It’s estimated that more than 75% of users access social media to conduct some form of product research, so there is no denying the influence that Facebook and other networks have over consumers. But, you need to have a comprehensive social media marketing plan to connect with prospects at the right time and transform these users into paying customers.
Most people now use social media to find products and services of all types. Whether it’s a local everyday service or an exclusive high-ticket product, most people turn to social media to find out more about the business they are about to engage with. Therefore, you need to have a strong social media presence and answer promptly whenever a potential customer reaches out to you.
As a business owner, social media platforms provide a golden opportunity to drive website traffic in the form of engaged users. However, most people behave differently on social media networks when compared to conventional websites.
This means that you need to understand the slight nuances and ensure that your social media campaigns are adapted to your audience’s requirements.
In this article, we’ll share the definition of a social media marketing plan and share 8 general steps to create a tailored strategy for your business.
What is a Social Media Marketing Plan?
Before going over the steps to create a social strategy for your business, let’s go over the definition of a marketing plan for social media.
In short, a social media marketing plan is a blueprint of the steps you’ll take to engage users, drive traffic, and generate conversions through Facebook and similar networks. The goal is to connect with users through the networks they use the most.
These networks, in turn, give companies access to analytics tools that track performance and provide valuable insights to improve their campaigns and achieve their social media goals.
Building brand awareness doesn’t only benefit many businesses, but it also boosts the credibility of a social network.
But, even though major networks provide the tools to create a social media campaign, you still need to perform a significant amount of target audience research to create a content calendar and achieve your marketing objectives.
The good news is that you can get help achieving your social media goals. You always have the alternative to partner with a reliable agency to manage your influencer marketing teams as well as other areas of your social media strategy.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
Now that we’ve covered the basics of this type of plan, let’s go over the steps you need to take to create a great social media strategy.
Remember, all companies are different. So, even though you may want to have a profile on most social media platforms, the best alternative is to identify the channels that your target audience uses the most.
Then, you can adapt your campaign to the target audience demographics, create social media posts that engage prospects, and figure out how it will impact your other marketing efforts. This will help you decide which tips and platforms you should implement into your social media strategies.
Additionally, take the time to create a social media content calendar personalized to your own strategy. Content is a cornerstone of all social media marketing efforts. So, you should create engaging content, adapt it to every social media marketing channel you employ, and make adjustments based on the reaction of your target audience.
Step 1 – Determine Objectives
Every social media marketing strategy aims to achieve a set of goals. So, you need to set these objectives before you publish content through the most relevant social media channels.
Taking the time to identify and record your objectives will serve a variety of purposes.
For starters, it will help you evaluate the success of your social media marketing strategy. If you decide that your goal is to increase web traffic by a certain percentage, you’ll be able to look back at the historic data after you collect enough information to determine if the goal has been achieved and by how much.
Keep in mind that your social media marketing goals should be as detailed as possible. You should have a comprehensive list of goals and include simple milestones that help you keep track of your progress. For example, some of your goals can include implementing specific social media marketing tools, promoting user-generated content, and taking other steps to build your social media presence.
Step 2 – Choose Appropriate Social Media Channel(s)
We touched on this quickly earlier in this article, but choosing the right social media channels is essential for your success.
The reason for this is that social media marketing requires a tailored strategy for each network. So, the more networks you leverage, the larger the investment you’ll have to make. Not to mention the fact that your target audience may not use every single social network out there.
This issue has a relatively simple solution: you have to research your audience, choose the networks that potential customers use the most, and develop social media strategies for each one of these channels.
Step 3 – Campaign Budget Analysis
As with other forms of digital promotion, your social media marketing efforts can be adapted based on your budget. You can start with a relatively small budget and invest more funds when you start seeing results. That said, the smaller the initial investment, the longer it will take you to see results. This is especially true if your budget doesn’t allow for a quality social media management tool.
The best alternative is to define the content formats you’ll specialize in, figure out your ideal budget, and get as close to this value as possible. Social channels offer a great opportunity to polish your brand voice, but it’s also a competitive environment.
There are many businesses that want to drive traffic to their sites. Therefore, the higher your budget, the bigger your chances of achieving your social media marketing goals.
Step 4 – Competitor Ads Review
In most cases, a successful social media marketing strategy includes both paid and organic methods. Organic social media marketing is very different from paid advertising in most ways, including the research stage.
While industry trends have value, you should focus on growing your paid social media channels through competitor research. The process looks different in every social media platform, but it basically consists in using internal or third-party tools to analyze the top competitors.
You need to analyze each social media campaign individually, identify the patterns that may have led to success, and adapt these to your company’s strategy without copying content.
Step 5 – Landing Page Creation and Optimization
The exact methods vary, but the single goal of every social media marketing strategy is to drive more traffic to your website. But, instead of sending prospects to your home page, you should create landing pages and optimize these for conversions periodically.
Landing pages are useful resources because you can simplify them in order to increase conversion rates. These pages are often used to boost conversions or sales, but they can also help you increase brand awareness and promote an event that your business is organizing.
Step 6 – Campaign Set Up
At this point, your social media team should have everything it needs to set up your campaign. An effective social media strategy has to be optimized on a periodic basis, so many experts opt for monthly adjustments.
Every company is different. So, you need to figure out what the best alternative is in terms of managing your social media followers if you want to get the best results.
It’s important to understand that every social media network has a distinct campaign setup. If you partner with an agency, you won’t have to worry about setting up any campaigns or social media analytics.
In case you decide to handle social media ads and your overall marketing strategy in-house, you’ll have to create profiles across multiple social channels, set up the posting schedule, and perform other resource-intensive tasks in-house.
Step 7 – Content and Ad Copy Creation and Testing
Next, it’s time to start creating the organic content that will be published as well as the ads that will be displayed on paid campaigns.
The first key to social media marketing success is to develop quality content. It’s the one thing that all social media channels have in common. If your content is good, you will increase brand awareness, help you acquire user-generated content, and get great results. If not, your social content strategy will not produce the results you want.
You should apply the same mentality to the organic posts of your social media accounts and to the paid ads you’re creating. Yes, your ads are designed to help you achieve your business goals more quickly. However, every one of your pieces of paid advertising should include quality content in terms of the design and the actual information if you want users to engage with them.
Ad creation is just a small step in this process. Now, you have to test the different ad versions and determine which one is the best one. If you use Google Analytics on your site to measure performance you’ll hit the ground running. If not, you can partner with a digital marketing agency that provides social media services.
Step 8 – Conversion Rate Analysis
Your social media marketing strategy shouldn’t stop after you create and test your ads. Instead, you should analyze each social media platform you use individually and determine what you need to do to improve the conversion rate of every channel.
This research should center heavily around your target audiences. Not only should you figure out what elements make your visitors convert more often. You should also attempt to understand which segment of your target audience is more engaged with your content.
Then, you’ll be able to personalize your social media content calendar and other parts of your campaign to improve your conversions.
Step 9 – Ongoing Review & Modification
The last part of your social media marketing strategy continuously reviews and adjusts your campaigns for better performance. This is known as the campaign optimization process and it needs to be performed individually on each channel.
In case you have multiple types of campaigns running on a single platform, like paid Facebook advertising and organic posts, you should perform each optimization separately.
A best practice that can help you stay on top of the optimization process and change your company culture is to create an optimization calendar. You can also create a calendar to assess your entire social media marketing strategy and figure out if you need to make any changes to your approach.
How FANNIT Can Help You Create a Successful Social Media Marketing Plan
At Fannit, we’ve created thousands of successful social media campaigns across multiple channels for more than a decade, so our team understands the nuances of the different platforms available.
Our team is fully committed to creating the best possible social media marketing strategy for your business, so we perform extensive competitor as well as target market research to develop campaigns that produce results as quickly as possible.
Whether you want to drive traffic to your site, transform your social profiles into lead generation machines, or have a team of experts managing your content calendar, our digital specialists are here to help.
Want to Create a Social Media Plan for Your Company? Contact Us Today
You need to have a profound understanding of each channel in order to create a comprehensive social media strategy. Not only this, but you also have to have the right social media management platforms that let you automate simple tasks and ultimately accelerate your turnaround to get results as quickly as possible.
But, once your social campaign is up and running, it can quickly become the best way to achieve your business goals.
Do you want to create a tailored social media marketing strategy for your business? Our team of specialists has the knowledge as well as the access to top social media management tools to build a bespoke plan for your company. Get in touch with Fannit today to learn more.
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