Steps for an Effective Social Media Marketing Plan
Social media is one of the best ways for you to promote your company, however we know that sometimes it seems like a daunting task, and it is never-ending. But you don’t need to worry! Evolving your social media strategy is just one more thing that you can do to improve your business and connect with your audience. We’ve collected a few key tips for anyone looking to start or update their social media pages.
Have a plan
This is a good rule of thumb for pretty much anything that you are trying out for the first time! Before you create all of your accounts and start posting left and right, you need to outline what you are planning to do with your social media. First, you will want to pick the platforms that your target market is most likely to interact with, it’s a waste of time to manage additional platforms that no one is interacting with. A good set to start is with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Of course you can switch those up depending on your company or as you see how users are interacting with your posts in the future.
Next, you will want to determine how often you are planning on posting. Some companies post multiple times a day, while others might only post once a week. Decide what is reasonable for your marketing team and create a calendar so that you can keep track of all of your posts.
Decide what your posts will entail. While you might think that it’s a great idea to push out promotional materials with every post, people will quickly get sick of a company that is just trying to sell them something. Make sure that you are posting a variety of things, such as blog posts, funny pictures, inspirational phrases, and photos around your office along with your promotional posts.
Decide your social media personality
Social media gives you a chance to show your audience more about your company, creating a more personable side to your brand. It’s important that what you post and share reflect what you want your brand to be. If your company already has a clear focus, concentrate on transferring that to your social platforms. If you aren’t quite there yet, use this as a chance to discover and build your brand. This can look like picking a specific color scheme or aesthetic to try and create throughout your posts. Once you have an idea of what you want to be, make sure that each of your posts adds to your set brand image.
A good place to start is by researching what others are doing. While the obvious route might just be to look at your competitor’s social platforms, it’s a good idea to check out some successful platforms of companies not in your industry. You want to stand out, right? This is a great way to spark some ideas for your own page, allowing you to develop the perfect personality for your business online.
Take advantage of what’s out there for free!
So you have your perfect plan for what you want your social media platforms too look like and have the best idea for your first post. But, you’re a small company without a photography team and don’t know how you are going to create the image you want to use. My friend, let me introduce you to stock photos! Stock photos are simply beautiful images that you can download right from the internet! While there are some that you may have to pay for, there are tons of stock photo sites that let you download the images for free! Additionally, with stock photos you don’t have to worry about legal issues surrounding image ownership – they are created to be used by people like you! Here is a list of some of our favorite free stock photo websites:
Two of our other favorite sites are Canva and Crello! Created as a graphic design site specifically for people who are not professional graphic designers, Canva lets you easily design and create your own content. They offer their own stock photos as well as design templates, while also giving you the choice to start from scratch and upload your own images. You can even upload your logo and program in your company colors for quick reference! While you have the option to pay for an account with some extra fancy features, you can do plenty with what their free account has to offer. This is a great alternative to hiring a full-time graphic designer and let’s you explore your creative side!
Make it interactive
The whole point of social media is to easily interact with your customers and keep your company at the forefront of their minds. Thus, make sure that you are actually interacting with them and aren’t just having a one-way conversation. Get to know your customer base and target audience. Reply to their comments and start conversations about your posts. Learn what content customers are looking for when scrolling through frequently asked questions in the comments. Find other accounts that you can repost and make connections with that help build your brand relations.
In addition to interacting on your end, encourage your viewers to interact with your platforms. Create call to actions in your comments encouraging people to check out your new blog posts, ask people to comment in response to a question, hold contests, create polls and encourage them to like or share your posts on their own pages! As long as you are providing solid content, people will want to interact with your brand. And interaction results in conversion which should be one of your main end goals!
Creating a positive presence for your company on social media will do amazing things for your business. While it takes time to build up a large following and get yourself situated in the world of social media, these tips should help you get started!
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