Create your Social Media Plan for 2023
Posted on 23rd December 2022
2023 is right around the corner, so it is time to start thinking about your social media plan!
Social media is one of the most important tools for your business. It is how we engage and build trust with our audience. Attracting more customers, building brand awareness and generating more leads is essential for a successful business.
What is a social media plan?
A social media plan is a detailed strategy that outlines the steps to achieve your social media marketing goals. This plan contains everything from your list of social media channels and promotion tactics to the metrics you will track. Without a social media plan, you will have no way to organise what your audience will see and when they will see it. Planning your social media posts and campaigns in advance will help save you time and create a consistently strong digital presence across all your social media marketing channels.
Creating a social media plan shouldn’t be overwhelming. It is a great opportunity for you to think ahead and shape your business online. Below are 8 steps to help kickstart your plan:
1. Run A Social Media Audit
This first step allows you to audit your existing social media platforms, where you can evaluate the types of content you are currently putting out, and help determine how effective or ineffective your current social media profile and presence actually is.
When conducting an audit, make sure you identify how frequently you are posting, how consistent your posting content is, and how compelling your posts are. Use this time to also understand your strengths and weaknesses online, so that your new social media marketing plan can build a clear path ahead.
2. Set S.M.A.R.T. Social Media Goals
Once you have reviewed your social media activity, you should define some clear social media goals. Begin by establishing your specific and targeted goals for the type of content you want to put out in the future to encourage potential customers and followers to revisit your business page.
To successfully create a S.M.A.R.T. goal, you must craft a goal that is:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time Bound
3. Determine Your Success Metrics and KPIs
To develop your success metrics and KPIs, refer back to your goals, as you must maintain your social media presence to achieve the targets you have set for your metrics and KPIs.
A KPI or a key performance indicator is a value used to track progress against a set goal KPIs provide direction towards achieving desired results and can help your business make better informed decisions. While a metric is a measure used to track progress and evaluate success.
4. Define Your Target Audience / Ideal Customer
The type of content to produce needs to be able to target a specific audience and deliver a steady stream of high-quality, valuable social media posts and information. A business cannot succeed in its social media marketing if there is not a specific target audience they are aiming at, as audiences largely drive the value of your social media efforts.
Getting to grips with your audience demographics will help you to get to know your customers and where to find them:
Use audience insight tools
Find out where your audience is most active
Survey your customers
Identify or create buyer personas
Once you understand exactly who your target audience is, it will make creating social posts much quicker and easier.
5. Research Your Competition
You might think you know everything about your competitors or you might not have given them much thought at all. Carrying out a competitive analysis is a vital step in forming your own social media marketing plan.
If your customers can’t get what they want from you, they will go elsewhere!
So, who are your competitors?
• Identify products and services online that are similar to yours.
• Review the social media accounts and presence of businesses like yours.
• Look for additional information from google trends, and read newspapers and business reports.
• Use search engines for specific queries that your customer might use.
6. Create a Content Strategy and Social Media Content Calendar
Creating a consistent social media presence is key to showing up in your follower’s news feeds. A social media calendar helps you to plan ahead and organise your social media posts, so they will have the best chance of being seen.
Your social media plan can be as far into the future as you would like, or as short-term as you would like, provided that your social media efforts are written down, laid out, and easily accessible to you and your team.
7. Establish a Budget for Paid Social to Help You Meet KPIs
It sometimes isn’t enough to drive more engagement to your social accounts by simply posting and engaging with followers. Instead of hoping that using keywords, tagging other brands, and reaching out to specific demographics will work in your favour enough to hit your marketing goals. It is also important to set aside a specific amount of money for your social media marketing strategies, and consistently apply that budget toward tools to hit marketing goals.
8. Track Your Results and Optimise Your Strategy
It is essential to track your results, evaluate what is and is not working, improve or discard of the unhelpful strategies and optimise the existing strategies that are continually driving traffic, garnering leads and comments, and improving the reach of your campaign.
By going back over your social posts and existing marketing plan and evaluating what has delivered the greatest amount of interest. Then act on what you have discovered by mirroring that style in future posts to capture the attention of your ideal customers and continue to please your loyal customers.
So, make sure your content is optimised for your social media platforms. Think about who your customer is and what they want from you. Carry out a social media review to understand the social media scene in front of you and decide what type of content you want to use. Use a social media management tool to simplify the process of scheduling, publishing, and approving your content and don’t forget to analyse your content and tweak according, so that you can get the very best results from your efforts.
Need further advice?
Get in touch to discuss your specific requirements and see how we can help you grow your social media presence
Tel: 07963216248
Email: chris@chrislondononline.co.uk
Or join our online Facebook for Business Course by clicking here
Tagged as: Social Media
Share this post: