How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan From Scratch

The first time I went canyoning I had no idea of what to expect. Unlike my friends, I was a novice at descending, trekking, jumping and climbing through canyons. I saw pros do their thing spectacularly which I must say helped me fight the initial jitters. The rugged terrain required that I harness all my route-finding, navigational and wilderness skill to successfully climb down canyons.Creating a social media marketing plan would feel more or less the same especially if you are just starting out. It may thrill you and overwhelm you at the same time. You know exactly what you need to do and why. Also, you can see other have navigated through social media marketing canyon with tremendous success, yet you've got little or no idea of how to get yourself there.First, it helps to have a strategy.

Creating the Plan

Think of the plan as a road trip. Start by heading in the right direction, then select the route to get you there, make routine checks to gauge whether you are on track and obviously have fun as you do your thing.

1.) Choose Your Preferred Social Networks

Social media is congruent from one network to next, similar to how beer is from one brand to another. Sure, it is all social media; however, Twitter and Google+ might as well be Heineken and Budweiser. Each network is distinctive, with separate best practices, own audience and own style.It isn't a must to be all social media platforms, just the ones important to you and your target audience.Here are a couple of considerations to guide you on the networks to try and the number.

• Time: Plan of devoting an hour daily on each social network at the beginning. Once you hit the road running, you can utilize tools like Buffer to save time.
• Resources: Visual social platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest require photos and images. Google+ prioritizes quality content. You need to have the resources necessary to create compelling content.
• Your Audience: Figure out where your target market hangs out. Finding out the right demographics is vital.

2.) Fill Your Profiles Completely

Key to your social media marketing plan is regularly long through your profiles to ensure that your bio, profile info, cover photos, and avatars are up-to-date and duly complete. This inspection is part of social media audit.A complete profile displays professionalism, tenacious branding and communicates that you are intent on engaging.Profiles require two parts: text and visuals. For visuals, we recommend for familiarity and consistency with visuals you should use on social media. For instance, your Twitter avatar could match your Facebook profile picture. Your Google+ cover photo should be similar to your LinkedIn cover.To create the said images, use an image size chart to know the breakdown image dimensions suitable for each network. Canva would be of great assistance in this regard.For text, customize the info/bio section. Designing a professional looking social media bio takes six rules.

• Show, don't declare. For example; "What have I accomplished" works better compared to "Who I am."
• Fit your keywords to your target audience.
• Keep your language stay clear of buzzwords.
• Address the question of your likely followers: Say, "What's in it for me?"
• Be personal and easygoing.
• Revisit regularly.

4.) Choose Your Marketing Voice

Choosing your tone and voice should be right at the top of your social media marketing proposal. You may be tempted to start sharing right away. You are more likely to focus better if you decide on the tone and voice of your content.To attain this, spend more time developing marketing personas and deliberate on the more delicate points of your mission statement and your customer base. All these mean well. However, for a new social media marketing plan, you can ease the process by answering the following questions:

• If your brand was human, what would be its personality?
• What is the brand's relationship with the customer? (a dad, teacher, friends, coach, etc.)
• Using adjectives list what your company's personality isn't.
• Are there brands with an identical personality to yours?
• How do wish customers to perceive your company?

By the end of the exercise, you should have a couple of adjectives that construe the tone and voice of your marketing.Take the following into consideration: the voice stands for the mission statement; while the tone is the application of the mission.

4. Decide On A Posting Strategy

What's the optimal amount to post daily? How frequently should you post? What should you post? When should you post? Well, it depends. What works for you may not work for another. You wouldn't know until you try.That being mentioned, there's some excellent data and observation on where to start.

What Should You Post?

Images Are Ideal

The hype behind the visual content is backed by anecdotal evidence. As you browse streams on Facebook and Twitter, you are likely to see photos and images all over. Reason? Image posts tend to get more likes, re-shares, views, and clicks compared to other kinds of posts.On Facebook, photos usually get 104% more comments and 53% more likes when compared to text-based posts.The same applies to Twitter. A study involving more than two million tweets revealed that tweets from verified Twitter users in various fields had their photos having the most significant impact on retweets.

• Hashtags received about 16% boost.
• Quotes experienced a 28% boost.
• The inclusion of a digit led to a 17% surge in retweets.
• Photos average about 35% in retweets.
• When should you post?

There are tools to guide you in knowing the best time to post on several social media platforms. These tools analyze your followers and give a history of the time your audience is active and consequently on the best time(s) to share.

5. Assess And Test

We had mentioned how social media sharing is an individual and specific undertaking. Your stats will confirm this claim.The more content you post, the more, you will unearth which content, frequency, and timing work best for you.How will you know this? The majority of social networks provide a simple inbuilt analytics dashboard to help you get your engagement stats.

6. Automate, Engage and Listen

The final piece of your social media marketing template involves having a system that would assist you in on staying up-to-date with occurrences and engaged with your followers.You may start with automating your updates. Buffer an online tool allows you to create content and updates at once and queue them for posting as per a set schedule.Your strategy doesn't end with automation. Social media requires that you engage as well. When followers reach out, respond. Set time for engagement because these are conversations with colleagues, friends and social media.

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