4 Steps For An Effective Social Media Marketing Plan
Content Marketing Specialist
Social media is a vital marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. The common question a few years ago, “why should our business use social media?”, is now being replaced with, “how can our business grow with social media marketing?”.
As a social media marketer, this makes me very excited. What doesn’t make me excited is how many businesses are still trying to market on social media without a documented strategy. In this post, you will learn the seven steps your business must take to create an effective social media marketing strategy.
Step 1: Audit Your Current Social Presence
“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock
Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. A few areas to consider when auditing your business’s social media presence are:
- Which networks are you currently active on
- Are your networks optimized (photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc.)
- Which networks are currently bringing you the most value
- How do your profiles compare to your competitors’ profiles
- We offer a total online presence audit that includes a deep analysis of your social media, content, SEO, and web structure with a presentation of key priorities and recommended plan – Check out our Total Online Presence Audit.
Step 2: Document Who Your Ideal Customer Is
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. For example, if you identified your target market as parents it would be ok. However, if you identify your ideal customer as a parent that lives in the United States, is between 30 and 50 years of age, earns over $70,000, primarily uses Facebook and has an interest in outdoor activities you will have much more success.
Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Answer the following questions to help you come up with a highly focused buyer persona:
- Age
- Location
- Job Title
- Income
- Pain Points (that your business can solve)
- Most Used Social Network
Step 3: Create A Social Media Mission Statement
What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.
Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it. This statement will make it clear exactly what you plan to use your social media presence for and should reflect your brand identity. Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.
An example mission statement might be “to use social media to educate current and potential customers about digital marketing, with a focus on social media marketing.” Once you have this statement documented, it will make it simple for you to decide what to share and create.
If it doesn’t align with your mission statement, forget about it. Businesses that post randomly without a guiding mission will fail. People follow experts, not generalists.
Step 4: Identify Key Success Metrics
If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.
How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money. Afterall, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving the bottom line.
A few metrics to consider measuring are:
- Conversion Rate
- Time Spent on Website
- Reach
- Brand Mentions
- Sentiment
- Total Shares
Source: DucttapeMarketing
About LaraNet: We are a web design firm focused to help you to grow your business and communicate with your customers and prospects using two simple but powerful tools: 1) Interactive Website and 2) Internet Marketing Strategy on social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… Whether you want to work with just a web page, or launch or improve your presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or communicate with your customers through newsletters, or improve the location of your business in the search engines through Search Engine Optimization, or start marketing your products or services online, in LaraNet we can help you.
