How to create a strategic social media marketing plan

Ignacio Garcera Ferrando

Assigment 5 Social Media In Marketing 9.11.2013

Abstract Date of presentation Degree programme Author or authors Ignacio Garcera Ferrando Title of report Group or year of entry X Number of pages and appendices 6

How to create a strategic social media marketing plan

Teacher/s or supervisor/s Johanna Heinonen-Salakka

Keywords

Table of contents
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 2. Seven steps to a social media strategy plan....................................................................1-4 3. Bibliography.............................................................................................................................4

1 Introduction
Its important for every business to have an overall strategy, from which the marketing plan would flow. We have to go from to Social Media Plan. Here are a few reasons why a social media strategy is important: The Goals for what you want to accomplish are clearly defined at the beginning, so you shouldnt have any problem, just follow the steps to reach your goals. When you have specific, and time-bound goals set you will know if you are on track and know how to adjust your tactics accordingly if you are not in the right track. Keep yourself focused, so when you get to your target channels you will know what to do A strategy will allow you to choose the best tools to accomplish your goals A clearly defined strategy will help to everyone who is involved in the plan to do the things they have to do properly and without any mistakes

2 Seven steps to a social media strategy plan 1: Determine Your Business Objectives for Social Media
Make your goals concrete, measurable and achievable if possible. Here are some objectives: Get people to recognize your name and associate it with the product you are selling, by doing this you will build your brand. Promote your product on social media and try to attract people to those websites by telling it to friends and relatives. Support your sales by explaining to people how to use the product and by answering any doubt they have. Try to engage your fans by giving them a reason to speak about your product and tell other people to buy from you.

By setting objectives, it will be easier for you to define your social media metrics and make more effective social media marketing for you

2: Know Your Audience

Determine who you want to sell the product. This is your target audience. To help you understand their characteristics, create a set of marketing for the segments you want to reach.
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 Understand your target markets point of view and activities. Think in anything that can help you understand their tastes. Consider the people around the buyer, most of the times buying is not made only by one person, its influenced by other people. Know where your potential customers engages on social media. Not everyone is on Facebook. Consider your audiences social media behaviour. Does your market lurk, share or create social media content? What incentives will make them act? The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to engage with them on social media and get the results youre looking for.

3: Choose Your Hot Buttons

Target between three to five main topics. These should be categories or words you want to place for in search optimization. Create content around these topics for which you want your business to be known. Plan relevant content around your main keywords and your planned promotions. Create a framework so you dont have to be thinking what to write all the time before doing it. Brainstorm ideas for content around these categories. Before developing your content, list topics you want to cover. For small business the best is to answer the questions of their customers in their webpages. Dont be to promotional. Offer images, audio and some interactive things, not just text. People take in content differently. By clearly defining the right hot topics for your company and creating content youll find it easier to get the results you want from social media.

4: Stake Your Social Media Turf

Be visible, let people known that you are there, on all major social media platforms. Understand that this may not be possible, depending on your company name and similarly named organizations.

Branding is shorthand that helps customers to recognize your company without thinking, which means people can recognize your company by an image or a slogan. After youve claimed your space, remember to incorporate elements of your brand into your profile. Also post your store location, phone number and local hours. Remember to include a link to your website. A strong social presence will help you get the most out of your social media marketing.

5: Set Your Social Media Engagement

Be strategic with your social media time usage. Dont spend more time than you need on social media. A social media plan will help you find the right balance. Use your existing communications such as email and in-store signage to encourage your customers to get onto social media and engage with you.

6: Plan Your Resource Use

For many small businesses, the concept of planning resource utilization may be new. Even if youre an entrepreneur, you must take a strategic view of your time. If you dont, youll find that youre running from one online emergency to another. Decide who will take care of your social media engagement. For most small businesses, this is often made by the owner. Set some main guidelines for social media use. These are both for employees and visitors. Create processes where possible. Depending on your business, try to take advantage on the opportunities that you have to develop content that supports your goals. Think customer interactions, purchases and conferences.

7: Measure Your Social Media Results

Dont forget to set up everything youll need to measure your results. The metrics youll want to track will be based on the business objectives you defined. You will want to make it as easier as possible, the best for that is follow this steps: 3

Incorporate a social media call to action. Dont just assume prospects will take the next action without prompting. Guide them to engage and interact with contextually relevant calls to action.

Track indicators that help show that youve accomplished your objectives. For most businesses, this means more than comments and social media shares.

The bottom line is that your small business can successfully use social media to achieve your business objectives. To this end, plan ahead to ensure that your time spent on social media reinforces your other businesses messaging and engagement and yields measureable results.

Bibliography

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-setup-a-social-mediabusiness-strategy/ http://www.wesst.org/2013/04/why-a-social-media-strategy-is-important/