How would you craft a successful social media marketing plan?

Setting up a social media account is easy. However, using social media platforms to foster conversations without a content strategy is not. In a survey of small business houses, 61% reported that they have not been successful in seeing any return on investment (ROI) through their social media marketing activity. So what do you need to incorporate for significant business returns?

Create a social media marketing plan that you can maintain

Identify what your social media marketing strategy wants to achieve. There are three options, namely, increasing awareness, building loyalty and increasing sales. Select one and focus on it.

Find out your target audience

There are various types of social media users such as creators, conversationalists, critics, and many more. Find out the audience that your competitors are reaching out to. This will help you understand your client base and what they expect from your brand. 

Proceed with your plan

The key to implement your social media strategy is to create a content calendar. This will keep your efforts on track. To further enhance your strategy, promote your social media presence on company business cards, letterheads, invoices and emails. Communicate with your target audience and ensure that your updates/posts 'go viral' (through Re-tweets, Likes, Shares, Google +1s etc.). As a good social media marketing company, you can use giveaways to attract your target user base.

Evaluate your digital marketing success

Try to do an in-depth evaluation of whether your efforts are bearing fruit. Social metrics such as click rates, shares, subscribers, likes and sales give you an idea of whether your social media marketing efforts are on the right track.