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Introduction
A social media plan helps a group determine its target audience, the social networks to link to, and the content to develop and share. It is an active part of your overall marketing strategy.
Social Media Plan
The social media plan or social media marketing plan is a text that outlines the vital points of a social media marketing strategy. This text is dynamic and alters to new needs, tools, social networks, or marketplace and customer alterations that may arise.
To put you in context, social media marketing is based on using the various existing social networks to sell or promote your brand, product, or service.
It is divided into several parts. Remember that you shouldn’t overlook any of them since the success of your campaigns on the different social networks depends on their correct linking; consequently, they help you reach your buyer persona better.
Before we start… in case you’re not convinced, let’s tell you why it’s essential to create a social media plan for your business:
It will help you get your brand known.
It enables you to sell your product or service.
You will be capable of delivering better customer service and, consequently, greater loyalty.
You reach your target group more efficiently and closer to announcing news about your products and services.
Do you know the vital parts of a social media marketing plan? If your answer is no, I’ll recap it for you!
10 Steps to Creating Your Social Media Plan
1. Analysis and Starting Point
You can’t start from scratch. Before you work with your social media plan, the first step is to analyze the project’s specific activities, the target audience, or the market you serve, among other things. If you are unsure how to start, you can use social media patterns or a social media strategy you can discovery online.
Here are approximately the questions you want to answer:
- What is your need?
- What is your job? And your product?
- Which industry are you active in, Business to Business or Business to Consumer?
- Who is your ideal customer?
- What is your area of activity?
- How do you sell your product or contract your service?
- What have you done on the internet, and how did it work?
- Are you already being talked about on the internet? Where and what is said?
- Who is your competition, and what are they doing online?
- What is your rival doing on social media? Which ones do they use? how did they do it
- What splits you from other companies in your industry? If you have a SWOT examination, it’s time to look; otherwise, we’ll explain how to brand it in this article.
If you have fears about the answer to any of the above questions, don’t worry; we’ll help you label them in the following points.
2. Learn Everything about Your Audience
If you know your audience, you can create the content they are looking for; that way, they will reply with likes, shares, and comments. Although it might not seem like it at first peep, this is vital if you want your collections to become customers.
The key points to know your audience is:
- What segment are you targeting?
- How old are they?
- Do you know what kind of people might be interested in your content?
- What reason can you put them?
- What makes them select you over your competition?
- What drives them NOT to buy from you?
What is your pain? Your buyer will look for solutions to these problems. For essential that you know what content is best adapted to each stage of the purchase process of your prospect. We will tell you about it in this article.
What social networks is your board group on? To do this, avoid making molds. Analyzing social networks gives you precious data about your followers and their relationship with your brand.
3. Examine the Social Media Strategy of Your Competitors
This analysis lets you know your competition’s fortes and weaknesses, allowing you to grow a more robust strategy and brand choices.
To perform this study, you want to ask yourself the following:
- What social networks is the contest active on?
- What approach do they have in each social network?
- How did you set up your profiles?
- In which social network do they get better results?
- Do you have a defined social media marketing plan?
- What campaigns are active, and in what seasons?
- Which of their strategies can you use for your brand?
4. Define Your Goals and Make Sure They align with your Sales Goals
It is essential to define your goals so that you can then analyze the ROI of your social media strategy. These goals should be SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Accessible
- Important
- Limited in time
Once you have defined these goals, you must know how to measure them. We will explain this point in detail later.
5. Analysis of Your Website
A key element in developing a social media plan is the company website. Remember that your website is a business card for your company in digital media. It must be optimized, so your brand is effective from the first moment.
Some elements of this analysis are:
- Is your website ready to do what you expect it to do?
- Does the website have CTAs (calls to action) or forms if you want to grow your customer base?
- If you’re going to sell, does your site allow it? Does it offer easy navigation?
- If your website is informative, can we see at first glance what your company is about and what it offers?
- Does it look good on mobile?
- Is it working well at the SEO level? Do you know which keywords to work on?
- Does it offer a good user experience?
- Is it responsive, and does it display well on mobile devices?
6. Platform Analysis
Now expand the analysis a bit more. Look at the different platforms, tools, and resources available to you. Review these elements to know what social media presence you have:
From what you’ve seen, which social networks should you be on?
Do you know the nature of each social network and your target audience?
Keep in mind that Facebook could be valid at the branding level. LinkedIn is more suitable if you are a B2B company. Twitter is the best option when you generate certain content. And if you are directing a young audience, you can appreciate social networks like TikTok or Instagram.
Once you have defined the social networks you will use, you must specify a different strategy for each and configure your profiles or improve the existing ones.
7. Content Plan
The next step in your social media marketing plan is to project the content you will post on the social networks of your outstanding. Recall that this is not about repetition the same movements repeatedly on social media; you must adapt to each preparation and language and act accordingly.
It would help if you had inspiration for that. Although your brand image is unique, you can always take inspiration from other companies doing well on their social networks. Some examples are:
You can search for reward accounts and campaigns.
You can also analyze the brands that keep you following their content. What drives you to follow them?
You can interact with your customers and ask them what content they want to see.
It will also be vital that you create content that helps you interact with your target audience; this keeps them active and gives you information about them.
At this stage of your social media plan, you should consider things like the following:
- What type of content and how many posts will you publish on each social network?
- What topics will you post on each social network?
- How often will you perform these actions on social networks?
- Do you know the language and ways to share content on each social network?
- Does your content plan have everything you want to achieve with your digital marketing strategy?
8. Highlight Your KPIs
The fifth essential element in creating your social media plan is to measure the results you are getting from your marketing strategy. Remember that you don’t have to wait until the end to be able to rate the actions you have carried out on social networks: you have to do it at any time.
The KPIs to analyze vary depending on the requirements defined in your marketing plan. These can include interactions based on the number of followers, clicks based on the number of posts, or direct lead conversions from social media.
It is mentioned not to have more than 10 KPIs so that their measurement and analysis are straightforward.
Do a maximum of 5 of them and answer the following questions:
- What goals do you want to achieve on social media in a year?
- What are your social media strategy’s daily, weekly, and monthly plans?
- Are these goals achieved?
I prepared this dashboard template to measure your social media strategy, and you can see how your KPIs are performing and even forecast the achievement of goals.
9. Contingency Plan or Action Plan
Sometimes, things don’t go as thoughtful. In such cases, it is applied to draw up a spare plan.
Before you do this, review the actions you have taken so far. With it, you can extract information about:
- Results of past actions.
- Types of content created in each social network.
- Engage your audience with your posts.
- Analysis of your company’s reputation and problems encountered.
- Customer service in social networks.
- Used tools.
- Analysis of the web or blog.
- Web positioning analysis.
- Online reputation analysis.
- Analysis of campaigns in Google AdWords and Social Ads.
The two most mutual situations where you should use it are as follows:
- If, regardless of your best efforts, you are not achieving your social media goals. If your planned actions do not work, you should save some alternatives that will redirect this situation, such as viral releases or promotions such as contests.
- When you receive criticism, don’t worry, this can be an opportunity for your business. Develop an emergency plan for potential social media crises and turn a reviewer into a satisfied user and, ultimately, a profit for your business. Furthermore, this can also help you improve your brand image by providing good customer service.
10. Jump in the Pool!
When you’re done with the social media plan document, you’ll likely have a clearer idea of how to get started on social media. Do it, do not think about it too much. You can do the following steps:
Create your brand or company profiles. If you already have them, modify them. Remember that you must choose the avatar, the cover photo, and the image well. Here are some social media image size templates.
Expand your network of contacts. If you do not have a large following, you can reach out to them by emailing your customers, letting them know you’re online now.
You can also create a small campaign to attract fans or followers.
Conclusion
A social media plan can be a powerful tool for any organization. It can increase your visibility, improve relationships, establish two-way communication with customers, provide a forum for feedback, and improve your organization’s awareness and reputation.
Also Read: Digital Accessibility – Why Do You Need Digital Accessibility