Social media is a fundamental tool for any business’ marketing strategy. Therefore, a social media plan is a must for anyone looking to grow their business. This tool organizes all the information you will need to create a successful campaign to attract followers and generate leads. There is a lot to consider when creating a social media strategy, but skipping out on the planning process will only make you overwhelmed when you start posting and don’t see any positive results. This blog will lay out the steps you need to research, outline, and execute your very own social media plan.
Define Your Marketing and Business Goals
The first step to a successful social media plan is to review your current business and marketing goals. Knowing what you want to achieve as a company will determine how you approach your marketing plan and social media advertising. For example, your business goals may be as simple as wanting to increase revenue, so how can social media help with that? You could gain followers to get more eyes on your website, generate news leads and increase brand awareness with engaging posts, or even boost sales through promotions on new platforms. The options are limitless.
Coming up with goals will help you understand what you need to do to achieve them. They give you a clear objective to center your marketing plan around. This will make the entire process straightforward and easier for you.
Get to Know Your Audience
After you nail down what your business needs to thrive, it’s time to understand your audience. Learning about your target audience is necessary to find the best way to attract them through social media. Creating an ideal buyer persona is a great way to do this and organize the traits of your customers into a digestible format.
Many social media platforms also offer analysis tools which you can use to identify your audience’s demographics, interests, and engagement rate. Learning about your target audience will develop your social media plan by telling you where, what, and when you should post to captivate potential customers and turn them into leads.
Check Out Your Competition
While you’re using social media analysis tools don’t forget to analyze your competition. You’ll likely have some overlap between your audiences so look at their metrics to learn more about your target customers. Be sure to examine how often they are posting, their audience’s engagement rate, and what content is getting the most interaction.
You can use these insights to craft your own posts that draw attention and conversion by learning from what is and isn’t working for your competition. You will be one step ahead of other businesses as you will know what works and what doesn’t before you post a single thing. Not to mention all this research prepares you for competing over social media for customers. You will understand your audience and their other options, making you ready for whatever comes next.
Choose the Right Platforms
One of the most important things you will learn from understanding your audience and competitors is which platform to launch your social media campaign on. Different social media platforms have different audiences and content. For example, if you run a business-to-business company then LinkedIn will work much better than Instagram. However, if your business caters to everyday customers and uses visuals to sell your products and/or services, Instagram would be a better option. Wherever your target audience is most active, and you can authentically represent your brand is where you should post your content.
You may be tempted to make content for every social media platform. After all, don’t you want to attract the most leads as possible? Of course you do, but maximizing your ROI through social media will take time. When starting out, don’t spread yourself thin by trying to create a marketing plan for every platform, especially not on those that will generate little traffic. Focus your time and energy on creating engaging and specific content for the platform you know will work.
The whole point of a social media plan is to narrow down your marketing scope so you can focus on the strategies that will produce the best results. After you’ve accomplished this, you can return to those other platforms armed with new skills to increase your following there.
Monitor Your Performance and Adjust as Needed
Your social media plan isn’t finished once you start posting content. It should be a fluid strategy that is adjusted as needed to get the best results. Once you start your social media marketing campaign be sure to keep an eye on your performance metrics. These will tell you how well your content is doing and how your audience is engaging with it. Focus on metrics like engagement, click-through-rate, conversion rates, and follower growth. From there you can determine what if anything needs to be changed and optimize your marketing efforts.
Start Crafting Your Social Media Plan
According to Retail Touch Points, 76% of consumers buy products they see from a business’ social media account. Having a social media marketing campaign is more important now than ever, which requires a strong social media plan. These plans will help organize your thoughts and research so that you can find the best way to grow your business through online platforms. Understanding your business and marketing goals, target audience, and competitors will show you what your marketing efforts should look like. And after finding the best platform to use you can track your results to make sure you are on the right path.
There is a lot that goes into a social media plan, but it is necessary to avoid wasting your time on a campaign that yields little to no results. The good news is that you don’t have to go through this process alone. Strategy can help create, run, and monitor your social media plan, ensuring you are always one step ahead of the competition. Schedule a free consultation today to make your social media marketing journey a success.
