How long has your business been on social media?  A week? A day? A few years? Never?  Whatever your current social media marketing plan may be (or not be), we have an easy guide for how to create (or improve) a social media marketing plan tailored to your unique needs.

What are your goals? What are you hoping to get out of your social media marketing plan? Figure out if you’re looking for followers/engagement, a way for customers to be able to reach and connect with you, a boost in sales, etc.  These objectives will help you to tailor your plan in a way that makes your goals more attainable.  If you just throw a Facebook page together, without knowing what your goals are from the page, you’ll be disappointed when your Facebook page just sits there not doing what you want it to.  Make some goals and then create the rest of your marketing plan with those goals in mind.  It’s always a good idea to have realistic goals that can be measured in some way.
Assess your current social media situation.  What social media platforms are you on?  Which do you need to be on?  Create the accounts you need to attain the goals that you are aiming for.  If you have dead accounts that you don’t use and really don’t need for your marketing plan, delete them.  Go through and claim online business listings that have your business listed (ex: Yelp, Google+, etc).  These are public sites that customers can go to for info about your business and also to post reviews.  If you don’t claim these sites, you won’t be able to update information about your business (ex: they have a wrong phone number listed) and you won’t be able to respond to reviews. 
Make sure your website is up to par. You are going to be routing traffic from your social media platforms back to your site, so you need to be sure that all the information you have listed on your website is current, relevant, and clear.
Update or create all of your social media accounts.  Now that you’ve assess which platforms you should be on and you’ve created those accounts -it’s time to flesh them out.  Beef them up with accurate photos and details about your business.  Be sure to add or spruce up relevant and current descriptions, contact info, etc. Make sure that even your existing accounts are overhauled with current information and enough description to help customers.  Remember to keep your initial goals in mind when filling out your profiles.
Create a posting schedule and content calendar.  This is where you are going to sit down with your list of goals for each social media platform (because they are each different) and you are going to decide exactly what type of content you need to be posting to achieve those goals.  In addition, you have to map out what type of engagement you might need to achieve those goals.  Once you have ideas of what you should be posting, create a posting schedule or calendar that illustrates the posts you should be making.  Don’t forget about engagement.  You also need to keep your goals in mind and plan out who you should be connecting with on each network, what steps you should be taking to engage (retweeting, sharing posts, tagging, etc).  When you are creating a posting schedule, schedule in time for engagment.  It’s equally important.  Also, remember that although cute cat pictures are nice -that they aren’t going to help you reach your goal of getting more customers to come in on Tuesday nights.
Be flexible.  Set a timeline on your goals and stick to it.  After x amount of time you need to evaluate, regroup, adjust, and try again.  Just because you have a goal and you have taken steps to reach that goal, that doesn’t mean that your plan will necessarily be a successful one.  Remember that social media marketing is very fluid.  Things are constantly changing so you just have to be able to reset your sails and ty again.

Need help setting up your social media marketing plan?  Feel free to contact us today!

Questions?  Comment below!