Everyday I speak with business owners who spend hours on their social media accounts trying to keep up. To better help them with strategy, I ask them the following questions:
- What are you trying to accomplish with your Social Media plan?
- How much time do you spend maintaining it?
- Have you checked your analytics to see what you are getting out of that investments?
- Who is the target for your social media campaigns?
- Are you investing in paid social media ads?
The key to having a social media plan that pays you back in dividends is to set realistic expectations and then measure the results to see if you accomplished the goal with your strategy. Social media is not a medium that pays back immediately. In fact, it works best in a multi-media mixed plan using more than one platform to get the job done. The plan requires some strategic planning and monitoring, to get it right for your company. It starts with the identifying the content that your buyers and leads need most and providing that content in your social media platforms and newsletters consistently. Once they see that your posts and information is helpful, past customers and leads will be more inclined to ask you questions, download your helpful tips, which leads to trust—the number one goal of getting the sale and repeat business today.
So, your social media posts and online promotions should be geared to help build trust. Ultimately, we are the most cautious consumers ever, particularly online, where we often check 2 or more websites to make sure a company has a history of doing what they say they will do. That means that if you ignore your Social reputation, you won’t have any advocates out there talking about how well your product or service performs. It is best to have a social media plan that is geared to improve reviews, repost and retweet positive comments about your company, and repurpose your helpful tips to build more trust. By spreading the word faster with reposts, retreats and content sharing of reviews and advice you provide in your monthly newsletters your target market will stay engaged which leads to repeat and new business. When they share their experience with your company to their network or friends, it is a testimonial for your company and goes a lot farther than posts you make about your own company. People trust their friends and they listen when their friends are impressed.
A good social media plan starts with brainstorming ideas on what you can provide monthly that will engage your target market and past customers to keep your product or service top of mind for their easy recall when they are ready to buy. It should be designed to help your company grow faster and secure more referrals, repeat sales and word of mouth support. If you’d like to see some examples of what you can accomplish with a social media and online media plan, join me for one of my upcoming workshops to help set online goals for your company and strategize a plan to help your social media plan pay off. Join my online webinar (Wednesday July 27 online) or a live training in Torrance on July 28 showing Email Marketing Techniques, or Join me on July 29 in Los Angeles for Pump Up your Social IQ Workshop and Panel with MWD.
