How to Build a Social Media Plan
Know your Marketing Objectives., Know your target audience., Develop a content strategy., Determine Calls to Action., Pick the best tools for the job., Execute and experiment., Engage directly with your audience., Measure the results of your work...
Step-by-Step Guide
-
Step 1: Know your Marketing Objectives.
Before jumping into the heavy traffic of social media, you have to know where you want to be in the end.
When working with clients, you should first establish a set of goals and what it is that they hope to achieve.
How do you want to expose your business? Are you going for awareness, sales, leads? What do you hope to learn or get out of using these social mediums? You can then evaluate these set goals and have a better understanding of what to monitor and measure. -
Step 2: Know your target audience.
Knowing your audience is important in creating an effective social media plan.
Who are you trying to target? What are they interested in? What gets them excited? And where are they online? These are the necessary questions you need to ask yourself in developing your strategy – you need to know how to attract potential clients! , If you really know your target audience you can engage with them in a way that's truly meaningful.
This is where having a content strategy comes in.
What do they really care about? How can you connect with them by talking about things they are interested in? What things, related to your product, are they really passionate about? Your content should be relevant to the psychographics of your audience.
Answering these questions will allow you to lay the high-level approach to developing a communication style with your audience.
After developing a content strategy, you need to develop a content plan, which is much more tactical.
Your content plan outlines the actual copy in the tweets, posts, and images you intend to share to your audience. , Based on your marketing objectives you should be able to develop calls to action – action that you want someone to take that will ultimately lead to business value for you.
This might be getting their email address, having them call you, a direct sale online, filling out a contact form, etc.
Knowing your call to action or ultimate goal will help you really drive value from your social marketing. , How should you go about choosing a social media to achieve your objectives.
Based on the content, target and calls to action, you should look for the social media tools that will optimize your chance of objective success.
The tools you pick are contingent to where your audience is and the flexibility and opportunities for marketers in the various tools.
For example, your audience may be on Facebook (since most people are) but they may not be interested in ”liking” you, and it may be difficult to find them and connect based on the limitations of Facebook. , Executing your strategy is not a walk in the park.
It is important that you give yourself enough time and make resources available so you can create the best possible delivery, specific to your business.
Set up different tests to evaluate different executions.
For example, tweet different things, pose your questions in different ways, try different days and times and see which tweets get the most traction and clicks.
This way, you can determine the best way to reach your intended audience and what strategies get the most reception. , One of the opportunities that social media marketing offers that other forms of marketing do not is the chance for an organization to have conversations with their audience in real time.
Customers appreciate interactions with organizations that feel authentic and personalized; these types of interactions are much more likely to happen when you respond directly to a follower rather than solely relying on posts to your entire following.
While every organization's content strategy should be uniquely tailored, it's always worth looking for opportunities to engage directly with your audience., Measure, measure, measure.
Measuring Social Media is one of the most vital and beneficial pieces of advice.
During the experimentation stage it is vital to test, experiment and measure your social media execution.
Your measures should help you decide if what you are doing is working.
Measuring can include mentions in blogs, tags, tweets, news articles and other forms of exposure for your business.
Be cautious in your measures though and be sure to assess the real problem.
For example, if you were given a screwdriver and asked to put a nail into a piece of wood, you probably couldn’t.
It doesn’t mean that the screwdriver is broken, it just means that it isn’t the right tool for the task.
It would be wrong to conclude that 1) The screwdriver doesn’t work 2) The nail can’t be put into the wood.
Keep your options open when it comes to the different social media engines – setting up boundaries is contradicting the limitlessness of social media! , Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Don’t be afraid to abandon a strategy if it doesn’t work.
One word of caution – beware of your measures.
For example, you may have started using Twitter to build awareness, but find that it is actually really effective for customer service.
If you only measure awareness you may miss the boat.
So, while your measures might be specific, be sure to look at tools and success in a comprehensive way. -
Step 3: Develop a content strategy.
-
Step 4: Determine Calls to Action.
-
Step 5: Pick the best tools for the job.
-
Step 6: Execute and experiment.
-
Step 7: Engage directly with your audience.
-
Step 8: Measure the results of your work.
-
Step 9: Adapt to the insights of your results.
Detailed Guide
Before jumping into the heavy traffic of social media, you have to know where you want to be in the end.
When working with clients, you should first establish a set of goals and what it is that they hope to achieve.
How do you want to expose your business? Are you going for awareness, sales, leads? What do you hope to learn or get out of using these social mediums? You can then evaluate these set goals and have a better understanding of what to monitor and measure.
Knowing your audience is important in creating an effective social media plan.
Who are you trying to target? What are they interested in? What gets them excited? And where are they online? These are the necessary questions you need to ask yourself in developing your strategy – you need to know how to attract potential clients! , If you really know your target audience you can engage with them in a way that's truly meaningful.
This is where having a content strategy comes in.
What do they really care about? How can you connect with them by talking about things they are interested in? What things, related to your product, are they really passionate about? Your content should be relevant to the psychographics of your audience.
Answering these questions will allow you to lay the high-level approach to developing a communication style with your audience.
After developing a content strategy, you need to develop a content plan, which is much more tactical.
Your content plan outlines the actual copy in the tweets, posts, and images you intend to share to your audience. , Based on your marketing objectives you should be able to develop calls to action – action that you want someone to take that will ultimately lead to business value for you.
This might be getting their email address, having them call you, a direct sale online, filling out a contact form, etc.
Knowing your call to action or ultimate goal will help you really drive value from your social marketing. , How should you go about choosing a social media to achieve your objectives.
Based on the content, target and calls to action, you should look for the social media tools that will optimize your chance of objective success.
The tools you pick are contingent to where your audience is and the flexibility and opportunities for marketers in the various tools.
For example, your audience may be on Facebook (since most people are) but they may not be interested in ”liking” you, and it may be difficult to find them and connect based on the limitations of Facebook. , Executing your strategy is not a walk in the park.
It is important that you give yourself enough time and make resources available so you can create the best possible delivery, specific to your business.
Set up different tests to evaluate different executions.
For example, tweet different things, pose your questions in different ways, try different days and times and see which tweets get the most traction and clicks.
This way, you can determine the best way to reach your intended audience and what strategies get the most reception. , One of the opportunities that social media marketing offers that other forms of marketing do not is the chance for an organization to have conversations with their audience in real time.
Customers appreciate interactions with organizations that feel authentic and personalized; these types of interactions are much more likely to happen when you respond directly to a follower rather than solely relying on posts to your entire following.
While every organization's content strategy should be uniquely tailored, it's always worth looking for opportunities to engage directly with your audience., Measure, measure, measure.
Measuring Social Media is one of the most vital and beneficial pieces of advice.
During the experimentation stage it is vital to test, experiment and measure your social media execution.
Your measures should help you decide if what you are doing is working.
Measuring can include mentions in blogs, tags, tweets, news articles and other forms of exposure for your business.
Be cautious in your measures though and be sure to assess the real problem.
For example, if you were given a screwdriver and asked to put a nail into a piece of wood, you probably couldn’t.
It doesn’t mean that the screwdriver is broken, it just means that it isn’t the right tool for the task.
It would be wrong to conclude that 1) The screwdriver doesn’t work 2) The nail can’t be put into the wood.
Keep your options open when it comes to the different social media engines – setting up boundaries is contradicting the limitlessness of social media! , Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Don’t be afraid to abandon a strategy if it doesn’t work.
One word of caution – beware of your measures.
For example, you may have started using Twitter to build awareness, but find that it is actually really effective for customer service.
If you only measure awareness you may miss the boat.
So, while your measures might be specific, be sure to look at tools and success in a comprehensive way.
About the Author
Tyler Garcia
Tyler Garcia has dedicated 6 years to mastering sports and recreation. As a content creator, Tyler focuses on providing actionable tips and step-by-step guides.
Rate This Guide
How helpful was this guide? Click to rate: