04 Oct Social Media Planning

Social media sites have become more and more a necessary marketing tool as part of an overall business plan for companies. People count on sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ to promote their business, educate the consumer and build awareness in their communities.
There are a dozen such platforms and umpteen numbers of businesses that use them. But, there should be proper planning for using these social media sites in order to grow the business in a meaningful way.

• Set a goal and work towards completing it and evaluating your progress. If it’s building brand awareness, set up a Facebook “Like” campaign but be sure to create engaging posts which will yield more “comments” and “shares” vs. likes because that’s where you can measure how much you’re reaching your audience.
• Speaking of audience…..be aware of who you want your audience to be. Map their profiles and think of ways and means to make them your customer. You can’t become best friends with your customer over night.  It takes time to build a relationship and more importantly, build trust.  Facebook is a great site for this because not only can you laser focus your Facebook ads to target exactly who you want, but you can real time conversations so your potential customer knows you’re alive and well and really care about the product/service.
• Select the best social media site to suit your business. As you know, my motto is “you don’t need to use every platform to be successful with social media.”  If you own a windows and doors company, there is no need for you to make your presence known on Twitter.  You would be much better off on “visual” platforms such as Facebook and Pinterest to really show off your products and lead them to your website.
• Do you know what sets you apart from your competitors? Use that USP (unique selling proposition) and make it relevant to your target audience. Your USP should define you and your business to the customers.  In 20 words or less tell me why I should choose you over your competitor.
• Have the proper themes, content and the required strategy to know how and when to post what. You should have the proper blogs with adequate material and images to advertise your business.  With the latest scheduling platforms, you can be very organized in how and when you post information.  Once everything is planned you should then try to engage your audience. You should start branding your business and generating awareness

We already know how powerful and necessary social media is but it is critical to have a well thought out strategy in place so the consumer will not only be educated and engaged but be motivated to become a “super fan” and ultimately a loyal customer.