A successful business usually has a business plan. This plan will also incorporate their marketing plan and a social media plan. This allows purposeful plans targeted to specific activities and goals of the business. So, what is a social media plan? It is basically a documents that includes strategies to choose, pursue, and track progress for social media marketing goals.
The social media plan is a plan, usually documented, that will lay out strategies to achieve business goals through social media. These would include methods to measure and achieve goals in: Increasing Brand Awareness, Driving Traffic or Leads, Building a Community and Listening to Target Audience. All these activities would ultimately lead to conversion or sales of the services, products of a company or organization.
Brand awareness. This requires setting a brand awareness goal especially if you are creating a new brand or product. This could also be utilised when trying to reach a new target audience or market. It is also useful when regaining market share.
Thus, the social media content will need to educate, inform, entertain, or inspire and minimize highly promotional posts.
Traffic and Leads. This requires discovering what motivates target customers to click your post of ads. Another strategy is to attract potential subscribers to learn more about the offer, by clicking to sign up for a free trial, eBook or consultation.
Building a Community. This is necessary to have a successful social media presence. The online community on its social media page must have followers and influencers. Thus, it is important to grow and cultivate this community in order to improve customer service and build the know-like-trust factor. This could include questions and sharing relevant content such as videos.
Social Listening. It is important to constantly listen to mentions and conversations online in order to gauge how your target audience reacts or responds to particular issues or topics. This is extremely useful in promoting a new product or a specific niche.
In addition, the social media plan would include specific social media elements that are measureable and reportable.