We've been knee deep in sorting garage items that have been on a to-do list for five years now... As we've been sorting, we've rediscovered amazing little gems that remind us of what life used to be like.
My business cards were in a bag collecting dust, with in-person networking not on the agenda for a while. Then there was the container that had client profile cards, including their home address and phone number. And no, there wasn't a Facebook page URL or Twitter handle in sight.
It's a reminder of how much smarter we need to get with our online marketing, as more businesses swap traditional marketing for online marketing strategies.
One area we can often improve is social media. Being guided through a social media plan template ensures you're not just throwing up content on every platform and relying on hope marketing. We want to be strategic. And that's why we need a plan.
What are the goals of your social media? What content should you be putting out there? And how do you actually come up with a plan of action to get the most out of it?
Many of my clients have used social media to open doors to major speaking opportunities, found collaborative opportunities, or had huge launches.
There are 7 steps you need to take to put together a strategic social media plan.
But before you dive in, download a copy of the Social Media Plan Template to work through...
If you prefer video to reading, watch the following. If not, continue scrolling...
Which social media platform should you use?
We need to look at not only who your ideal client is, but also where they are hanging out to determine which platforms you should be on.
No, I don't advocate being on every single platform or you'll burn out. Instead, pick two to three maximum that you enjoy doing, but also that your ideal client is hanging out on. The reason it's important for you to enjoy it is because if you show up on that platform and you don't love doing it, then that energy will come through in your content.
For example, you might may love doing Instagram, but your ideal client isn't on Instagram. You're better to stick to doing that from a personal perspective.
If you're unsure which platforms your ideal client is hanging out on, ask them. The best approach is to find out what a typical day looks like for them. This not only gives you the platforms, but the days and times that are best for you to show up.
How do you set goals for social media?
What are your goals for social media? We don't want to be on social media just for the sake of it. We want to actually have a plan behind what we're doing.
I was speaking to a business owner this week who has a significant social media following. However, he admitted he doesn't feel he's getting the most out of those followers. When I asked him what his goals were for his social media, he drew a blank. Without a goal, it's hard to create a social media strategy.
For me, it's about growing my email list. If, for example, Facebook fell over tomorrow, I've already captured those leads inside of my email marketing database. It's a way for me to communicate with those people, even if the platform disappears. A prime example was when Twitter stopped all "blue tick" accounts from tweeting. Can you imagine if you were amid a major launch and were relying on Twitter?
How are you capturing aligned clients' details so you're building for the long term?
The other benefit of capturing leads is to further enhance the relationship. It's another way to communicate beyond social media, especially when such a low number of people often see our content on social media now.
The reality is, social media won't completely transform your business. So we need to ensure we're driving people back to our shopfront to encourage them to take action. In a virtual world, that's our website.
Another goal is, of course, sales and discovery calls - depending on your business. I know for service-based businesses I work with, it's difficult to get a sale direct from Facebook unless you're putting ads behind your content. So the marketing funnel involves attracting them to your website, educating and nurturing them through an email sequence and then inviting them to work with us.
So what are the goals of your social media?
- discovery calls or free consultations
- sales
- email list growth
- event bookings
- something else?
How to get your customer's attention online
How does your ideal client like to consume content? Are they a reader, listener, video watcher or visual viewer.
In some cases, you may want to do a mix. I know my ideal client is a reader, but they also tend to listen to podcasts and will watch (short) videos).
Where your ideal client falls in the content space and which platforms they're drawn to will help you determine things like whether you should do:
- Facebook Live videos
- Instagram inspiring image quotes
- write LinkedIn articles
- meditation tracks on Youtube
However, you need to think deeper than merely Facebook or LinkedIn. You need to look at all the different areas of those platforms that your ideal client is drawn to.
Facebook, for example is:
- Watch
- Live Videos
- Page
- Profile
- Group
- Messenger
- Stories
- Advertising
Which area does your ideal client tend to consume content? How does your content type fit into the area they're going to show up on?
Ah, remember the ol' days when you just posted an image on your Facebook page? My, how times have changed.
Here are some other platforms and how you might want to drill down:
- Company Page
- Profile
- Groups
- Video
- Messages
- Advertising
- Profile
- Stories
- IGTV
- DMs
Why is drilling down to this level important? Well, for example, I don't tend to view Stories on Instagram or Facebook. So if you want to target me, you would waste your time with Stories.
Get strategic and figure out WHAT the content is and WHERE it needs to be placed for the greatest impact.
Coming up with content categories
Defining content categories for your social media planning can make creating content much easier.
I have particular libraries of content that are scheduled for particular days. This allows me to focus on ONE category at a time and build up the content.
Categories might include:
- Promotional, with things like client testimonials and case studies, calls to action to your sales pages or sales calls, or sharing of your lead magnets.
- Inspiring quotes, motivational Monday quotes or self care Friday quotes that link to stories that have lessons you can share.
- Blog posts that share all your new and old blog posts
- Curated content, which is all the great articles you find that your ideal client would find valuable.
- Tuesday Tips where you share tips from your industry.
What are the categories your ideal client is particularly interested in?
Creating social media content
Creating your social media content is the most amount of work you'll do as part of your social media plan template.
Inside your template, you want to put content in under your categories. You might have blog posts on a Wednesday. Collate the links for all your blog posts and write a teaser status for each blog post that entices people to click through from social media and read your blog.
Here's a resource to help come up with Facebook post ideas.
Splintering content
If you have less than 10 blog posts, then sharing a blog post per week might soon get rather repetitive. This is where you can do "segmenting". That might include a status that is a cut and paste of the intro, another status might be a quote from within the blog post, while another might be the blog post headline. How many ways can you splice that one blog post so you can share it multiple times?
Creating inspiring quotes
When it comes to inspiring quote images, a simple keyword search for a topic + "quote" will bring up plenty of quotes to choose from. Using the images section of Google can help to find inspiring quotes. Just ensure you create your own version, rather than using someone else's artwork. And always reference who said the quote.
But I also want you to think of all the things you say to clients and turn those into quotes. Yes, I'm encouraging you to quote yourself. This will position you as the thought leader.
As far as image creation, you can use a tool like Get Stencil, which not only automatically resizes images from one social media platform to the next with the click of a button, it also comes with Creative Commons images you can access from within the tool and a library of quotes.
Creating content quickly
The simplest way to create content for your categories is to focus on one category at a time. I generally put together a couple of weeks worth of content for that one category. My images for a category tend to follow a certain style and creatively it's easier to focus on one type of content at a time.
You'll find you create content much quicker if you're doing it that way because you aren't jumping from one different thing to the next.
Similarly with your promotional category, do an audit of your website and find out what sales pages, lead magnets and testimonials you have to share.
If you suddenly feel overwhelmed by all the writing you're going to have to do, then my non-writing clients use audio instead. Open a tool like Zoom or even the audio recording on your phone and start speaking social media statuses. It helps you find your voice easier and can get your content created faster. You can simply upload the audio into a transcription service, like Otter.ai, Rev.com or Happy Scribe.
Creating content is the part that can hold people back from taking action on setting up a proper social media strategy. If you can use audio, transcription and bulk scheduling, it can help give you back more time in your business.
Using hashtags
If you're doing LinkedIn and Instagram, you need to take some time to research hashtags. We want about five hashtags on LinkedIn and 28 on Instagram.
While I could write a whole post on hashtag research, a great place to start is to look at others in your industry who have a lot of engagement on those platforms. What hashtags are they using? Then start experimenting to see what works for you.
Think about local places, industry specific hashtags and think about what your ideal client might be following and clicking on.
SEO Keywords
Lastly, if you're doing YouTube or Pinterest, then focus on keywords. These are the words or phrases someone puts into a search field to find an answer to a problem or an aspiration they want to achieve.
In YouTube, use them in your title, description and tags. In Pinterest, use them in your title and description.
What keywords might your ideal client be searching for?
Scheduling your social media
If you've ever opened Facebook with a specific goal in mind and then two hours later found yourself wondering what it was you originally wanted to do, you're not alone. Facebook has this ability to suck us in and then waste our time.
The more we can find ways to remove ourselves from social media during the day, the more productive we'll be in our businesses. We want to get our content created quickly, but we also want to leverage our time.
You can schedule your content directly through Facebook, for example, to go out on a specific day and time. Or you can use a recycling tool and upload your content into category libraries inside the tool and have the content go out all the time.
For example, I have 60+ blog posts in my blog category because I've been blogging for a long time. So if one blog post goes out a week, then by week 60 it will share blog post number one again.
The chances of someone remember what I wrote in that social media status 60 weeks ago is pretty slim. This is where you can start leveraging your time. And if you forget to upload new content one week, it doesn't matter because old posts will continue to go out.
Some people don't like scheduling and recycling tools because they have a belief they will get less engagement or less reach. You need to trial that for yourself and find what works for you.
I've found it doesn't really make much difference with my social media, so I'm more than happy to use it.
Optimising your social media content
Our goal once we have content going out is to optimise our content so we can keep growing our reach, engagement and click-throughs to our website. Getting them off social media and onto our website is one of our main goals, outside of building relationships ON the platform.
This is where another benefit of a recycling tool comes into play. If you look at the analytics on either the recycling tool or the social media platform itself (try analytics.facebook.com for great insights on your Facebook page), you'll see what content is getting the most engagement. This gives you clues as to what you need to create more of and what needs to be tweaked.
On Instagram, you can simply click "Insights" underneath specific posts to see what impressions you've had, how many came from your profile and how many came from hashtags.
If you're using a recycling tool, it might mean rewriting a particular post, sharing a different story, or even changing the image to see if you can create greater engagement the next time around.
So when you find a post that didn't do well, ask yourself... What was it that made it fall flat? How can you improve that piece of content? Does it need an extra element of storytelling? Is the image not captivating enough? What was it you did in that particular piece of content you can either change, tweak or remove to improve the results of the post? It's all about getting better results over time.
If you're unsure how to read analytics, or you want help with coming up with the content, I'm happy to help you with your social media accounts, what you're doing and how you can improve your results.
So those are the seven steps you need to go through when for your social media to help refine your strategy.
Download your complete social media plan template
You can download a free planner below. It goes through your
- social media schedule template, so you know what piece of content goes on what platform and when
- topic map to come up with topic ideas
- third party content for ensuring you have the 20/80 blend of your own and others' content
- content ideas for inspiration when you're unsure what to post
- social media goals for setting and tracking goals
It will break down all the elements you need to get your social media sorted. Download your social media plan template.
If you have questions, please let me know. If you'd like to chat about your specific social media strategy, book a time to chat.
[…] I like that we’re able to offer clients a holistic approach to promoting their business, as traditional media has a greater impact when it’s integrated with a social media campaign. […]