To many business owners, social media is something their kids do on their smart phones. Many do not really understand what social media is and also do not understand how it can be used in business. If you ask them why they don’t use social media they often fix you with a glazed look in their eyes and mutter something about it not being relevant or not having the time. However more recently social marketing has become one of the foundations of a successful marketing strategy.
For many people social media is just Twitter and Facebook. But in fact there are many more tools and channels and you need to make sure that the channels you choose are the right ones for your business and your customers. In order to do this effectively you need to incorporate social media planning into your overall strategic marketing plan.
This plan should answer the following questions:
- Who are your customers?
Do they all engage in social media activities? Which ones?
- Where are they?
Define which market segments they are in and decide on the characteristics of each target segment. What are the demographics. For instance if one particular market segment has an age profile of 16-25 the it could be Facebook and Pinterest that could be of value rather than LinkedIn and Twitter.
- What are you trying to say?
Have you got a particular message? Are you launching a new product or service or do you have a special offer?
- How are you going to get the message across?
You have decided on the core message but the means needs to be developed. For instance it could be blog posts, videos, infographics, white papers or a myriad of other means. But the core message needs to be consistent and it should do what it ‘says on the tin.’ The clue is in the title, Social Media. Make sure your message is social and personable which helps in developing a brand personality.
- What does success look like?
How are you going to know that your campaign was a success? Decide on what you want from your social media campaign. It may be ‘likes’ it may be increase in web traffic or indeed numbers of new customers. Whatever you decide to measure make sure that you review the results frequently and adjust the campaign accordingly.
To talk to someone about your social media plans contact us.