To keep your brand from sitting on the bench, we’ve broken down the steps to developing a social media marketing plan to carry you through the remainder of 2020 with a sense of purpose.
Set goals that address your biggest challenges
First things first: you need to figure out what you want out of social media.
Maybe it’s more social-savvy customers. Perhaps it’s a larger share of voice in your industry.
Either way, remember that social media planning is a marathon, not a sprint.
Brands should strive to set goals that are actually attainable. For example, shooting for a million new Instagram followers in 2020 isn’t going to happen. By tackling smaller, realistic goals, you can scale your social efforts in a way that’s both reasonable and affordable.
Below are some actionable goals that brands of all shapes and sizes can divide and conquer.
Increase brand awareness
To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, don’t go over the top publishing promotional messages. Instead, focus on content which emphasises your personality and puts your followers ahead of the hard sell.
Achieve a higher quality of sales
Digging through your social channels is nearly impossible without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases or hashtags.
Through more efficient targeting, you can reach your ideal customer much faster.
Drive in-person sales
Many brick-and-mortar businesses are on the hunt for a social media marketing strategy that drives in-store sales. Is your brand promoting enough on social to entice people to come and see you? Are you alerting customers to what’s going on in your shop, including promotions and images / videos of your shop?
Improve ROI
Positive ROI doesn’t happen by accident. Taking the time to audit your social channels can help keep the cost of labour, ads and creatives down. The end-result is squeezing more out of your social spending.
Create a loyal fanbase
Does your brand promote user-generated content? Do your followers react positively without any sort of initiation?
Your customers can be your best cheerleaders and sources of fresh content, but only if you’re encouraging them to post on your behalf.
Better pulse on the industry
What are your competitors doing that seems to be working? What strategies are they using to drive engagement or sales?
Such analysis can help you better understand how to position your own brand both on social media and off.
See our social media marketing course