Social media has become an integral part of our lives, offering us a way to connect with the world and stay informed about the latest news and trends.
As a business owner, you have an opportunity to leverage the power of social media to grow your brand and reach new audiences. However, social media marketing can be daunting, especially if you’re just starting out. But with the right approach and mindset, you can create a successful social media strategy that builds momentum and brings positivity to your interactions.
Let’s explore how to get started.
Table of Contents
11 Tips to Create a Successful Social Media Marketing Plan
1. Identify Your Goals
Before crafting a social media strategy, decide what you want to accomplish from it. For example, do you want to grow sales, increase website traffic, build authority, increase engagement, create a community, or something else?
Once you have decided on the goals, define the timeline to achieve these goals. Doing so will help you prepare a well-developed marketing strategy that a content calendar and budget allocations can back.
Side note: You can set SMART goals as they’ll help you break down your strategy into smaller, achievable steps.
2. Assess the State of Your Social Media Presence
After you’ve decided on your goals, it’s time to assess where you stand with your current social media presence (so you can see how much room there is for improvement) for creating social media marketing plan.
While certain social media apps will provide you with analytics (e.g., Twitter and Instagram provide businesses with insights on shares, likes, comments, views, etc.), you still need to use social media analytics tools to get an idea of the full picture.
Here is where a third-party social media management tool like SocialPilot would be excellent. The tool is great for assessing the state of your social media presence due to its robust analytics and reporting capabilities. With detailed insights on engagement, reach, and follower growth, SocialPilot allows you to track your progress and make data-driven decisions to improve your social media strategy.
3. Decide on a Brand Voice
One quick way to understand your brand voice is to determine how you want to portray yourself in front of your existing customers and prospects.
If your current brand voice and values look different from what you want your brand to be defined, don’t be afraid to revamp your brand’s voice, values, and mission.
4. Define and Understand Your Target Audience
Understanding your audience is critical to not only creating a successful social media strategy but it’s also important for other facets of your business.
That’s to say. You can improve website traffic, get sales, understand what your brand voice should be, know what your social media presence should look like, etc., only if you understand your target audience’s pain points, triggers, and defining factors.
So, how to understand the pain points, triggers, and defining facets of your audience, you ask?
The answer is simple. Begin by hanging out at the places (i.e., networking events or social channels) your audience hangs out at, tuning in on customer support calls, or using social media monitoring tools to help with audience research.
5. Pick the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Brand
Reinstating the advice we dished out in the previous section, you should almost exclusively hang out where your audience hangs out.
Here’s our reasoning behind the statement: if your primary audience is Gen Z, they’re likely not hanging out on platforms like Facebook. You can find them on TikTok or Instagram.
Similarly, if your audience is based in the UK and is above the age of 56, they’re likely not using tools like Reddit, TikTok, and Tumblr.
If you use these social channels, you might throw your marketing budget down the drain.
So, it’s best to identify which social channels your audience prefers, pick out the best platforms for your brand, and then begin creating a strategy.
6. Research Your Competitors
A little competitor research can go a long way. So, here’s what you need to observe when researching competition:
- Their brand voice
- Types of content they curate
- Their engagement rate, follower count, and sharing practices
- Social media channels they use
- Timings they upload
- What do they do differently from you
- What pain points do they target
- How does the audience interact with them
- How often do they upload
- Topics, hashtags, and keywords they focus on
- What you can do differently
7. Create a Social Media Content Calendar
Now let’s get to the meatier bits — creating a social media calendar.
An ideal social media calendar includes all the tidbits of what to post on different channels, events, and dates.
Here’s what a content calendar should look like.
Creating a social media content calendar is essential, as it streamlines content creation, maintains consistency, aligns with marketing objectives, fosters collaboration, enables strategic planning, and facilitates performance analysis, maximizing audience engagement and marketing success.
Higher website traffic
Inbound marketing is one of the important methods to boost website traffic and there are more chances of traffic to convert into leads if you effectively leverage inbound marketing.
However, if you disregard the value of what social media platforms produce then you will be only limited to the inner circle of the audience who already recognize your market or brand.
For example, when you create high-quality content for your social media platforms and share the content at the right time, this will boost your reach. This strategy will also allow your brand to reach more audiences, notice your offerings, follow your brand, and ultimately attract more customers.
8. Leverage Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is no longer a buzzword, rather an excellent marketing strategy that, if done right, is bound to get the results you need.
The industry is currently valued at a whopping $16.4 billion.
Here are a few reasons influencer marketing is all the rave:
- Trust and authenticity: People turn to influencers as trusted sources of information. When an influencer shares a product or service, their audience is likelier to view it as authentic and credible than traditional advertising.
- Reach and targeting: Influencers often have large (and engaged) followings on social media platforms, which can help to increase brand awareness and reach new audiences. When you pick the right influencer, you can also target specific demographic groups that align with your target market.
- Creativity and storytelling: Influencers often create engaging content that resonates with their followers. By collaborating with an influencer, you can tap into their creativity and storytelling abilities to create more engaging and memorable content.
So here’s the long and short on creating an effective influencer marketing strategy:
- Tap into micro-influencers with lower follower counts but higher engagement rates
- Find influencers who already love your brand
- Write up a contract so everyone is on the same page
- Build a strategy across multiple social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube)
Here’s an example of an influencer post by Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson on Instagram. The post promotes Zevo, a safe product for humans and pets that keeps your house bug free.
Social Media platforms are perfect to capture quality leads for your business and convert them into targeted sales. Well, the question is do social media have the ‘X’ factor to help you improve your sales strategy?
The post amassed 16,725 likes. That’s almost 20,000 engaged viewers that this brand would have missed out on if they hadn’t partnered with an influencer.
Interesting Read: Influencer Marketing Trends that will Lead to Success in 2023
9. Create and Promote Exclusive Offers
All shoppers love to save money. Give them a good deal or a discount, and they’re bound to at least engage, if not convert.
To revise your cart abandonment rates, you can offer shoppers perks like free or same-day delivery or share discount coupons and vouchers.
Same-day delivery will reach a CAGR of 38.89% by 2028, so data suggests that your audience is expecting same-day delivery services from you, and you should prepare for it.
You should use a call widget whenever necessary so that clients and potential customers can reach you easily in order to stay ahead of any potential challenges and boost conversion.
Make sure to include a CTA whenever you advertise an exclusive offer so that consumers know where to click.
Take a page out of Alphalete’s book.
They turned to Instagram to announce one of its biggest sales of the year, with items up to 80% off and free shipping.
Social media is one of the first places you should announce and promote your sales. It’s quick and effective. Then follow it up by sending targeted email marketing campaigns to prior customers.
10. Manage Negative Comments Promptly
Creating a robust social presence builds your brand’s credibility. In addition to knowing the benefits of Social Media, there are various interesting social media marketing strategy tips that you can implement to generate leads and one of those is by using a social media marketing plan.
Let’s dig into a few important ideas and strategies to improve the social media presence of your business!
Social Media Marketing Strategy
“I love negative comments,” said no marketer ever.
We all tend to stray from any negative comments about our business, but the only saving grace for your business is if you respond to these negative comments promptly.
Responding immediately shows that you’re not flaky, and consumers should trust your business. And you care about the experience you provide to customers, right?
So, it’s a win-win.
11. Pay Attention to Performance and Adjust Accordingly
Once you have walked the whole nine yards, you should ideally wait three months and see if your social media marketing plan has achieved your goals within the required timeframe.
If not, go back to step one and analyze what went wrong and where you could improve.
For example, you can consider questions like:
- Does your brand voice match the way your customers speak?
- Do you respond to negative comments right away?
- Does your content calendar have a well-defined structure?
- What social formats are falling flat?
Conclusion
With so many social networks in existence today, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to taking your business into the realm of the social media universe.
What works for one company won’t work for another, and it is up to you to find out what works for you and your business.
By outlining a step-by-step plan for using social media, you can ensure your business continues to grow and expand, even when opportunities emerge on new social networking sites.
Alternatively, to learn more about the ins and outs of social media, see the latest trends, and get insights on future social media biases, keep up with Social Media Marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do you need a social media marketing plan?
A social media marketing plan allows you to target your audience intentionally, have a goal when communicating online, and build your presence through effective strategies.
Who are the top social media strategists to follow?
Following experts like Ross Simmonds, Jeremy Moser, Madalyn Sklar, Rand Fishkin, Marsha Collier, and Niel Patel will benefit you.
You can also keep up with the latest social media trends on socialmediamarekting.net.
What tools can help me manage my social media presence?
Tools like Hootsuite, SocialPilot, SocialSprout, and Buffer are well-liked among social media circles to manage a presence online.
What are SMART goals?
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.