How to make a Social Media Plan

How to make a Social Media Plan

You must be clear that no matter how good your Social Media Plan is, if they are not accompanied by a viable Business Plan, the work done will be in vain.

If you do not have a good product or service, at an adequate price, it will be of little use to have and follow a Social Media Plan. Social networks help but they do not work miracles.

Plan Social Media

1. Initial Analysis of the Situation

Before starting in the world of Social Networks, we must know what situation we are in, and what is the situation of our most direct competition. It is a good starting point for the Social Media Plan.

What to analyze?

• SWOT analysis. Define our Weaknesses and Strengths to carry out actions to reinforce our brand.
• Analyze our presence on the Internet. Check if our brand is being talked about on any social media or on the Internet; if so, analyze whether it is positive or negative feedback. If you already have a presence on a Social Network, take the most relevant data: date of creation, number of followers, frequency of publications, follower interactions, …
• Analyze competition from our services or products. Analyze everything we can about our competition to take advantage of the strategies that have given them the best results.

2. Objectives of the Social Media Plan

Why do we want to be on Social Networks? What do we want to achieve in return?

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, you should not think of Social Networks as a direct sales channel, but this does not mean that you will never promote your products on the social media in which you are going to be present (they are yours for a reason, right?)

It is clear that every business is set up to make money, how can Social Networks indirectly favor the monetization of my business? It is clear that Social Networks can play an important role in boosting your business if you do it right, how can they help me? Let’s divide the objectives depending on what they can offer our business:

Qualitative objectives

• I want to be on Social Networks to improve my online reputation.
• I want to be on Social Networks to increase my presence on the Internet.
• I want to be there to communicate with customers and for them to communicate with me.
• I want to be on social networks to inform my customers of promotions, new products, …
• I want to be on Social Networks to build customer loyalty.
• I want to be on social media to create content that conveys the value of my Brand, …

Quantitative objectives

• I want to be on Social Networks to increase traffic to my website.
• I want to be on Social Networks to increase sales.
• I want to be on Social Networks to increase possible customers: followers, fans, …

We must be aware that the results of entering Social Networks are medium or long term

The objectives we define must be realistic. You shouldn’t expect to get 10,000 fans or followers in the first month, patience!

3. Target Audience

Once we are clear about our objectives to enter social media, we must establish who our target audience is in order to develop the most appropriate strategies for that target and decide which Network or Social Networks are the most appropriate.

• What is the sex (if any) and age of our audience?
• On which Social Networks is our audience present?
• What is our audience interested in?…

4. Which Social Networks are the most suitable?

We must study which Social Network is more aimed at our objectives and target. Thus, if we are selling luxury items, we must discard those Social Networks where the main users do not have the economic means to be able to purchase our products. We must keep in mind the nature of our brand’s services or products to land on social media with the best chances of success.

I make a distinction here between horizontal (generalist) networks and vertical (specialized) networks. We can be present in both; they are not incompatible. You should know that within horizontal networks there can be subgroups of vertical networks. We can have a Google+ profile as a horizontal network but also have a specialized page about our products and belong to communities related to our brand; in this case Google + acts at the same time as a horizontal and vertical network.

Horizontal Networks

Facebook,

Twitter

Google+, …

Vertical Networks

LinkedIn,

Thematic networks,

Specialized networks, …

Being on social media does not mean having a profile on Facebook, Twitter or Google+

5. Strategies for Social Media Plan

Depending on the Social Network you have chosen to promote your brand, you must adapt your actions to the “rules” of the medium in which you move.

Some strategies can be used for more than one Social Network, but other actions can only be put into practice in a specific social media.

• Periodicity of publications.
• Contests, Events… (if our business lends itself to it)
• Choose the tone with which we are going to address our followers.
• How to answer questions that arise.
• Design of social media “covers” according to the image of our corporate brand.
• Take care of your followers or fans.

6.- Community Manager or Social Media Plan Manager

Being on Social Networks means investing not only time but also economic resources. You must be clear that the investment will depend on the nature of your business, but if you want to have resulted you must know that you have to dedicate a lot of hours to it:

• Time to know if they are talking about you on the Networks,
• Time to create and/or share content with your customers,
• Time to communicate with them (actively listen to them and answer their questions),
• Time to research where your potential customers are located,
• Time to check which strategies work best,
• Time to collect data and analyze results,
• Time to change strategies, …

It is clear that if you do not have time or do not have in-depth knowledge of Social Networks, you should hire the service of a good Community Manager, either by hiring him directly from the company itself (less economical), or by outsourcing the Social Media Plan service (company or freelance).

Sometimes the mistake is made that the work of managing a Social Network can be done by anyone. Does the person you are thinking of (family member or acquaintance) know what tools to use to measure the evolution of your presence on Social Networks? o What are the strategies that can be most effective? Do you know how to carry out a Social Media Plan? …

7. Crisis Protocol

Although we think we are the best at offering services to our customers, there will always be dissatisfied customers, and therefore it is essential to have a protocol to follow for when they occur incorporated into the Social Media Plan. What to put in?

• Define crisis situation. Every time there is a dissatisfied customer, we should not resort to protocol.
• What measures we will take when it is presented: responsible who will manage it.
• Possible answers that we can say to our followers.
• Social Media Monitoring after the crisis, …

I leave you a link to know how to manage a crisis on Social Networks and carry out an Action Protocol.

8. Analysis of Results

We will analyze results based on the objectives set, if campaigns have been carried out, we must Analyse them independently.

To analyze results, we must choose appropriate analysis tools: Google analytics, specific tools for Social Networks, …

We will measure the data according to the objectives set: increase in traffic, profitability, mentions, … To do this, we must choose the most appropriate Social Media metrics.

The Social Media Plan must be seen as a living document, it must be changed according to the results obtained.