We already know the importance of being present on social networks. However, it is not enough just to know it, you have to put it into practice. And to put it into practice, the best thing to do is to establish a social media plan that helps us define the strategies we want to carry out to capture our audience through these platforms. Let's see it!
what is social media?
Social media is the set of resources, platforms, applications and media through which brands will be able to build their Inbound Marketing plan, exchange information, generate conversation and establish contacts with all potential users interested in interacting with the brand.
However,although the name may give rise to confusion, social media is not only social networks, but also includes websites, forums, blogs, etc. Despite this, it is social networks that are the most important when it comes to establishing our inbound marketing strategy. But why?
All companies or brands that want to gain a certain prominence and be in contact with all types of audiences they want to target must have some presence on social networks. Social networks are one of the main means of communication in this 21st century and not taking advantage of them to attract customers would be a mistake on our part.
Being present and active on the same sites as users encourages proximity and can help us to eliminate barriers between the public and the brand, and this is one of the main objectives of our inbound marketing strategy.
That is why focusing part of our Inbound Marketing strategy on social media and, more specifically, on social networks, will help us to generate a good relationship with our audience. What this tool allows is to create an immediate contact, dialogue in real time with the brand and help users to make a decision more quickly since, in the times we live in, we have become accustomed to wanting an immediate response when we search for something on the internet. It is therefore important to know that these answers will be provided by the social networks themselves, blogs, or even the brand's own website that has a direct chat(a chatbot).
But to be present on social networks, we must have a plan that helps us to know how we are going to act, what we want to communicate through the networks, in which we are going to position ourselves more strongly, etc. A social media marketing plan or social media plan is a document in which the essential points of a social media strategy are described.
Now you are probably asking yourself, how do we establish a social media plan? What aspects should we take into account? Let's tell you about it!
Steps to follow to make our social media plan
- Analyse and define our starting point: The first thing we should do is an exercise to know where we are and where we want to go with a social media strategy. We cannot start launching information on social networks if we do not know first what we want to communicate and how we want to do it. It is also important that we consider which audience we want to target because knowing this will help us define which social networks we should position ourselves more strongly on. For example, the public between 18 and 34 years mainly uses Instagram, while an older generation will be found mostly on Facebook.
- Optimise our website: As we have already said, social networks will be the showcase where we will show ourselves to the public but sales will be made on our website. That is why we must have a quality website, where the content of the products and services is well explained, structured and easy to access for the user. A good strategy on social networks will be useless if our website, where we direct the traffic, is not useful for our followers.
- Value all platforms: You don't need to be on all the social networks in the world. Spending time and effort to appear everywhere is not necessary. Instead, you should value where your buyer personas are: the public you want to target; it is better to devote our time to strategies that can help us to get customers because it will be useless to be on all social networks if our future customers are not in some of them.
- Develop the content plan: Now the time has come! You must get down to work with your content on social networks. The important thing is to know how to define what you want to achieve in each of them. It is not advisable to generate only one content and distribute it through all of them: know how they work and create quality content adapted to each interface so that the user feels more connected to the brand.
In this phase of your social media plan, you must take into account aspects such as:
- what type of content and how much will you post on each social network?
- what topics will you publish on each social network?
- how often will you do it?
- do you know the language and forms of each social network?
- does your content plan have everything you want to achieve with your strategy?
- Measure the results: It is important that once you have developed the plan, you measure the results of that strategy. It is important to know if the plan is working in the social networks to know if the objectives we were looking for are being met or if, on the other hand, we should change the strategy.
- Establish a crisis plan: Sometimes things do not go as planned, we all know that. That is why it is important to have a crisis plan in which we know what we should do in the event of any adversity that arises in social networks. Sometimes our brand's reputation is affected due to comments, reviews or publications on social networks that can make us lose many potential customers if we do not have a crisis plan prepared to solve it immediately.
Taking the plunge into social media
Once you have established your social media plan and followed all the steps, it is time to take the plunge. Social networks are a very useful showcase for your brand. In addition, it allows you to improve the relationship with your customers, the possibility that they can interact with you in real time will help them decide before deciding on your brand rather than others. It is also a good way to get new contacts and create your own advertising for your company. In short, if all are advantages, why not take the plunge?
