Social Media Action Plan
Who will do what?
Tasks to assign in your company include monitoring social media traffic, creating content, and posting to your sites and other social media sites. Allocate adequate resources to employee training, and consider hiring a social media manager. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Communication
Be sure to communicate your social strategy to employees, working to secure the buy-in of staff, from top managers on down.
Publishing schedule
The lifeblood of social media is regular updates. Without them, you will not build the kind of engagement with your followers that you are looking for. Work out a publishing schedule specifying how often each of the platforms will be updated and by whom. There is no firm rule on the best publishing frequency. Your audience may respond differently than another company’s. The ideal frequency can range from several times a day for a fast-moving site, such as Twitter, to several times a week for Facebook. Revisit your publishing schedule if you are not getting enough feedback from followers or your online community is not growing.
Experiment
Experiment with the timing of your posts during the day to see when you are getting the most interaction with your followers.
Take stock of your existing digital assets. Interesting content that readers find useful is critical in building your social media following. But you do not have to create all your content from scratch. You may have a lot in your files to get you started. Make an inventory of your existing assets, such as guides, articles, presentations, videos, and photos. Consider what you could rework for social media. Keep in mind, however, that existing content will only take you so far. Successful companies usually create fresh material geared specifically to each social media platform. For more content ideas, check with suppliers and business partners to see what they could contribute. Think about innovative ways to get your audience to contribute content. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
Follow up
Monitor your efforts to ensure you are hitting your targets. Also, revisit and update your social media strategy regularly.
The attraction to social media and social networking for many entrepreneurs is quick results, or so they think. Then again, they also think their products are the next big thing, with people waiting with bated breath for their next product launch, new service, or magic formula.
Granted, social networking sites are quick paced, full of information, and a wonderful place to stay connected. But at the end of the day, to use social networking as a marketing tool, you need to build a loyal following. Think about it as your own community within the network.
Know your market intimately
- Who is your ideal client? Who are you looking to attract by using social media as a marketing tool? There are millions of consumers and businesses online, so you need to focus on those who need what you have to offer and are in a position to purchase.
Find your market online
- When evaluating where to spend most of your marketing hours, it is important to consider where your market lives. Do they congregate on Facebook, chat on Twitter, pin on Pinterest, or network on LinkedIn? Maybe they live on all four. The more you listen and discover about your market, the better equipped you will be in knowing what they need and where to spend your time.
Treat your website or blog as your HUB
- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and any other social networks you have an active profile on are marketing channels in your marketing mix.
- To effectively get the most out of your social marketing efforts, you will want to use these channels to syndicate your communications with clear calls-to-action to drive your audience back to your website or blog.
Establish a clear and congruent brand
With all the noise on social networking sites, you must make a crisp impression to get noticed. Your brand must be clear and congruent across all platforms by keeping the same:
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- Branding
- Logo
- Profile picture
- Calls-to-action
Content is king—Write to establish your expertise
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- Keywords are like social gold. Search engines love keywords that help them categorize sites and serve up the best results for searches.
- To stay focused on attracting the right audience, you should keep a list of your brand’s keywords close at hand when writing any content for your blog and social posts.
- Once you have written a blog post, be sure to syndicate your post to all your social profiles. Repurpose and breakdown the points of your article to bite-sized headlines, and add a link to lead people back to your website to read more.
Monitor your brand, reputation, industry, and keywords
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- Make Google your best friend; there are many free tools and resources available from Google, but you will need a Gmail address to access them so sign up for one stat.
- With your Gmail account, access Google Alerts, and set up alerts for your business name and your target market, such as “women in direct selling” and “women in multi-level marketing,” as well as your keywords. You can set up daily, weekly, or up-to-the-minute alerts that will be sent directly to your inbox anytime these words appear in Google.
- These alerts will keep you abreast of when your business name is mentioned and will keep you up-to-date with news about your market, industry, and opportunities you would not have known about otherwise.
Leverage the “know, like, and trust” factor
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- Social networks are where people congregate, connect with people they “know, like, and trust,” and share aspects of their personal and professional lives.
- People are not on Facebook and Twitter to find new products or services. They will, however, be open to watching and learning about people and companies their friends are talking about. They are also attentive to people’s experiences with brands and will chime in with good or bad reports. If someone is raving about how great your company or product is, then be sure to show your appreciation. If someone is expressing a complaint, this is your opportunity to show your audience that you take your customer’s feedback seriously, and do what you can to turn the communication into a positive one. Your community is watching.
Build your online community
- In communicating about your brand online, give your audience a voice, and be the brand that cares about its customers.
- Care enough to give your customers a voice.
- Create an open environment for your visitors, prospects, and clients to ask questions and share ideas. Setting the stage to share your expertise and giving back to your community is smart business. ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW