Social media marketing is a time-consuming marketing strategy that requires thinking and planning. One of the most challenging marketing methods can be because it requires breaking into the already busy digital landscape to be effective.
No matter what you think of social media marketing, the truth is that it’s a necessary way for any company trying to achieve its success today. Whether you’ve already tried it, or are still trying to make it work or avoid it altogether, today is the day to develop a social media marketing plan to make your online marketing efforts more successful.
The social media marketing plan is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. Directs your actions and lets you know if you succeed or fail.
The more specific the marketing plan, the more effective it is, so we will clarify the most important points to consider while creating a social media marketing plan:
- Learn about your brand
This step may be more difficult in the marketing plan for small businesses that have not thought much about who they are, the creation of a business today should go beyond the products and services they offer. You should create a brand that attracts people to your services because it’s your brand that sets you apart from the rest. Keep in mind all aspects of your business and look for things that uniquely belong to you. If you’re a pizzeria, your unique selling point may be that you specialize in locally sourced ingredients and want to keep your business sustainable. If you are a printer, you may be committed to the environment, so you use specialized inks and recycled paper.
- Know your audience
Now that you have a better idea of who you want to be, you can think of a more specific audience. Already, you can see how the first step is related to the second in the marketing plan. Take a look at a more specific character for your audience and focus on what will attract them to your social media pages. Some things to consider when looking at your target audience in the marketing plan are:
- Age
- Geographical range
- Job title
- Revenue
- Weaknesses that your business can solve for customers
- The most commonly used social network
- Learn about your current social media channels
You need to know where you are and how you work on social media today. This means checking your social media presence before you embark on the marketing plan. Here’s your social media audit checklist:
- What platforms do you use today?
- Have your pages been fully improved using all platform features such as photos, cover images, resumes, etc.?
- What pages get the best results?
- What publications got the best results (e.g., likes and posts)?
- Who calls you?
6- How many times do you publish daily?
You may need to remove some of your pages to focus on social media channels that deliver the best results for your brand. This means identifying the most logical social media platforms for your audience and the perfect customer in the marketing plan. To help you identify which pages will be closed, ask yourself two questions:
- Is it possible that my ideal client will use this platform?
Have my efforts helped me achieve any of my business objectives?
If you answer “no” to one or both, you’ll probably focus on other platforms to build your presence on social networks.
- Analysis of competitors
Analyzing competitors will provide more improvements you can make on your social media pages while creating your business marketing plan. You can see where your competitors went and what strengths they have and what weaknesses they have.
Looking at competitors also helps you figure out what the industry is doing, so you know if there are opportunities to be unique, as well as areas that you’ll have to cover on your own pages and mention it all in your marketing plan.
You can also search for dominance. A competitor may outperform you on Instagram, but does nothing on Twitter. This leaves you with another chance to control. All this information will help you adjust your marketing efforts to beat competition and work with everything available and useful to the marketing plan.
Preparing and improving accounts
Use audit results to look for opportunities to improve existing profiles. Look at every available feature and mention it in the marketing plan, so there are no gaps in the pages you created.
Make sure your pages are improved with contact information, company history, information, product and service descriptions, and good use of photos and videos when you can. You should always check your accounts to make sure you reduce the chance of fraudster accounts appearing.
If this is the first step in your social media marketing plan, set up your pages using the same premise to improve your pages.
- Setting up metrics
Metrics are the only way you can show the success of your marketing plan. This can be important in companies that require a budget to run social media marketing. It’s also important to help track what you’re doing properly, so you can build on your success. Some of the most important metrics include:
- Conversion rate
- Time spent on the site
- Arrival
- Brand mention
- Interaction
- Total entries
Using the right metrics, you can edit your content and even rethink your marketing plan
You can also determine where your best efforts will get the best ROI. Look beyond the success measures of the marketing plan. Look at potential customers, web referrals and the overall conversion rate.
You can continue the experience, but you need to know where the real value is. In this way, you can increase posts that tend to get the best results based on your mission data. In fact, it’s not surprising to change the mission statement if the results are great but obviously not about the statement you’re thinking about. If you’re using Facebook to raise brand awareness, but more people seem to be looking for customer service, turn your focus to meeting expectations.
- Scheduling interactive content
All your research and other steps in the marketing plan should help put you in a better position to plan your content. No matter how powerful the social media marketing plan is, if you don’t follow it with strong and engaging content, your social efforts will fail.
Create a calendar of social media content to show what you want to post, when, and on any channel. Mix things up with photos and share links in blog posts, videos, and smart text to keep people engaged. Your calendar must be manageable by your team and take into account optimal publishing times.
Create a balanced mix based on your mission data. There are a number of formulas to consider. Perhaps the simplest is the 80/20 rule, which is 80% dedicated to information, education and entertainment, and 20% dedicated to sale. There is also a third idea rule, which provides two-thirds of the common ideas of thought leaders, one third for personal interactions with your followers, and one third for your business for conversion and profit.
In general, you have many different ways to create strong content to the marketing plan including:
- Take advantage of your blog’s own content
- Redirect other marketing efforts such as landing pages, videos, presentations and more
- Publishing and sharing industry news
- Use influencers
- Content from user creation
- Tips and tricks such as unusual recipes or ways to use your products
- Ask followers questions to generate conversations
- Use the hashtag to help create more user-generated content
The marketing plan on your social media platforms will help you create meaningful interaction with your audience. The marketing plan must grow and adapt as your audience shows you what they need from you. With a strong plan and continuous reassessment, you’ll get the best results from social marketing efforts.
