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25. 7 Tips for Creating a Social
Media Plan for Your
Business
Section II
26. Why Businesses Fail With
Social Media
Businesses often fail in their social media efforts for the same reason
New Year’s resolutions fail: It’s a good idea, but there’s no structure or
commitment.
Then, when there are no immediate results, or the goal ends up being
more difficult to attain than previously thought, it goes by the wayside.
Has this happened to your business’s social media presence? You
aren’t alone. Very few people can simply choose to be active in social
media and stick with it.
For the rest of us, we need something to keep us honest. That’s why I
advocate youcreate a social media plan—a checklist, if you will—
complete with daily maintenance, recurring tasks and milestone
projects.
These seven tips will help you design a social media plan that will
keep you on track, active and moving forward.
27. #1: Make a Commitment
Before you even start creating your plan, you have to make a
promise. Establishing a healthy social media presence can be a
very slow process. You can’t expect your list of fans, followers or
subscribers to grow overnight.
You don’t want to start your business’s presence out by posting
and updating consistently, only to get bored, lose interest and
forget to log in when there’s no immediate gratification.
To prevent that kind of slide, make a commitment. Even if it’s
just to yourself—even if you have to frame it and hang it above
your computer.
No matter how silly an exercise it may seem, acknowledging
and agreeing with yourself that building this presence could take
upwards of a year (and then some), and then promising
to invest time, energy and resources into it no matter what,
will keep you committed and prepare you to be active and
engaged even when you feel like your presence is
stagnating.
28. #2: Find Your Best Fit
If you’re just getting your business’s social media efforts up and running,
part of creating your plan revolves around seeing if you already have a
fanbase out there.
So do some searching. Are there lots of people posting videos to
YouTube of themselves using your product? Does your company have a
bunch of mentions on Twitter? Do you have reviews on Yelp?
Although it’s important to establish a presence on a giant like Facebook,
make sure you also set up shop where you’re already visible.
29. #3: Schedule Engagement
Now that you’ve identified the social media
platforms you’re going to focus on, it’s time to
turn your attention to the ways and frequency
with which you’ll engage with your users.
Infrequent interaction is one of the main
reasons businesses experience social media
failure.
Those who are most successful in social media
know that you have to engage steadily.
Think of creating and responding to comments,
tweets, posts, etc., as simple daily
maintenance. It must be done. You need
to start the conversation with your users,
and anytime they reach out to you, you need
to be prepared to respond.
Remember that the timetable for creating and
responding to content is platform-specific.
Twitter moves so fast that tweets can become
irrelevant within the hour, whereas Facebook
status updates and posts have a few hours of
staying power, and videos are great because of
their longevity.
30. #4: Create Expert Content
Your fans and followers don’t want commercials, they want conversation. They don’t want to hear how
great your company is, they already like or follow you. They don’t want sales numbers, they want
industry news and thought leadership.
A good rule of thumb is to talk about your customers and your industry 80% to 90% of the time, and then
discuss your own business. That means you need to start a blog, write white papers, explore trends,
release case studies and create infographics.
Post frequently and do it consistently. Your ideal goal should be some kind of content every couple of
days or so. Avoid going longer than a week without posting.
Thorough, in-depth articles and papers will position your business as an industry expert and
thought leader, and keep your fans and followers (and even competitors) looking to you.
31. #5: Run
Contests and
Promotions
Contests and promotions keep fans and
followers excited, interested and coming
back. Most importantly, they’re a covert
way to get your business or brand in
front of more people. That doesn’t
mean you need to run one all the time.
If you’ve always got some kind of
giveaway going, they’ll soon become
more social background noise. This is
especially true if you’re giving away not-
so-great prizes.
Run a contest or promotion every
couple of months, and make sure the
prize is something to get excited about.
32. #6: Broaden Your Horizons
Every social media plan needs to start out the same way, with a commitment to the long haul
and a focus on the basics like interaction and content. But once your presence is established
and your users are engaged, you’re free to open things up to experimentation.
If you’ve built a solid fan following on Facebook, create and install some custom apps on
your page, start posting videos on YouTube or interact more frequentlyby hopping on
Twitter. Try things out for a few months, and then go back and see how they’ve
performed for you.
Not every platform will be a fit, so if your business isn’t performing well on one for an
extended period of time, don’t be afraid to pull the plug and explore different options.
33. #7: Delegate Tasks
If you’re at the point where you’re looking
at expanding to new platforms,
congratulations! You’ve likely got a
healthy presence. But don’t let all of this
growth overwhelm you. The larger you
grow, the more in danger you are of failing
to engage (point #3), because—let’s face
it—social media is a lot of work.
So look into adding some more team
members. Graphic artists for your
infographics, writers for your blogs and
white papers and even some interns to
manage the day-to-day social media
conversations and information-gathering.
A talented team can give you a richer,
more robust presence than you could
ever achieve on your own.
35. 1. Identify Your TARGETS.
These should relate to your key business objectives. Be as
specific and quantitative as possible (e.g. ―100 new engaged
Twitter followers a week,‖ ―$5,000/month in new online
sales,‖ etc.)
36. 2. Emotionalize Your BRAND.
This is what makes your business venture so
special/unique/worthy of advocacy. It should be a few
sentences and should resonate with your target
demographics, so that they are inspired to share it with
others. Remember, hit people with your features and
benefits, and you win their minds. Infuse them with your
cause or your mission, and you win their hearts.
37. 3. Identify Your AUDIENCE.
Be as specific as possible relative to psychographics and
demographics. Spend some time listening to what people are
saying about you online. The simplest way to do this is to
Google your company or use the native platforms on social
media like search.twttier.com or the search features on
Facebook, LinkedIN and YouTube.
38. 4. Optimize Your
WEBSITE/BLOG.
Your website is your primary destination for consumer call to
action. It should be simply and elegantly designed around the
one thing you want your visitors to do. Make sure you’ve
installed Google Analytics tracking code to your website
(visit: www.google.com/analytics [http://
www.google.com/analytics] for more information), and study
your visitor behavior. Then, start making improvements to
your site around what you’re seeing in the data.
39. 5. Establish Your SOCIAL
OUTPOSTS.
Set up accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and
LinkedIN. Once you’ve done that, download Hootsuite
(www.hootsuite.com) and you can monitor yourbrand, listen
to relevant conversations, engage your communities and
update your social platforms all from one simple dashboard.
40. 6. Engage EMAIL MARKETING.
There are hundreds of millions of people who don’t like social
media, but almost everyone uses email. Email marketing
ranks high in terms of conversion. Con- stant Contact and
VerticalResponse are two excellent services that can get you
up and running in no time. Make sure to integrate your social
media with your email marketing and invite people to the
party, e.g.: ―Engage with us on Twitter for real-time customer
service.‖ ―Get exclusive deals on our Facebook page.‖
41. 7. Establish a TRADITIONAL
MEDIA PLAN.
If you play your cards right, the mainstream media will cover
your story. Create something buzzworthy about your
business. Do something crea- tive and unique. Then reach
out to local newspapers, television and radio and tell them
why their viewers would love to learn about your business.
(Not why you deserve to be on TV, but why their viewers
would love the story. Big difference.)
42. 8. Start a SEO PROGRAM.
You want to optimize your website and blog content for your
desired keywords, so that when people type in: ―best darn
left-handed scissors‖ into Google, Bing and Yahoo, your left-
handed scissor website shows up. Spend some time learning
more about ―Search Engine Optimization.‖ Now, I don’t think
you’re a dummy (heck, you bought this book; you’re
brilliant!), but an excellent resource for SEO is: Search
Engine Optimization For Dummies (For Dummies, 2010).
43. 9. Measure Your RESULTS.
Google Analytics is an industry-leading analytics program
and it is easy to sign up and install into your website and
blog.
44. 10. Continually HONE AND
REFINE Your Campaigns.
The best results come from letting the data drive decisions. If
a certain platform is generating results, channel time and
resources to that platform.