How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan

1. Social Media Marketing – Why Is It Important?

More than 50% of the world’s population uses social media, which means that over 3 billion people worldwide are using social media marketing. While conventional marketing platforms included TVCs, billboards, and print media, they were not only extremely costly but were only limited to a specific number of people.

To increase your reach and brand identity, there is no better platform than social media. The platform is relatively cheaper in terms of budgeting and has a wide audience around the world. Look around you; everyone is taking snaps, sending links, sharing tweets, etc., which means that we are all hooked to the internet.

This is why marketers have taken this opportunity to use this space and penetrate the audience through social media. Various techniques are used by marketers, including blogger collaboration, giveaways, challenges, and much more to engage the audience online with their brands.

If you want a step-by-step guideline on making a social media marketing plan, then this is the right guide for you; read on!

2. Set Goals That Relate To Your Business

Every business has a different purpose for being on social media, and you must first set your goals and what you want to achieve from your social media presence. Some of the common goals of social media presence for businesses are:

• Engagement
• Traffic
• Sales
• Increased revenues
• Brand awareness

You must first set guidelines that align with your business so that you can determine the steps needed to achieve those goals through social media. Always remember if you will start social media marketing without quantifiable KPIs, it is likely that you won’t get anything out of it.

3. Research Your Target Audience

The next step is to identify the target audience for your business. There are billions of people present on the internet, and most likely, your brand’s target audience isn’t that huge. For example, the audience for a carpet cleaning business would be different than a builder’s. You first need to analyze the target audience so you can approach them in a better and targeted way.

Some of the factors that play an important role in identifying your target audience are through:

• Geolocation
• Gender
• Age
• Interests

It is also essential to determine your audience, so you know which platform they use more often and can plan the content accordingly. You can easily search for social media demographics to determine the age and type of people that are present on a specific channel. For example, YouTube and Facebook are considered to be prime channels for ads. Similarly, Interest is frequently used by women than men, and Instagram is mostly for Gen Z’ers.

4. Competitor Analysis

Your competitors are also doing all that you are thinking of doing; hence it is important to identify and determine what your competitors are up to. You can analyze their strong as well as weak points for a better understanding of things you need to focus on and things you need to avoid.

You can also use tools to analyze the traffic and strategies of your competitors. However, it is only for an idea. You don’t need to stick to what your competitor is doing. Social media marketing is all about innovation and creativity.

5. Create Curated Engaging Social Content

Now is the time to think about your content. Keep in mind that people are loaded with content, and millions of posts are shared on these platforms on a daily basis, so you need to be specific and elaborate while keeping your content engaging.

You must ask yourself questions like, is this content engaging enough for people to stop scrolling and read what is written? You also need to play along with different types of imagery, including GIFs, videos, interactive stories, etc.

6. Timeliness and Scheduling

While strategizing, timelines and schedules are extremely important. Thankfully there are multiple toolsand social media calendars available where you can schedule your posts way before and can work on the next posts.

This way, you can be aligned with the goals and have enough time to plan ahead. Scheduling the content is important as it also helps in saving time and the hassle of thinking of what to post every day.

7. What’s Good, What’s Bad, And How Can You Improve?

Social media trends keep changing, so you need to determine what works for you and what doesn’t. Something that works for some other brand might not work for you. You need to analyze and monitor the strategies that work for you and the content that your audience likes more.

There would be some campaigns that go better than the others, so it is advised that you take notes and improve based on your results.

8. Communicate your success with your team

Social media marketing is an iterative and continuously evolving field<, which is why you must analyze and determine your progress. Communicate what you have been able to achieve through these efforts and which are the areas that still need improvement.

For example, if you are able to increase your online sales based on your Facebook marketing, then you must communicate these wins with your team for better morale and energy. Your wins are important as they help you determine which areas you want to focus on more in the future.

To Sum It Up

There is no one single strategy for you to follow when it comes to social media management and marketing; however, the thorough your research, the better results you can yield. Things evolve with time, so it is essential that you stay up-to-date to know the current trends.