BY SHARLYN.
I can see many marketers and social media experts
nowadays talk about marketing and social media, talking about promoting
products cost-effectively through sharing photos and quotes on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, and wanting their company’s own social
media content to promote to a large following. But how do they do that
effectively?
Yes, certainly you need to create a social
media marketing plan, and you have to understand what a social media marketing
plan is.
In brief, a social media marketing plan is
a list of action plan that you plan to do or intends to achieve through social
networks, it is a process of gaining online traffic or exposure through the use
social networks including your every post and quote shared on regular basis. Having
said that, your social media marketing plan must be specific and effective, the
more specific your plan is, the more measurable the projected results will be. So
let’s see these three steps to create a social media marketing plan.
STEP
1: TO SET SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING OBJECTIVES
Setting your objectives and goals is the
first and foremost matter when comes to creating your plan. Honestly you cannot
go far without knowing where you are actually heading to. So having clear objectives
and goals will help gauging your expectation and success. TIPS: You can approach your objectives and goals through SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) approach and I would suggest
you to start with two goals to focus on, and determine how to achieve it.
EXAMPLE: For Facebook, you can consider having “to
increase online exposure” as your objective for 3 months. To achieve this, you can
consider doing “5 posts per week to achieve 20 post likes and 100 interactions”.
STEP
2: TO CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AUDIT CHECKLIST
Conducting a social media audit is a key
of creating your social media marketing plan. It assesses your social media use
and how it works for you. Why audit? An audit checklist will help you to get
things back on track. TIPS: You can
create a monthly audit checklist to keep track of your social media activities and
results. I would also suggest you to create a table consisting of assessment of
your monthly social media activities and results.
EXAMPLE:
For a good assessment,
you can create a table with the following elements.
- Social Media Channel:
- URL:
- Page Admin:
- Password:
- Number of Followers:
- Number of Post Likes:
- Number of Interactions:
- Date of Last Activity:
STEP
3: TO CREATE CONTENT PLAN AND CALENDAR
Content is king,
whether you like it or not. Without good content, your social media channel is
nothing, so your marketing plan should include content plan and calendar, defining
when and what you plan to post in terms of text and photos. So your content
plan should answer to these three main concerns:
- What kind of content should you should post?
- Who should create the content?
- When should you post?
- How frequent should you post?
Content calendar is all about what you plan to post on a periodical basis through selected social media channels, so make sure your content fits with your brand image, objectives and trends. TIPS: If the purpose of your Facebook account is to generate exposure and leads, make sure you are sharing enough lead generation related content.
EXAMPLE: For a safe bet, you can follow the Social Media Rule of Thirds.
⅓ of your social content to promote your products, converts readers to sales and profit.
⅓ of your social content to share ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry.
⅓ of your social content to build branding through close interactions.
**About GE Consult
GE Consult is a Malaysian-based marketing consulting
firm headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. Since inception in 2003, the company has
been pioneering professional business plan and company profile services in
Malaysia, and has assisted many local and overseas SMEs, large corporations and
government agencies to grow business. For more info, please contact +603 4031 1683 or +6017 330 8077 and/or email info@geconsult.org today.
