Thursday, December 17, 2015

What? You Should PLAN Your Social Media?


By Kristen Paquet, Sr. Account Executive, Leonard & Finco Public Relations

I know. In a time where everything posted and shared on social media seems to be so random, having an actual plan seems to be a bit out of the ordinary. But if you are a business and you want to leverage everything social media has to offer, having a plan in place will be the key to success.

Where do you begin? Start with the end in mind. What goals do you want to be able to measure and see if all of your efforts have paid off? Keep in mind that your goals may be different from one social platform to another. Once your goals are in place, you can then start tackling a plan of how you will meet them.

One way to develop a plan is to create a spreadsheet that organizes each month. For each month, include a focus area so your team knows what type of posts need to be developed. Each month should also include the dates you will post, if there is a link to include, what image or video should be included, what platform(s) the update should be posted to and who is responsible.

Other things to consider as you develop your plan:

  • Determine who will be involved in seeing the plan through. Not only will this share the responsibility of executing the plan, it brings variety when creating content, keeping things fresh.
  • Be specific. The more specific you can be with posts during the planning stage, the easier it will be to execute the plan during the year.
  • Be sure your measurement tools are in place. How will you measure your success? Most social platforms offer statistics, but what about your website? Be sure you have monitoring set and ready to go so when it comes time to evaluate you’ll have all the information you need.

Developing a social media strategy starts with a strong plan. It can take some trial and error to hone in on getting the right message to the right audience, but with a good team, solid content and a plan to provide direction, success will come sooner rather than later.

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