When looking to promote your business through social media it isn’t as easy as just setting up a Twitter account or creating a Facebook page. Whether you are using social media for marketing, sales, customer service, fulfillment, or some other business purpose, it is imperative that you have a social media management plan in place.
Whether you are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Pinterest; content is key when it comes to social media. But before you start creating your profiles and posting your content you need to develop clear goals.
For example, are you planning to use social media to build brand awareness? Or maybe you plan to use social media as a customer service tool. Or perhaps to sell products or services directly from your social media channel.
After you have determined your social media goals you need to determine how you are going to achieve them. There are many things to consider, including how often you should post/tweet, what time of day, and what information will be posted? You should also consider if you will post the same thing on each social media platform.
In order to ensure your goals are being met, it is important to establish how you are going to measure your defined success. Are you measuring the number of people going to your website? Or are you concerned with tracking the number of likes, retweets, mentions or engagement? Whether you want to focus on one measurement or a number of measurements, it is important to include them in your management plan so that you can properly evaluate your efforts.
Once you have defined what you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve it you can begin putting your plan into action, but don’t think this is the end. Don’t forget to regularly follow-up and review your goals, actions and tracking once per month to determine whether your goals are still relevant or whether you need to make adjustments and revise your plan.
P.S. We know social media can take significant amounts of time (and expertise), which is why many of our clients have us help them with their social media efforts. That’s why we offer Social Media Management services. We can help you strategize, develop and implement a social media program customized for your business. Just ask us how. We’re pretty social.