What is the single most important action you can take to improve your
chances of success in implementing a social media campaign? Create a
well-researched and carefully thought out social media marketing plan,
which lays the foundation for executing a winning social media
campaign. Although there is no concrete roadmap to crafting an effective
social media marketing plan, there are guideposts that can direct you
along the way. The following 5 Steps provide the guidance you will need
to develop a successful social media marketing plan.

The challenge for some of these
goals, such as engaging with consumers, is to make them specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART). In
addition, objectives must be established for each type of social media
platform in order to maximize results. The following are examples of
SMART goals for four popular social media platforms: blogs, microblogs
(Twitter), social networking sites, as well as image and video sharing
sites:

Social Networking Sites:

Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis.
What are the trends in social media (i.e., which platforms are growing,
which are declining?). What needs are not being meet by your
competitors? Who will be your main competitors? What are the best
practices in social media marketing? Conduct a SWOT Analysis,
identifying your company’s strengths, weaknesses, along with the
opportunities and threats in the marketplace and economy.

Hence, you must adjust the
following 8 C’s of the Social Media Marketing Mix for each social media
platform. Here are some suggestions on how to accomplish this feat:

Step 5: Monitor, Measure, and Tune. Accessing your progress, then tune your marketing plan based on the feedback to optimize goal achievement. Reevaluate and adjust
your social media marketing plan to account for the ever changing
nature of consumer tastes and the social Web. For example, if the number
of viewers and subscribers to your blog are declining, you can adjust
your content to more closely match your target market’s interests. If
the number of comments on your blog posts is declining, you can adjust
your strategy by asking a question at the end of each post that inspires
people to respond. In short, planning and executing a social media
marketing campaign is a never ending cycle. You should constantly
monitor and tune your strategies to maximize the impact of your
campaign.

For more information and resources on planning social media marketing campaigns, be sure to visit my blog at www.SocialMediaMarketingResources.info.

Social Marketing Photo

By mohamed_hassan from Pixabay