Social Media Marketing Plan… What?
Building a plan is kind of like making a plan to make a plan. If you have seen the chick flick, “What Happens in Vegas” you’ll get a sense of where I’m headed. Social media marketing plans rely on really cool spontaneous content being generated. The hard part is, you really have to plan it out. Planning to be spontaneous sounds silly but it totally works out.
First steps:
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- Which social media platforms do you feel your business is best suited for?
- How much time am I willing to put forward into this?
- How much money am I willing to spend on this?
- Do I have content to put on social media?
When asked which platform a business wants to use, I typically hear: “All of them!”
Meaning they want to drive as much sales as possible and spread the net really wide. Which is legitimate but it runs into the other three questions. It’s good to spread a wide net, but social media platforms already tailored themselves. They tailored themselves to certain types of businesses and its up to us to determine which ones fit you best. A coal mining facility might not need a Pinterest page, where as a LinkedIn account and a Twitter might be the most efficient for them.
How much time am I willing to put forward into this?
Social media takes time to manage. You have to have a plan in place to help you manage it. Without clear boundaries on what your doing, how your doing it, and ensuring its effectiveness, your wasting your time. Even if you do create accounts on all of the social media platforms, it looks really bad if they are empty. Empty and out of date social media pages will kill your traffic.
Make sure you have at least four hours a week blocked out and dedicated to this. Whether its scheduling out Facebook posts or catching up with people on LinkedIn, you need to be on top of them.
How much money am I willing to spend on this?
Social media is mostly free. A proper social media marketing plan ensures that you have a budget to work with though. Even just $20 on Facebook can go a long way in understanding your demographics or running a clearance sale with a coupon. Set aside at least $400 in advertising/marketing funds to make sure you have year round money for projects.
In relation to time, take time after a promotion has run and evaluate it for what you’re seeing. If males 18-35 are not buying your product but women 43-52 are, then only market to 43-52 year old women. Target your advertising to exactly who will buy your product or service.
Do I have content to put on social media?
People only visit your web page, business store, or social media IF you have something to offer. Take the time to evaluate what you can offer them on your social media. A good social media marketing plan is another cord in the rope that makes your business stronger. As always though, you have to have something that your audience wants. Whether that is 15% coupons or information on how a product works, it needs to be available.
A tricky part of social media marketing plans is the content too. Plan out your months so that you have regular content, but feel free to bump content to later if you have something really cool and out of the ordinary available in the moment.
As always, if you want to talk more about this and or schedule a consulting meeting to make a social media marketing plan, feel free to:
Call 509-240-9735
Catch me on twitter at: https://twitter.com/YourAdAgency_
Email me Adam@PullmanMarketing.com
