In this article, we’ll explain how to create a social media marketing plan for your business. To be clear, we are focusing on organic social media marketing, not pay-per-click or native ads.
Organic social media marketing is a great starting point as it does not involve paying for ad placement and can be started by anyone. After all, you simply need a social media account on a chosen platform.
Social media marketing is one of the biggest ways brands connect to their audiences online, and you can get immediate feedback through audience engagement metrics. So, let’s get started.
1. Know your target audience
The very first step in figuring out your social media marketing plan is to know your audience is. If you have existing customers, create a profile of who they are. If not, do some market research on consumer behavior for your niche. Where your customers are spending their time?
In addition to the target audience themselves, find out who do they like. Who are their influencers? This reveals a lot of what appeals to them on social media.
This can give you great ideas for starting points and which platforms work best.
Based on this, choose a couple of platforms to start with and focus on first. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are some of the top options. It is not a good idea to try and launch on all platforms at once as they require different tactics and formats.
2. Analyze your competition
After looking at your target audience, you should see what your direct competition is up to online. A quick Google search of tour product offering should yield some of your top competitors. When you find out their names, take time to explore their social media pages.
The objective is to look at their levels of engagement and find out what’s working for them, as well as what isn’t. It’s a good way of avoiding the mistakes others have made.
Getting an idea of what gets interactions and shares in your niche is a huge help in generating content. However, do not copy them! Audiences that see your content are likely to be following your competition too.
3. Set goals that make sense for your business
Before you start posting, you’ll need to establish what you want to achieve. What goals and metrics are you going to center your social media strategy around?
Contrary to popular belief, likes are not the most important thing. Facebook has hidden likes from business account perspectives for a reason.
Find out more about social media goals and metrics here.
4. Create and curate engaging content
Most social media platforms revolve around aesthetics and all of them have at least some visual component. Thus, content theming and compelling visuals are a big part of a successful social media marketing campaign.
Plan out your aesthetic, will you stick to a specific colour scheme? Maybe you want to revolve around a related theme? These are things to decide on in advance so that your feed is cohesive.
In addition to the type of content, you’ll also need to create a post schedule and determine the frequency of your posts. This depends greatly on the platform you’re using; here is our guide on how often to post.
Finally, remember that the greatest appeal of social media is that it’s a conversation. Social media marketing is not just one-way content and communication.
Take the opportunity to interact, follow back, and have conversations with your followers. This gets far more interaction than just posting, consumers love responsive brands. Plus, you might learn something interesting!
5. Assess your results and optimize
Always check what’s doing well and what’s not. Don’t forget about those goals and metrics you set up earlier on.
Though you should try to produce more of the type of content that your audience responds to, be careful not to make repetitive content and become monotonous.
Some other quick things you can do to optimize your social pages include:
- Link to your website or e-commerce page
- Facebook’s About section
- Instagram’s Bio
- Twitter and Pinterest both have a Website section
- Remember to also add social media buttons to your website
- To enable visitors to share content to their social media
- As well as buttons linking to your social media pages