Most businesses post somewhat aimlessly to social media hoping that one post will magically go viral. Unfortunately, this rarely works. That’s why, no matter what the size of the business is, it’s absolutely vital to spend some time making a social media plan. Having a social media plan will increase the focus of your posts and make you look like the true expert that you are.
How to make a social media plan:
- Understand the purpose of social media.
- Define your goals.
- Pick the networks you want to focus on.
- Choose social media tools that will help you succeed.
1. Understand the purpose of social media.
Before you start to create your social media plan, take a moment to think about what the purpose of social media actually is. We at Wander typically think about the purpose of social media being the following: “Social media is a tool to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to websites.”
Leave a comment below telling us how you define the purpose of social media. We’d love to hear your answer!
2. Define your goals.
Once you’ve taken the time to think about the purpose of social media, you should define your goals for your social media marketing efforts. Are you trying to grow your email list, increase sales, improve brand awareness, or something else? No matter what your ultimate goal is, a very strong social media presence will eventually funnel users down a path that helps you accomplish your businesses goals.
At Wander, our social media goals are the following:
- Raise awareness.
- Increase traffic to our website.
- Collect high quality leads.
This is what our social media plan funnel looks like:
3. Pick the networks you want to focus on.
Now that you’ve thought about the purpose of social media and identified your social media marketing goals, it’s time to pick the social networks you want to focus on. We suggest only focusing on one or two networks when you’re first trying to solidify your social media presence. By focusing on just a few networks, you’ll be able see notice patterns and learn from what you’re posting faster.
Here at Wander, we currently focus almost exclusively on just Facebook and Twitter. We do this because we believe that the type of content we create is best suited for those networks. We typically write marketing and businesses related blog posts that tend to be highly shareable on those two networks. However, we also post to LinkedIn, but find it to be less effective at sending us traffic.
4. Choose social media tools that will help you succeed.
You have your understanding of the purpose of social media nailed down, you’ve pinned down your social media goals, and you’ve decided which networks will be most beneficial to your business. Now you should choose social media tools that will help you succeed. This means finding tools that will help you schedule out content, see what content types typically perform best, and helps you remember to continuously post to social media.
The tools that Wander uses (and recommends) to succeed on social media include:
- Buffer: a super easy way to schedule social media posts out on various social networks.
- Google Analytics: provides in-depth data and insights on your website traffic.
Key takeaways:
Staying true to your business goals and understanding how social media can help you accomplish them is a key component towards making a social media plan that works. Once you have your plan created, begin creating high quality content and thinking of effective ways to engage the social media audience you’ve began to grow.