VP Marketing/Digital, Head of Comms, Procurement, Other
• Rate how receptive regional managers will be to a centralized approval workflow Options: Very receptive, Somewhat receptive, Neutral, Resistant, Actively opposed
• Suppose regional resistance is strong, what interim control would you accept during the pilot to balance speed and brand safety

Next steps and the timeline that speeds or stalls the project

• Imagine we could start a pilot next week; what concrete condition would make you say yes today
• Provide the internal milestones that must be met before configuration begins and who signs each milestone
• How soon can your team provide the admin accounts and API access we need — within 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, or longer Options: Within 1 week, Within 2 weeks, Within 4 weeks, Longer than 4 weeks, Unsure
• Specify the decision date you are targeting for pilot approval and the target go-live window for launch
• Choose which resources you will commit during the pilot Options: 1 FTE social lead, Engineering hours (estimated), Agency support, Budget for integrations, Training time for regional teams, Other
• Finally, what single obstacle would immediately prevent the pilot from starting within your target window Options: Legal/compliance hold, No API access, No budget allocated, Leadership will not sign, Strong regional opposition, Other

• Solution Experience Session

• Confirm the current state and its cost to your team
• You confirm the demonstrated approval workflow prevents the type of off-brand post that caused the viral incident.
• Provide one example post that previously caused the incident and two representative local content types to use in the live scenario.
• You confirm the multi-account publishing flow supports regional autonomy while enforcing corporate approval rules without blocking required local actions.
• Prove the approval workflow using your example content
• Share the list of regional accounts, publishing roles, and who currently approves content for each region for pilot configuration.
• Document the attribution fields and CRM endpoint details required to push social engagement data for pilot reporting.
• You confirm the normalized analytics and CRM mapping meet your attribution needs and define the metrics for pilot acceptance.
• Walk through multi-account publishing and role mappings
• Deliver a pilot scope, timeline, and configuration plan including estimated effort and costs within five business days after this session.
• Demonstrate normalized analytics and CRM attribution with your metrics
• Forced validation beat: Confirm this matches what you described needing
• Confirm internal stakeholders for pilot acceptance and a target decision date for pilot outcomes.
• Agree pilot scope, success criteria, and integration checklist

• Solution Experience Session
• Solution Experience Deck
• Solution Brief

• meeting
• slides
• document

• Provision multi-location account structure
• Configure approval workflow and escalation paths
• Bulk upload and schedule cross-platform posts
• Set role-based permissions and regional hierarchies
• Deploy content library and asset management
• Activate community inbox and response routing
• Implement social listening and brand mention alerts
• Integrate CRM attribution via API
• Enable cross-platform normalized analytics dashboards
• Publish and manage paid social campaigns
• Migrate historical posts and engagement data
• Deliver administrator and moderator training

Provision multi-location account structure

• How many brand or regional social accounts by platform do you need provisioned in the multi-location tree? Options: 1-10 total, 11-50 total, 51-200 total, 200+ total
• Do you require separate top-level brand and sub-brand or franchisee nodes in your account hierarchy? Options: Yes, No
• Describe the naming convention your organization uses for regional accounts (for example Country_State_City_StoreID).
• List the platforms you need provisioned at the start (for example Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest). Options: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Other
• Who in your organization will own account provisioning and administrator access for each region?

Configure approval workflow and escalation paths

• When should approval be required for posts from regional accounts — for all posts, only externally facing posts, or only posts from franchisee accounts? Options: All posts, Externally facing posts only, Franchisee account posts only
• Provide the trigger conditions your team wants to use to route a post into escalation (for example banned keyword, legal tag, or listening flag).
• Confirm your expected maximum review turnaround time for regional approvals (SLA) in minutes or hours. Options: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, Custom
• Specify the approver sequence you need for local-to-national posts (for example creator > regional moderator > national approver).
• Estimate the average off-hours coverage you need for approval overflow (number of reviewers per night/weekend). Options: None, 1-2 reviewers, 3-5 reviewers, 5+ reviewers

Bulk upload and schedule cross-platform posts

• Indicate the bulk upload file formats you will provide (for example CSV with image URLs, ZIP of assets, or platform-specific template). Options: CSV with image URLs, ZIP of assets, Platform template, Other
• Identify which of your regional teams will be authorized to perform bulk scheduling versus which teams should only draft content.
• Outline the maximum batch size for bulk scheduling your seasonal campaigns require (posts per upload). Options: Under 100, 100-500, 500-2,000, 2,000+
• Where should default post captions pull regional tags from in your workflow (for example asset library folder names or a spreadsheet column)?
• Will you require automatic merge fields for localization during bulk scheduling (for example language, local price, or store locator link)? Options: Yes, No

Set role-based permissions and regional hierarchies

• Are there legal or compliance roles in your organization that must have elevated visibility across all regions? Options: Yes, No
• How will your user groups map to regional hierarchies (for example a regional manager group per state)?
• Should approval visibility be limited by role so moderators only see posts for their assigned stores? Options: Yes, No
• Which accounts should retain owner-level permissions after provisioning (for example corporate master account or regional lead accounts)?
• Which channels in your mix require special permission rules due to video content handling (for example TikTok, YouTube)? Options: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Other

Deploy content library and asset management

• Which API endpoints or transfer method will you use to sync digital assets from your digital asset management system (for example S3 path or HTTP upload endpoint)?
• Do your local teams need isolated folders in the content library for regional or seasonal assets? Options: Yes, No
• Which asset metadata fields require tagging in your library to prevent off-brand publication (for example license expiry, usage region, or model release)?
• Which escalation path should an asset takedown or violation flag trigger in your organization (for example notify legal or regional director)?
• Define your retention policy and archival schedule for published post assets and raw engagement data (for example 24 months active then archived). Options: 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, 36+ months, Custom

Activate community inbox and response routing

• Set SLA targets for community inbox response time by channel in your operations (for example 1 hour for Instagram DMs, 24 hours for comments).
• Name the routing destinations for urgent brand mentions in your stack (for example Slack channel or email escalation list).
• State the message categories that should bypass standard routing and go directly to crisis response (for example customer safety or PR incident). Options: Customer safety, PR incident, Legal issue, Other
• Assign the teams or individuals in your organization responsible for triage, escalation, and resolution of high-severity mentions.
• List the platforms that must feed into the unified inbox on day one. Options: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Other

Implement social listening and brand mention alerts

• How many keyword sets or Boolean queries do you want configured for brand and competitor listening? Options: 1-5, 6-20, 21-50, 50+
• Do you want sentiment scoring thresholds to trigger alerts for sustained negative spikes in mentions? Options: Yes, No
• Describe the crisis keywords or phrases that should immediately raise a high-priority alert for your brand (for example 'food poisoning', 'scam', 'fire').
• List the geographic filters you want applied to listening queries (for example country, metro area, or store radius).
• Who in your organization should receive the first alert for a detected viral negative mention?

Integrate CRM attribution via API

• When should social engagement events be sent to your source CRM — real time, daily batch, or weekly batch? Options: Real time, Daily batch, Weekly batch
• Provide the CRM field names you require populated from social interactions (for example lead_source, campaign_id, media_type).
• Confirm the minimum mapping coverage you require for the pilot (for example map 80% of campaign UTM values to CRM fields). Options: 50%, 75%, 80%, 90%, Custom
• Specify the API authentication method your CRM endpoint supports (for example OAuth2 client credentials, API key, or basic auth). Options: OAuth2, API key, Basic auth, Other
• Estimate the daily event volume (interactions, clicks, conversions) you expect to forward to the CRM during the pilot. Options: Under 1,000, 1,000-10,000, 10,000-100,000, 100,000+

Enable cross-platform normalized analytics dashboards

• Indicate which normalized metrics are critical for your CMO reporting (for example engagement per 1,000 followers, share of voice, conversion value). Options: Normalized engagement rate per 1,000 followers, Share of voice, Conversion value, Custom
• Identify the primary reporting audience and cadence your team needs (for example weekly executive summary or daily ops update). Options: Executive weekly, Daily ops, Monthly board, Custom
• Outline the attribution windows you want applied when tying social activity to conversions in your reporting (for example 7-day view-through or 30-day click-through). Options: 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, Custom
• Where should normalized dashboards be embedded or exported from the platform (for example BI tool, spreadsheet, or scheduled PDF to stakeholders)? Options: Business intelligence tool, Spreadsheet export, Scheduled PDF, Other
• Will you require drill-downs by store or campaign to reconcile social KPIs with your point-of-sale or CRM data? Options: Yes, No

Publish and manage paid social campaigns

• Are there centralized paid ad accounts that must remain under corporate control versus local ad accounts? Options: Yes, No
• How will creative approvals for paid campaigns differ from organic approvals in your process (for example require legal sign-off)?
• Should budget pacing and delivery alerts be configured per campaign to prevent overspend against your monthly budget? Options: Yes, No
• Which accounts or ad account IDs will you use to run paid campaigns at launch (provide list or indicate if centrally managed)?
• Which channels do you plan to test paid social on during the pilot? Options: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Other

Migrate historical posts and engagement data

• Which legacy export types are available for migration from your current platforms (for example platform CSV exports, API dumps, or partner exports)? Options: Platform CSV export, API export, Partner export, No export available
• Do local teams have unpublished drafts or historical posts that must be preserved with original timestamps? Options: Yes, No
• Which historical engagement types do you require migrated into the platform (for example likes, comments, shares, impressions)? Options: Likes, Comments, Shares, Impressions, Other
• Which data quality acceptance rule is most important for your migration (for example 95% timestamp accuracy or zero-missing attachments)?
• Define the acceptance criteria that will confirm migration completeness for your historical data (for example percentage of posts migrated, attachment integrity, and reconciliation with native platform counts).

Deliver administrator and moderator training

• Set the target training completion rate for administrators and moderators during the pilot. Options: 100%, 90%, 75%, Custom
• Name the training formats your team prefers (for example live webinar, on-demand videos, or hands-on workshop). Options: Live webinar, On-demand videos, Hands-on workshop, Blended
• State the skill areas you want covered in training (for example approval workflow operation, crisis triage, and analytics dashboard use). Options: Approval workflows, Crisis triage, Analytics dashboards, Community inbox operations, Other
• Assign who in your organization will provide post-training certification or sign-off to indicate readiness for go-live.
• List the post-training support resources you expect (for example office hours, knowledge base articles, or a dedicated support SLA). Options: Office hours, Knowledge base, Dedicated support SLA, On-call support, Other

• Subscription Agreement
• Order Form
• Pilot Acceptance Criteria
• Integration & API Access Authorization
• Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
• Rollout Responsibilities & RACI
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Change Order Agreement

• Go-live Health Check
• First Outcomes Review
• Acceptance Gate Review
• Quarterly Success Review

• Re-confirm success criteria and owners
• Deliver the evidence package containing raw metric exports and event logs for the acceptance gate meeting.
• Implement the agreed configuration or training fixes and report status in the shared channel within the agreed timeline.
• Restate acceptance criteria and targets
• Produce a documented acceptance decision against the pilot criteria recorded in Solution Scope.
• Ensure the incumbent system wind-down plan is documented and scheduled to prevent dual usage.
• List remediation items for any failed criteria with resolution timelines.
• Publish the acceptance decision and evidence package to the shared workspace and archive the meeting record.
• If applicable, execute the incumbent retirement tasks and confirm archive or read-only status of legacy data.
• Track remediation actions in the shared issue channel with target completion dates.
• Adoption and behavior metrics
• Confirm that brand-safety incidents remain at or below the target rate and that manual reporting hours are reduced versus the baseline.
• Ensure all high-severity open issues have resolution dates and tracked owners.
• Prioritize enhancement requests with agreed timelines for the next quarter.
• Publish the quarterly metric dashboard and the prioritized enhancement backlog to the shared channel.
• Create tickets for high-priority enhancements and link them to the shared roadmap with expected delivery quarters.
• Confirm the deployment is functionally live for core workflows and integrations.
• Document the top 3 blockers with resolution dates and owners for follow-up.
• Establish the next data-driven review date for the first measurement meeting.
• Publish the deployment validation checklist and resolution timelines to the shared channel.
• Enable production data collection for publishing, approvals, and incident logging to feed the first measurement review.
• Present first outcome data vs targets
• Determine whether weekly active publishing users and average approval turnaround time are trending toward targets recorded in Solution Scope.
• Agree a prioritized set of corrective actions with completion dates to address any gaps.
• Confirm the evidence package required for the acceptance gate meeting.
• Deployment and integration validation
• ROI and attribution review
• Present outcome data per criterion
• Diagnose gaps and root causes
• Open issues and ticket burn-down
• Document pass or fail per criterion
• Mitigation and corrective actions
• Early adoption signals and usage patterns
• Open issues and blockers
• Incumbent system wind-down check
• Enhancement request prioritization
• Confirm timeline to acceptance gate
• Agree immediate remediation actions
• Agree remediation items and timelines
• Short closing checklist and next steps