Lissa Duty kicked off the afternoon at the Local, Search and Social Summit with a Social Media Planning Session (she also threatened to make us do jumping jacks if we weren’t attentive and interactive!) As part of her presentation, Lissa provided a tool for planning which is a list of questions that you need to answer to create your social media plan.
Questions To Create Your Social Media Plan
Why are you using social media? This should be beyond “getting more clients” or “making more sales”.
Why do you feel social media is important? Not just “because everyone else is doing it”. Why are you passionate about social media? (What do you mean you aren’t passionate about social media? If you aren’t enthusiastic, it will show in your content).
Why is this important to your potential customer? How is your social media content benefiting the customer? Think in terms of benefits not what you do.
What do you want others to know about you/your brand? What sets you apart? What’s your unique selling proposition?
What types of content can you share to generate interest? Video? Memes? Periscope?
What makes your product/service unique? What do you do differently or better than your competition? How can your uniqueness benefit your customer?
Where is your future customer visiting? Where are your clients looking? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram?
Where is the best platform to market your product/service? Don’t just do what is the easiest. Go to the platform and use it directly (for instance, Facebook gives less newsfeed preference to third party generated content, like posts via Hootsuite). Re-purpose the material you’ve already got.
Where is the close (the sale) going to take place? Make sure you are doing tests to make sure your plug-ins and forms work correctly. Confirm that landing page you are taking the customer to for the purchase looks good, works properly and is easy to use.
How are you going to get the word out? Be specific – types of content & topics.
What day/time will you set aside each week to write your social media updates? Set aside an hour and write your content for the week. Don’t just post because you feel like you SHOULD. Put some thought into it and do some planning.
Assign themes to each day of the week – Motivation Monday – Wild Wednesday – Feature Friday… You don’t have to tell anyone you have a theme, this is just to help you and to motivate you when you’re writing. It is easier to write if you have an idea of where to start.
What times will you do social media maintenance? Check in 3 times a day – about 15 minutes at a time. It can take some discipline, but you CAN do social media without “going down the rabbit hole”! (See the next tip)
What are your goals when you log into your social media accounts? Go in to do retweets or to look for items on Facebook you need to respond to. Thank people for sharing. Comment in groups. Interact. Be intentional when you are in social media.
How often are you going to post on on social media? What are the best times to post on social media?
- Twitter – Have 100 ‘evergreen” tweets in reserve. 22 tweets a day (but that includes retweets and interactions).
- 5 or 6 images a day on Instagram
- Facebook AT LEAST once a day
- Pinterest optimization – 735 pixels wide for images
- LinkedIn – once per day (at least)
- RSS feeds can be used on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Google+ – post every day because it can help your visibility in search. Don’t worry if no one is clicking +1 or commenting. Those that do login are seeing your posts and it gives your more search visibility.
Want more? Download our eBook, An Introduction to Social Media Marketing: A Guide for Small Businesses.
Remember – social media is not a “set it and forget it” thing! Building relationships is key! Where do you need to focus more in your Social Media Plan?
