Social Media Plan – Five Key Elements

Delivering an effective social media plan for your business is more than just posting content now and again on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram page.  Of course, content is crucial, some might say King but there are also other key elements that you should be considering BEFORE you even think about publishing your content.  As with any marketing activity, you firstly need to have a plan in place and for this blog I’ll look at five key elements that should be included in your Social Media Plan:

• Objectives – “If you don’t know where you’re heading you won’t know when you get there.” Setting your primary objectives is the first step in any marketing planning process, what do you want to achieve with your social media campaign? These can include both short and long term objectives, e.g. Visitors to an event, entries to a competition, downloads of an app. Longer term objectives for your campaign may include: increased brand awareness, increased followers, audience reach, websites visits, sales leads.

• Target Audience – Any successful marketing campaign relies on knowing who your ideal target audience is.  This needs to be clearly defined prior to your campaign, there’s no point generating and increasing your page followers and connections with people who ultimately have no interesting in eventually becoming paying customers.  Define your audience, know who they are, where they are, their likes / dislikes and target them with your content.

• Tactics – In terms of tactics in relation to a social media plan, I’m referring to elements such as your content and content types, e.g. text, images, videos, infographics.  Also, ensuring the tone of your content reflects the brand identity of your business; personable, approachable, authoritative, useful.  Your social media page is set up properly with relevant branding, imagery (correct sizes), company details, contact info. and is also mobile device friendly.

• Budget – Decide how much you will be spending on your social media advertising each month and on which advertising types.  Regular content is important, but in today’s content rich world you also need to be spending a certain amount on ads in order to further stand out and maximise your brand awareness.  On Facebook for example this can include advertising that increases Page Likes, web site visitors, promotes an event or special offer, or generates leads.  This is just a selection of the different type of Facebook ads, click HERE to view a useful guide to the different type of Facebook ads. depending on your specific goals.

• Measurement – To have a clearer idea that your social media objectives are being met and your campaign is working, you need to monitor and measure performance on a monthly basis.  Are you generating sufficient Likes?  Reaching the right people?  Driving enough visitors to a specific web page?  Ongoing measurement is crucial to any marketing planning process to ensure you’re achieving your desired ROI.

Social media marketing can prove highly effective for your business but you must have a plan, it’s not a quick fix and needs to be viewed from a longer term perspective.  Integration with other online marketing techniques will also yield success and help to achieve your overall marketing objectives, i.e. email marketing, blogs, SEO should all be integrated into a coherent digital marketing strategy.

If you have any further questions or need any advice on how to develop and implement an effective social media plan for your business, Contact Us for an initial consultation.