Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business, but it can also be very confusing.
How do you know which platforms are right for your business? How often should you post? What kind of content should you share?
The good news is that social media is here to stay, and there’s no better time than now to create a solid social media marketing plan.
In this blog post, I’ll walk you through all the steps. Now let’s dive in.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing uses different platforms to create, share, and optimize content to generate brand awareness, develop customer relationships, drive customer action, and achieve business goals.
It is a relatively low-cost way for businesses to connect with consumers. Compared to traditional advertising techniques such as print, radio, and television ads, social media marketing is easy to access and can potentially have high returns on investment due to its viral nature.
What is a social media marketing plan?
A social media marketing plan is a strategy document that outlines your business goals and how you plan to achieve them.
It should be well-crafted to help ensure that your efforts are not wasted and that they benefit your business as much as possible.
Why should you create a social media marketing plan?
You should create a social media marketing plan because it will help you achieve your goals on various social media platforms. It will also help you stay organized by outlining what tasks need to be done and when they need to be completed.
Here are even more benefits of a marketing plan:
- It will help you identify your target audience,
- Determine who your competitors are on social media,
- Define your goals for each platform,
- Develop a content calendar that aligns with your goals.
How to build a social media marketing plan?
Now that we’ve covered the basics of a social media marketing plan and why you need one, let’s dive into how to build it.
You need to take nine steps – so let’s look at each.
1.) Choose your social media marketing goals
Social media marketing can be a difficult thing to get right, especially if you’re just starting out. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the options and not know where to start.
You must choose your S.M.A.R.T. goals – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
2.) Define your target audience
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that defining your target audience is essential to growing your business.
When you know your ideal customers, you can craft your social media content to speak directly to them and tailor the products or services you offer.
The more specific you can get, the better off you’ll be when marketing your business.
Here are some questions that will help you define your ideal audience:
- What’s their gender?
- How old are they?
- What are their interests?
- What are their pain points?
- What do they want to achieve?
- What type of content do they typically enjoy?
3.) Analyze your competition
Knowing who your competitors are is essential whether you’re just starting or looking to expand your business.
- To start, find 5 competitors who you admire and can relate to – and check out which social media platforms they use (write them down)
- Now it’s time to analyze their strategies. To do this, create a spreadsheet where you can track and compare what they post, how often they post, and the type of content they post.
- Your last step is to analyze their comment section. You’ll want to pay attention to what people are saying and what words and sentences they use. Write everything down so you can use these same sentences in your content.
4.) Choose your tone and posting frequency
The fourth step in creating your social media marketing plan is determining your tone of voice and posting frequency.
- Your tone is how you write and should be consistent with your brand across all platforms. Make sure your content sounds like you.
- Posting frequency depends on your goals. If one of your primary goals is engagement, then you should post more often (at least once per day).
In any case, remember that consistency is crucial! The more you post, the more likely people will follow along with what you’re doing.
5.) Identify your content pillars
Content pillars are the building blocks of your content strategy and the components of your content that you’ll use repeatedly. They’re what will make your content strategy unique.
You can read my guide to social media content pillars and learn how to find the right ones for your business.
Once you identify your content pillars, you can start creating your content calendar – which is the next topic I will cover below, so keep reading.
6.) Create a social media content calendar
Now that you have a solid understanding of social media marketing basics, it’s time to create your first social media content calendar.
This is a significant step in the process because it will help ensure that your content stays on-brand and consistent.
To create a social media content calendar, start by deciding what kind of content you want to post and on which day – for example:
- Engaging content (memes, questions, polls…) – post on the least engaged days to boost the interactions
- Promotional content (selling your products or sharing your blog posts…) – post this on days when you get the most engagement.
You should also write down all the holidays, observances, and milestones you want to celebrate with your audience.
There are more steps when it comes to creating your content calendar, and I go even more in-depth in my other blog post you can read here: How To Easily Create a Yearly Social Media Content Calendar.
And if you’re too busy to create your own content calendar, get my Social Media Content Bundle that has 3 done-for-you calendars, over 1,600+ extra post ideas, 796 graphic templates, and so much more.
7.) Set up your social media accounts
Now that you have a content plan, it’s time to set up your accounts. You must choose the right social media platform for your business and get all your details in order.
- Choose a compelling name for each account so people can find it easily when searching online (make sure this also includes keywords related to what you’re selling)
- Make sure that everything from profile photos, cover photos, and BIO text is cohesive across all social media platforms so users know it’s coming from one company.
- Your BIO should include keywords that your target audience is searching for. And it should also describe how you can help these people out.
- Set up your privacy settings to be less restrictive so people who are not following you can still see your posts and interact with them.
Once you’ve filled out your account information, start networking and interacting with other users who are interested in your content – this will help build up your following and increase interactions.
8.) Start creating relevant content
You must create content that is relevant to your target audience. Be sure that the post types and topics reflect what they want. If not, this can lead to disengagement and, ultimately – unfollowers.
If you want to stand out from the crowd and get ahead, you need to start thinking long-term – this means creating relevant, engaging content that will help people see you as an authority in your field.
If you don’t have a content strategy or are just starting with social media, now is the perfect time to create one.
You might also be interested in reading about the Keys to Success with Social Media Content Marketing.
9.) Analyze your results and adjust your social media marketing plan
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably feeling good about your social media marketing plan. You’ve got a strategy in place, ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work. But before you do – take a moment to read this last part.
After one month of implementing all the steps, it’s time to evaluate the results and make any necessary adjustments.
The key to social media marketing success is constant adjustment and improvement, so make sure that every part of your plan works as well as possible.
Are you seeing results? If so, great! Keep doing what you’re doing.
If not, try different tactics and see if they deliver better results.
Conclusion
As you can see, creating a killer social media marketing plan for your small business is not hard, and all it takes is some research and a little bit of time.
Remember that you need to create a marketing plan that matches your business goals and aligns with your audience’s needs. This way, when you post on social media, people will actually want to engage with you.
Now it’s time to combine all these pieces into one cohesive, actionable strategy. And if you want to learn all the PRO social media content methods, get my Social Media Content 101 e-book today.
Petra Šranc (CEO of Big Income Paradise) is passionate about teaching female entrepreneurs how to do Social Media Marketing to grow their business online. She also focuses on teaching Social Media content tactics to skyrocket traffic, leads, and sales. 