March 17, 2016
10 Step Guide To Creating A Social Media Plan
It’s nearing the end of 2013 and social media has evolved since its early predecessors in the days of Myspace and even Friendster. Getting your business out on the social media waves is just as important as television advertising was in the 90s. This all might seem a bit over whelming, but before you jump in to a social media marketing, make sure that you have a plan set up.
Here is a 10 step guide to setting up your business’ social media marketing plan:
1. Set your goals
This should be addressed, but just in case you didn’t know, once you establish what your company’s goals are, it will be much easier to lay out the rest of your plan. What do you want to get out of social media marketing? Why are you doing it? Are you trying to generate leads? Are you using it to build relationships with existing and potential customers? Answering these questions are a great way to establishing your business goals.
2. Take a look at your resources
Do you have someone who will be maintaining your social media accounts? Do you have the technical in-house ability to generate content? If not are you willing to learn? These questions need to be addressed before you continue with your social media campaign. You want to make sure that you have the right people for the job.
3. Get Friendly – Understand your audience
Find out information on your target audience. Knowing where they spend their time online, their interest, and what they want out of your products or services.
4. Create quality content
Content is key! Once you establish where your audience spends their time, what kind of content do you think would be useful or enjoyable for them? Offering new and useful content can help form conversations, which will one day get these followers to eventually come knocking at your business door.
5. Integrate your marketing efforts
Use all your social media outlets to cross promote your products and services. An example of this would be having a blog post, and then promoting this post via Twitter and/or Facebook. It generates more traffic across all of your social media outlets including your website. There are a number of other methods which are a great way to promote your social media presence.
6. Create a schedule
Designate specific times for when you post a status on Twitter or post a picture on Facebook. Creating a routine schedule will make it easier to maintain and follow up on your company’s social media marketing efforts.
7. Apply the 80-20 rule
There’s the general 80-20 rule that is usually applied to other business management styles. In this case, use the 80-20 rule in your social media efforts. Spend 80% of your time by posting content that is relevant to your audience to increase engagement. Content about your business and your products should be posted no more than 20% of the time.
8. Focus on quality, not quantity
It’s easy to want to be popular and gaining a large number of followers seems great, but numbers don’t always mean everything. Having 10,000 followers who sign up just to follow you but never engage with anything that you post doesn’t compare to 1,000 highly engaged loyal followers. In the end, the quality of the followers is the ones who generate lead.
9. Give up control
Give your audience an opportunity to take control of the online conversation whether it is on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media outlet.
10. Continue Learning
The social media world is constantly changing, so don’t forget to keep up on the hip digital trends. In any successful business, you need to adapt to change and accept it.
GreatLike Media understands that creating a social media campaign is time consuming and in most cases your company may not have the proper resources to assure that you stay ahead. That being said, don’t be shy, we’re the social media experts and can handle your social media marketing for you! Contact us today.
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