7 Steps to Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan
If your business is considering adding social media as a part of its marketing campaign, it will first be necessary to set about creating a social media marketing plan to determine the steps involved, to aid in keeping you focused on the goals, and also to ascertain that such a plan is even possible.
Marketing on the social media sites is a far cry from the traditional form of marketing where a business may attempt to reach a large number of prospects by advertising to just about anybody who may be interested, and in the end, those possible prospects may not give the business the time of day.
In social media marketing, a totally different approach must be taken, as you will have to first define for yourself who your targeted crowd is, and then you will need to find out where they hang out.
You go to their hangouts and join the conversations they are already having regarding the very products and services that you are willing to promote to them. However, you must join the conversation and earn their trust and confidence, before you will be able to make suggestions to them on products that may be of help to them.
7 Basic Steps of the Marketing Plan
- Research the market – Conduct research to determine what types of marketing your competition is involved in and also find out as much as you can about your targeted audience. Are they using the social media platforms, and if so which ones are they using? Answers to these queries will help to shape your goals for the plan you establish for yourself.
- Define Your Goals– Determine what your goals are for using the social media platforms. Are you just seeking out a greater visibility for your product? Are you there to create more targeted traffic to your website? Are you seeking to acquire more potential subscribers and clients? Some or all of these goals may apply to your business.
- Knowing what your goals are, you will be better able to know if you are successfully meeting those goals. The goals should be SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Then you will know exactly how you can measure them, and then make it a point to celebrate the little goals as you achieve them.
- Create Valuable Content – A plan for the content to be published in the social media sites should include the frequency of the posting and on which platform the postings should be made – should they be the blog posts, FaceBook updates, Twitter tweet, or YouTube videos?
- Gather the best Keywords – Determine the keywords your prospective customers are using to seek out your products and services. Be certain to include these buying keywords in your content.
- Link Social Accounts – Provide linking between your different social media accounts and flowchart these linked connections. This way you may link your FaceBook page with your blog and your Twitter page. This will allow a posting on your blog to automatically create updates to the other social media accounts.
- Develop Analytics and Tracking – Set up tracking to be able to analyze the results of your marketing plan. Items to be tracked should include page likes, FaceBook friends, contacts, and newsletter subscribers, Google results pages for your keywords, your business and your name. Monthly checks should be conducted, and the marketing keywords and the marketing techniques should be adjusted to improve results.
- Schedule Implementation of Plan – Set aside time to fully implement the parts of your plan, remain on top of the progress of the different aspects, optimize your time and be attentive to all the details involved.
Creating a social media marketing plan allows you to take a systematic approach to your marketing and this will help you conserve your time and will even help you to stay on track and be focused on the goals at hand.
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