Opening your social networks and starting to publish any kind of content, accompanied by any copy, is not enough today if you want to give a professional image and achieve goals.
To do this, you need to work properly on your social networks, publishing content that follows a strategy. And to be able to do it professionally, you need a social media plan that guides you and tells you what to do on social networks to achieve your goals.
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Still don’t have a social media plan? Let’s see how to make a social media plan step by step.
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What is a social media plan?
A social media plan is a document that includes the different marketing actions that are going to be carried out on social networks to achieve your goals .
Without a social media plan, it is possible that you will not have results in social networks or that the results obtained can be improved, since without a strategy it is difficult to increase the sales of your services or products .
This social media plan should be carried out by a social media specialist, not just anyone who knows something about social networks, since it is what will define your company’s social network communication strategy.
Why does your company need a social media plan?
Today it is very important to have a presence on the Internet and on social networks, to reach more people in the right way and that they can become your customers.
But, in addition, more and more opinions are shared on social networks about products, services and brands , so you must have a good strategy that helps you make those opinions positive (working properly on your brand image, your products and services) and have an active listening to be able to neutralize the negative opinions that may arise and that can damage the reputation of the brand.
For this reason, it is no longer only important to have a presence, but you must have a professional strategy that focuses your efforts on achieving your goals, on giving a good image of your brand and on creating a community .
How to create a social media plan?
Creating a social media plan is a meticulous task in which you are going to invest time (or money) that will be rewarded in the long term. To create it you must follow these steps:
Analysis of the situation
To start, you have to analyze what situation your brand is currently in. And, for this, three different types of analysis must be distinguished:
Internal analisis
It is about analyzing your brand internally, focusing on the online aspect.
It is important that in this section you specify:
- What do you sell and what is your competitive advantage ?
- What is your star product or the one that gives you the most income?
- What geographical area do you want to focus on when selling?
- Who is your ideal client ? And here it is not worth saying everyone, but you have to define what that person you want to address is like in order to focus your efforts on reaching them.
For example, the ideal client of a local women’s fashion store could be any woman, but if you specify by defining an age, focusing on a person from that locality, with a defined style, certain interests and with an purchasing power that is consistent with the price of your products, you are getting closer to your ideal customer.
- What strategy are you following to attract new customers or retain the ones you already have?
In addition, you must analyze if your website or online store is prepared to convert users into customers, since if it is not, it will be more difficult for you to increase your sales.
And you should also analyze the web positioning of your page, store or blog, to know what keywords you are positioned with and if they are really interesting or they are not bringing qualified traffic to your website.
External analysis
At this time, you have to look out and analyze the situation in which your company’s market or sector is and analyze your competition.
To analyze the market , you can use a PESTEL analysis (in which external Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Ecological and Legal factors are analyzed ).
As for your competition , you should analyze their presence on the Internet and on social networks .
It is important that you define well who your competition is, since, if you have a small local fashion store, Zara is not your competition (its brand is much better known and has a great reputation) but it can be a benchmark. Your competitors should be brands that have a similar track record to yours (for example, other local fashion stores that sell the same style and similar prices) or competitors that sell substitute products or services.
I recommend you analyze between 5 and 10 competitors or referents, as long as they really are (if you consider that you have fewer competitors, do not fill in to reach that number).
Social media audit
It is time to analyze the social networks of the brand or company, in the event that it already has a presence on social networks. Analyze each of your social profiles in depth to see what you are doing well and helping you achieve your goals, and what is not helping you and you can improve.
Also, see what your audience is on social networks to know if you are addressing your target audience or not, since if you want to increase your sales you must create a community around your ideal customers (you do not need to exclude or eliminate the rest, but do focus your efforts on them, since it will be easier for them to end up buying from you).
In the event that you are going to open your social networks for the first time, you should analyze whether any user has mentioned you or shared any content on your website, to see what is being said about your brand and what users are perceiving of it. .
Analysis of the results
SWOT Analysis
Once the analysis is done, the best way to extract valuable data from all that information collected is by creating a SWOT.
A SWOT is a matrix in which 4 key aspects stand out:
- Internal weaknesses of your brand
- External threats to your brand
- Internal strengths of your brand
- Opportunities outside your brand
With all this, you will be able to have an idea of what your competitive advantages are, what you should improve or try to neutralize to overcome your competitors and what opportunities you can take advantage of so that your brand stands out above the rest.
In addition, this matrix evolves into a CAME matrix (Correct Weaknesses, Address Threats, Maintain Strengths, and Exploit Opportunities) to help you select the ideal strategy for your brand:
- Defensive Strategy – Use strengths to minimize threats.
- Offensive Strategy – Use strengths to take advantage of opportunities.
- Reorientation Strategy – Overcome weaknesses to seize opportunities.
- Survival Strategy – Minimize weaknesses to avoid threats.
Comparison chart
Another way to capture what you have analyzed about both your own brand and the competition is through a comparative table.
You can create a table with the main social media metrics so that at a glance you can see where your company is. Even those data, you can transfer them if it seems better to you to a graph with the two most relevant axes in social networks (for example, followers and engagement).
Definition of your buyer person
I come across many companies that have not defined who their buyer persona or ideal client is and this is essential, since you must know who you are targeting to create the content that can attract them.
And no, your buyer persona is not just any person. She will have some tastes, interests, an age or gender, she lives in a specific place, works in a specific sector, etc.
This does not mean that you are only going to target this buyer person, you can even have different buyer personas, but that you are going to focus on attracting that person who is more likely to buy your product or service.
To define your buyer persona well, you can ask yourself these questions:
- What age and gender is he?
- Where do you reside?
- What level of income do you have?
- What level of studies do you have?
- What are your goals?
- What needs do you have?
- What do they hope to get from your product or service?
- In which social networks do you have a presence?
- What time do you usually connect to your social profiles?
- What content do you like?
- What interests do you have?
- What do you spend your free time doing?
- What brands do you follow?
- How it behaves?
- …
The more information you collect about your ideal client, the easier it will be for you to reach them.
And if you have doubts about how to answer these questions, you can ask a real customer, do a survey among your customers (offering them something of value for answering it) or ask someone in your environment who is your potential customer.
Choice of channels
No, you do not need to open a profile on all social networks and start publishing content. You need to value your resources and know where your buyer person is to choose the social networks that interest you the most.
Although, this does not mean that you cannot open more social profiles, but rather that you should focus your resources on working on the social networks that are going to bring you benefits, because investing in a social network in which your target audience does not have a presence is not going to work for you. to report anything.
In addition, in this phase you do not have to look only at the most common social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube) but also other lesser-known social networks that may be specific to your sector (21Buttons, GoodReads, Bodas.net, etc.). Research well which social networks can help you with your business.
Once you have selected the social networks in which you are going to have a presence, you must open them (if you have not yet created them) and/or optimize them:
- Use profile and header images that are of quality , that look good and that have to do with your brand, product or service.
- Choose an easy-to-remember username and, if you want to make yourself known, use the same one on all your social profiles to make it easier for users to find you.
- Write a good description or biography with which users can know what they will find in your account and what your brand offers them.
- In the event that the URL of your profile is numerical (as it happens in Facebook or LinkedIn) edit the configuration so that your username or brand appears .
- Eliminate or hide all the publications that do not add value or have nothing to do with the idea you want to convey about your brand.
My recommendation is that if you are going to start, put your focus on one or two social networks and as you grow, expand to others (starting to work all at once can be overwhelming and you will not have enough time to do it well, unless you have a great team to help you).
Definition of objectives
Now it’s time to define what is the goal you want to achieve in social networks to direct your strategy to achieve it.
What can be your goal?
- Promote your brand, product or service
- Increase traffic to your website
- Get more customers (sell more)
- Increase your database with potential customers
- Improve your brand reputation
- Position your brand as a benchmark in the sector
- …
You may think that they are all, but you must focus on one and, when you have achieved it, move on to the next level.
Once you have selected your goal, you have to define the objectives . These must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and limited in time.
For example, if you want to sell more, an objective would be “Convert 15% of the traffic coming from your social networks (or one in particular) into customers in the next 3 months”.
Selection of strategies
It is time to define which path you are going to follow, depending on the objectives you have set for yourself and the social networks you have chosen, choosing the most appropriate strategies to achieve what you have proposed.
For example, if your goal is to increase traffic to your website, your strategy will be based on driving traffic from your social networks to your website, so that your followers end up becoming visitors to your website.
If your goal is to increase your subscriber database, your strategy will be based on getting qualified leads so that your followers end up becoming your subscribers.
And, if your goal is to get more customers, your strategy will be based on increasing your sales by turning your followers into customers.
It is possible that you do not have the same strategy in all social networks , since each social network is different and works differently, but you may have a different strategy for each social network. In this case, remember that each strategy will have some actions that you will carry out in a specific social network.
Here it is also important that you define some things like:
- The communication strategy in social networks : how are you going to communicate with your followers?
- The visual style that your publications on social networks will follow: what is your visual identity? That which will make your followers, at a glance, identify that this publication is from your brand.
- The content strategy that you are going to follow and what your content and category pillars will be: what are you going to talk about on social networks?
Definition of actions
To implement the strategies that have been decided to carry out in the previous section, it is necessary to define the actions that are going to be carried out for each one of them.
You can prepare a document in which you detail all the actions that you are going to carry out in each of the social networks, so that you can open it and mark the actions that you have already carried out and those that you have pending.
Do not forget to indicate if any of the actions you are going to perform must be done after doing another action. And, in the event that you are going to repeat some actions, define how often you are going to do it (daily, weekly, monthly, …).
Definition of metrics and measurement
To know if your strategy works well and is helping you achieve your goals, you have to measure . And before starting to measure, you have to define what is going to be measured , since there are many metrics in social networks but not everything has to be relevant to your strategy.
Depending on your objectives, you will need to measure some KPIs in social networks or others. I recommend that you create a document to collect all this data periodically, so that you can see its evolution well.
Don’t know which KPIs to choose to measure your Social Networks?
Download your Excel template and start measuring your results to find out what you need to improve in your Social Media strategy
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Selection of tools
There are numerous tools on the market that can help you with your social media strategy, but you should think about what your needs are and what budget you have available for tools before selecting the right ones for your project.
I recommend that you use the test periods of the tools to find out if it suits your needs and if it is easy to use , since each project has specific needs and some tools will adapt better or worse to what you are looking for.
Here is a list of essential tools for a Community Manager , although there are many more.
Creation of the editorial calendar
You cannot be thinking every day that you are going to share on your social networks, but, once you have defined your entire strategy, you must create an editorial calendar to define what is going to be published on each social network and when in advance. In this way, you will have time to create content that is adjusted to achieve your goals and not leave it to chance.
It doesn’t have to be a closed calendar, but you should at least define what your publication frequency is going to be on each social network, what day of the week you are going to publish on each social network, what time you are going to do it and what category of content you are going to publish. Create your editorial calendar in an Excel document and always have it at hand to edit it or work on your social networks properly.
Still don’t have an editorial calendar for your Social Networks?
Download the template for free and start planning the contents of your social networks
I accept the Privacy Policy*
I love you!
Responsible: Jessica Quero
Purpose: Manage the sending of the calendar and notifications on social media and digital marketing.
Legitimation: Consent of the interested party.
Recipients: The electronic bulletins or newsletters are managed by entities whose headquarters and servers are within the territory of the EU or by entities covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield agreement, complying with the precepts of the European Data Protection Regulation in terms of privacy. and security.
Rights: Access, rectify and delete the data, as well as other rights, as explained in the additional information.
Do not forget to add to your calendar the indicated dates that may be interesting for your sector or market, to create adapted content and to use specific hashtags for that day.
In addition, I recommend that you create a text or Excel document in which you collect possible hashtags to use in your publications, so that you do not have to search for them every time you publish something new.
Creation of the reputation crisis management plan
You may think that your brand is too small to have a reputation crisis and that, therefore, you do not need a crisis management plan , but the reality is that being small or little known is not going to free you from one. crisis.
Maybe you will never have any, or maybe you will, so I recommend that you have a plan to not get carried away by the situation and be prepared for it.
In this part of the document, it is necessary to define when it is a reputation crisis and when it is not, in what different cases a crisis can occur, which people are going to be in charge of responding (ideally it would be a Community Manager), what types of clients can cause a crisis and how you are going to respond to each of them (it is not the same to respond to a client who is angry, than to one who is disappointed or to a troll or hater) and what messages are you going to use to manage the crises .
Keep in mind that the messages will not always be the same, since you will have to adapt them to the situation, but you can create the message in which you ask for more information about what happened or basic messages with which you are going to apologize if you have made a mistake. .
Also, keep in mind that you should know what happened before saying something that could imply that you assume responsibility , since you may be in a reputational crisis of a person who has not been your client.
Total budget
The last point will be to define what budget is going to be used to implement this strategy in the social profiles of your brand. You should consider:
- If you need a professional Community Manager who is going to carry out these tasks or you need to train the person you have hired for it (or yourself if you are going to take it until you have more budget).
- If you need a professional Social Media Manager who plans the tasks to be carried out on social networks, monitors the results and adapts the strategy to the news on social networks.
- If you have selected payment tools to manage your social networks.
- If you are going to invest in advertising on social networks , and if so, how often are you going to do it and how much of the budget are you going to allocate to the investment.
- If you have to change something on your website, blog or online store to improve its conversions.
- If you are going to carry out collaborations with influencers or giveaways on your social networks as part of your strategy.
The budget could also be defined before defining the objectives, strategies and actions to be carried out, but then you would be limiting your social media plan. I think it is better to define it at the end so that, in the event that you can increase your budget, you do not need a new social media plan, but you can decide what to allocate that new budget item within your social media plan.
Conclusions
Perhaps at this point you still think that your brand or business does not need a social media plan or that you are doing very well on your social networks as you are doing now, but the reality is that more and more companies are making the leap to social networks and they do it professionally with a good strategy. And, therefore, it will be increasingly difficult for you to position yourself above them and stand out in the mind of your potential client.
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