The majority of marketers launched their social media programs because they believe that they need to and then scramble themselves in order to understand how it will be managed and how they will make it work. Unfortunately, many of them do this with no single marketing goal in mind or writing a social media marketing plan to help keep them focused.

What is worse is that they have no understanding of how social media marketing works. Many people believe that social is the solution to client acquisition and are often short-sighted in clearly defining realistic results. However, this all results in lost customers, time, profitability and market share.

Due to this, it is very important for them to develop a viable social media marketing plan. There are several important things that they should remember when creating one.

Identify the Target Audience when writing a social media marketing plan

To start things off, people should need to determine who their target audience will be. Knowing the demographics is the main ingredient in creating the right social media marketing plan. They should have a good idea whom they are talking to when it comes to sharing their content on different platforms.

At the same time, they should learn about and listen to their audience before designing a plan. Location, age, gender, common situations and interests are more vital than choosing a social media platform.

Know Where the Audience Is

The next important step is for people to figure out where their targeted audience prefers to obtain their information. There are plenty of social media platforms from Twitter to Facebook, Vine, Linkedin, Google, Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat and Instagram.

Once an individual knows their target platform, they should figure out how their targeted audience spends the majority of their time on that particular social media website. They can choose these channels as their primary focus points and share their content there. Those that need to focus on a local market can target their audience using the location setting available in Facebook and Twitter. This allows our clients located in Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond and the Seattle area to focus on the people that would be more likely to visit their physical location or use their Real Estate services and not waste their time and money on people that are outside the Seattle area.

Always Set Smart Objectives

Setting goals and objectives is the key to any social media marketing plan’s success. Going about forming a specific objective requires an individual to know what their overall business goal is. After doing that, they should create timely, realistic, achievable, measurable and specific objectives.

At the same time, they should avoid vague objectives when writing a social media marketing plan. They should also make sure that they know how to accurately measure their success with each objective and keep things achievable and realistic. People should also not forget to set due dates for each of their objectives.

Always Measure Success

Knowing how to measure their objectives will ultimately assist a person in writing a social media marketing plan. Because of this, it is vital to know how their objectives will be successful before they set them. At the same time, they should use metrics in order to determine whether they have achieved their goals in the end.

Always Choose Posting Frequency

Whether an individual has posted content two or three times a day will ultimately make a huge difference in the overall success of their plan. A person should determine how often their audience will be open to seeing their posted content. At the same time, they should not spam them with too much data.

Aside from that, they should get to know what type of information gets shared more frequently and base their frequency on that. They should also test the waters in order to determine a good frequency rate and be clearly stated when writing a social media marketing plan.

Conversion Starters

People should also make sure to share and develop content that is easy to read, interesting, concise and informative. They should also remember not to sell what they are posting. This is because social media is not a great place for brands to promote what they are selling. They should only sell on those channels if the only competitive advantage that their service or product has is the price.

Engage and Monitor

People should not simply push out materials. Instead, they should use services such as HootSuite and Tweetdeck to keep in contact with their audience via social media channels. At the same time, they should constantly engage with their audience by responding to queries and questions and staying on top of the conversation.

Two-way communication often requires conversing with a targeted audience and investing their time in it. This will make their brand more credible, engaging and visible. People should also remember that social media is very popular due to its interactive approach and should be clearly stated when writing a social media marketing plan.

Know the Trends and Remember Them

A social media channel is all about infographics, images and communicating in a user-friendly manner. A marketer should stay on top of trends and create graphics that will assist their audience in better understanding their content. At the same time, they should keep things interesting and post pictures to go with their posts. A reader is more likely to read material that is visually appealing and less wordy.