Social Media Strategy – Steps To Define An Effective Action Plan

Social Media Strategy : Like any marketing channel, the performance of social networks in your marketing mix is directly related to the quality of your strategy and your execution.

Step 1: Determine Your Goals

Why are you going to invest a lot of time, energy and resources in social media? And we are talking about a serious investment. To succeed on the platform(s) you choose, you can’t go wrong. It’s harder to get your brand and content seen in a social media world that’s more focused on paid promotion than rewarding your efforts. On Facebook, wait for 2.5-5% of your fans to see your posts. On Twitter, we go to 10-16% and on Instagram and Linkedin, about 20%. (Source: ElegantThemes.com). 

The strategies you’ll see in the sections below will come in handy, and advertising on Facebook can actually save you money (if you do it right and consider how much time you spend on it). Nevertheless, know what you are getting into and what you want to do. What do you want to get out of social media? And the answer can’t just be “I’m on social media because I’m supposed to be there.” Main objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Boost sales
• Generate leads
• Create a community around your brand

By identifying the goals of your social media marketing plan, your strategy will determine which platforms to use, which posts, and which parameters to follow (which determine your return on investment).

Step 2: Choose Your Platforms

Time: How much time can you devote each week to a social network? Plan about an hour a day per social network, and even more during the growth stages.

Resources: Many social media platforms (Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest) are visual in nature. Even Twitter and Facebook require a bit of design to really grab users’ attention. Do you have these resources? What about a dedicated content team?

Audience: What does your target demographic look like? If you know, do you know which social media platforms they end up on?

Step 3: Optimize Your Profiles And Pages

Your profile and social media pages are an extension of your website. Although you are on someone else’s site, it’s all yours. You are responsible for it. Here’s a page optimization checklist:

• Optimize your headers and profile pictures
• Provide complete information about the company
• Customize the URL of your Facebook page
• Add a CTA to your Facebook page
• Optimize for SEO
• Pin your best content or limited-time promotions to the top

Step 4: Increase Your Fan Base

Have you ever wondered why this beggar on the street always had a few coins in his hat? People are more likely to like something that has already been loved. That’s why customer testimonials, good reviews, and recommendations work. I don’t trust you unless someone has trusted you before me. Social promotions are always the best way to do this. 

You can dedicate a few months to content creation, but (from experience) it’s almost impossible to create a social media presence from scratch. A foundation is the key to your social media marketing plan.

Draws

Facebook promotions are ideal for novices. They are the simplest type of promotion and are excellent for quick and simple lead generation.

Contest with hashtag on Instagram

A hashtag contest on Instagram asks users to post a photo on the platform and tag it with a contest-specific hashtag. All images tagged with this hashtag are automatically entered by your contest app and displayed in a page on your website or Facebook page (as well as instagram, of course). Once the images are in the gallery, they can be submitted to votes and photographers can spread the word about the contest (freeing you from the hard work of promotion). The winner is the one who has the most votes on his photo.

Reference promotion

Referral promotions work through incentivized sharing. Participants share the contest with friends, colleagues and family. Anyone who gets the most people in their network to participate in the contest wins the prize, and everyone else receives a discount code to be able to participate.

Photo contest

Fans or social media users submit a photo and then share your contest with friends, family and colleagues, asking them to vote. This massively increases the spread of your promotion.

Top Tip: A good way to get more fans on Facebook for your page is to add a “Like” window to your promotion’s page. This is in line with Facebook’s rules and simply asks people to like your page, but doesn’t require it (requiring contest participants to like your page before signing up was abolished in 2014):

Step 5: Speak With The Right Tone

People respond to people who speak like them. People won’t react well if your brand is super rigid, but some people won’t react if you’re too casual either. Identify three characteristics that you want to embody in your brand voice. Keep this in mind when creating your content, creating your social media posts, and responding to fans. These “brand tone” characteristics should match your target market:

• If you’re targeting fairly high-end professionals, use a professional tone and avoid memes, jokes, or puns – avoid politics as well.
• If you’re targeting millennial professionals, be professional but also casual. Share high-quality educational messages with news content.
• If you’re targeting young people, post content behind the scenes with a flippant voice. Post often and use influencers.

Step 6: Create Your Editorial Calendar

Posting on social media can be a complex thing. If you share multiple times a day multiple times on the same platform and your marketing team needs you to promote an upcoming webinar they’ve forgotten so far, where do you stand? This is where the content calendar comes into play. It gives your marketing team an overview of what content to deliver on which platforms and when:

Many social media management platforms are also structured this way (more on details in step 10), but there are marketers who still prefer their own boards because they can make sure they have everything they need. All in one place. Make sure your content team is aware of this calendar in your social media strategy.

Step 7: Identify Your Influencers

Social media influencers can make or break your marketing plan. Getting a complete list of influencers in your industry means “brand awareness,” engagement, legitimacy, and trust. If Seth Godin saw this article and tweeted it to his 572,000 Twitter followers, what could we expect?

• A huge influx of traffic to the article, thus increasing its organic reach and (probably) SEO ranking.
• An increased awareness of me as an individual and of LaFabriqueduNet as a brand. The traffic generated to the blog would generate subsequent comments and social shares.
• Increased confidence in me as an individual and LaFabriqueduNet as a brand. Even if they don’t know me, they trust Seth, and if he trusts me, it’s for a huge proportion of his followers.

And it works for all sectors. Each of them has thought leaders in whom people seek inspiration, leadership and who “tell them what is important”.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these steps will help you achieve success through your social media marketing plan. No matter what platform you’re on, remember a few main points:

• Be social. Talk to your fans. Ask them questions and answer.
• Invest in visuals. Stand out by being beautiful. Invest in a high-quality camera and try video.
• Post regularly. If you want to start on a platform and want to succeed in it, you need to stick to it. The success of social media doesn’t come overnight.
• Test and measure. If you have invested all your energy in the social, do not throw it into paths that will not produce the desired return. If something doesn’t work, you need to know it and you need to stop. Invest as much in analysis as in publishing.
• Start with the 80:20 rule.

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