Your long-term social media plan

Hey! Getting serious with social media means a lot of work, and you can find yourself lost pretty quickly if you don’t have a plan. This video will give you all the details you need to put a plan on paper, and show you some tools that can help you put it into action.

Let’s jump straight in. If you’ve already started to dabble in social media, you’ve probably noticed how much work it takes to do things well.

It’s not easy to keep everything up to date, reply and interact with all your connections, or come up with a steady stream of ideas for unique, interesting things to be posting all the time across a number of different networks. Don’t worry.

The key is to sit down and sketch out a formal plan for what you want to post, when you want to post it, where it makes sense to post, and even who at your business should be posting.

Why is that so helpful?

Well, if you just assume that you’ll have enough free time to come up with creative, compelling posts “on the spot,” the odds are that you’ll end up disappointed. Life gets in the way, other things take priority and, without a plan, your social pages might end up being silent for too long, or your posts might be lower quality, because you’re feeling pinched for time.

It’s understandable. This stuff is challenging and you’ve got a lot going on. But the truth is, a good social media strategy deserves just as much careful thought and planning as any other type of marketing.

Alright, so what should a social media plan look like? Consider the next 6 to 12 months, and start creating a calendar. Sketch out details like what topics it makes sense for you to post about? What’s your audience interested in?

Then take it a step further. When does it make sense to post about those topics?

If we go back to our vintage clothing shop, think about when there might be major fashion shows, special shopping seasons like back to school or the holidays, or other timely events that you can “piggy-back” on. Whether you post daily, hourly, or weekly, laying out your calendar will help make sure you’re consistent in your sharing.

What and when is a great start, but you also have to consider where you should be posting. For example, if you’re sharing some awesome pictures of the new line of dresses that just came into the shop, that might be a great update to share on social sites like Instagram or Pinterest. On the other hand, if you want to share a special offer for your biggest fans, you might share that with your connections on Facebook or Google+ instead.

Next, don’t forget to think about who’s going to be doing all of this posting and sharing. Are you going to do it all yourself or are you going to share the work? Writing down who’s responsible for what in your plan will help make sure you can follow through.

And finally, don’t forget about the why. Why are you posting all of these updates? Which business goals are these posts meant to support? If social media is all about raising awareness for you, make sure your posts are designed to do that. On the other hand, if social media is more of a way for you to deepen relationships with your existing fans and customers, your posts are going to look quite different. There’s no right or wrong approach, but again: make sure you know why you’re sharing what you’re sharing.

So that’s a social media plan. Once you’ve got all these tasks spread out across a calendar for the next several months, all of a sudden, it’s much easier to see how you’re going to tackle the brave new world of social media.

You might be thinking “wow, that’s a lot of work! How am I going to actually do it?”

Well, wouldn’t it be great if you could block out a day in your calendar, write up all the things you’d like to post for the next six months, and then queue them up so they automatically get shared when you’re ready?

The good news is there are tools out there that can help you do that and more. With social media management tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Everypost, you can create the things you want to post and share in advance. You can decide which networks you want to share them on, and you can collaborate with your co-workers to let them help you along the road to social media success.

On top of that, you can use tools like these to listen to what people are saying back to you on social media. You didn’t forget, did you? Social media is a two-way conversation, not just a megaphone for you to use to broadcast your message.

So what have we learned? Social media takes some work and dedication if you want to have real success. Putting together a detailed plan will help you take your efforts to the next level, and there are lots of tools available to help you. Now you’re well on your way to conquering social media!