7 Things to Keep In Mind While Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan 2017

 

Technology fascinates!

Without it, life would never be too easy! Calling it an integral part of our daily lives is not an over-statement, be it from the perspective of consumers or marketers.

It is a fact that constant innovations in technology have transformed the way brands were marketing their products.

Over the years, social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have emerged as critical marketing platforms for marketers.

From leading brands to startups, no one affords to overlook social media when it comes to brand promotion.

It does not matter what the size and nature of your business are, sooner or later, you will have to embrace social media. Here’s why.

• Your competitors are doing it
• To reach potential audience
• To achieve huge brand recognition

That said, social media offers an excellent opportunity to build communities that help in building brand awareness among the target market.

As Dave Delaney says, “Everyone should build their network before they need it.”

However, knowing ways to create powerful social media strategy for brand promotion is not suffice. You have to make sure that it works performs!

For this, you have to keep 7 things in your mind when drafting social media marketing plan 2017. Let’s explore them, one by one.

1.     Fill Out Information on Your Social Profiles

Even a great social media marketing plan may flop if you execute it through social profiles that are incomplete. So, fill out all the fields to make your social profiles look complete and meaningful whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest.

If you do not provide full information, it may make your audience look towards your brand skeptically. Keeping your social profiles up-to-date makes you a transparent and reliable entity. Thus, fill out details including profile picture, featured image, open & close timings, location, contact information, and whatever else is required.

2.     Be Customer-Centric

Want to rule your niche? Be customer-centric! It can be your key to survive in today’s cutthroat competition.

Leverage buyer-centric content to deliver real value to your customers. Otherwise, selling your products or services can be an uphill task because customers hate product-centric tone.

So, you have to maintain a balance with your social media posts. In short, you have to avoid being too vain or too flattering!

Talking about your products or services all the time may leave your audience annoyed. So, give priority to your customers Create your content primarily for your users which should be a mix of information, fun, humor, and sales posts.

3.     Never Link Social Channels Together

Many people live under the impression that if you have to fully harness the power of social media, auto-sync all channels. Please do not!

Instead, identify your ideal customers including their population, location, age, gender, and interests to create relevant posts. It will help you narrow down your focus to be more effective. Keep platform relevance in your mind while creating a social media marketing plan for 2017.

While Linkedin demands a professional approach, Twitter needs to be crisp, and Facebook calls for a casual tone. Devise a unique strategy for each social platform.

Linking and auto-syncing make it difficult to be engaging and fruitful across channels. Never automate your posts! Otherwise, most of them will be a miss rather than a hit! Automating posts would be like overwhelming your target audience with unnecessary posts that have nothing to do with them. Consequently, your target audience may unlike or unfollow you after getting irritated seeing your useless post on their feed.

Identify the platform your target audience spend the time most on. In addition to it, to make things easier, you can try these 10 apps to amplify your social media marketing.

Keep it clear in your mind that embracing social media marketing does not refer to “one size fits all solution.” Different platforms have a different audience, and you have to deliver according to their content ingestion pattern.

4.     Use High-Quality Images/Videos

Whenever we discuss social media marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is interactive posts. No doubt, content is ubiquitous! And, without content, no form of marketing in digital space would work.

Numerous organizations that leverage social media marketing use high-quality images to make their post engaging. On the flipside, there is no shortage of companies that do not stress much on pictures and videos. Things like images, infographics, videos, and games are some types of interactive content, and interactive content is the future of content marketing!

Thus, use quality images and videos in your posts. Posts with images have the higher probability of getting clicked and opened. Think if graphics you are using in your posts are not enticing, then why would anyone click? So, if you want to make the most of your social media posts, make them compelling to boost your click through & open rate.

5.     Identify Your Hashtags

Social media has the power to make things viral in moments. So, hashtags are something that you cannot skip when drafting your social media plan 2017. Hashtags are your target keywords or the combination of keywords that are immediately used after # symbol without any space. Using hashtags in your posts is one of the best ways to reach your potential audience.

Further, hashtags increase the posts’ visibility to give outstanding reach to the unexplored audience. Using hashtags in your posts will help you gain tremendous recognition globally. So, keep hashtags in your checklist when drafting a social strategy..

However, you have to be cautious while using hashtags in your posts because if you use the wrong ones, the message you want to convey may reach irrelevant audience, and all your effort will go down the drain.

So, identify the hashtags in your niche to target the right audience. Proper use of hashtags in your posts can help you go trending

6.     Build Conversation

What a majority of businesses do is that they put all the efforts to creating an impressive infographic, post it, and forget it. This is a mistake! It leaves you devoid of the real payoff for your labor.

Whether you are posting infographics or redirecting audience to your corporate website from your social media posts, try to finish your content at a point that motivates your prospects to communicate. Always leave scope for communication so that they could freely ask what they want. And, it is your responsibility to answer to their queries.

Do remember what Down Crowther says, “People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want. They don’t do business with you to help you get what you want.”

So, the only way to attract your audience towards your brand is to spark the conversation and be ready to answer their queries, it has two benefits – giving answers will make you credible, and engagement would increase the chances of conversion.

7.     Measure & Monitor Your Efforts

Review, revise, and rework your efforts to make them worthwhile. You will not be able to improve until you know your flaws. Therefore, always measure and monitor your efforts. For this, keep a close eye on the analytics offered by social platforms. By using analytics, you would be able to know your brand mentions, engagement, click-through rates, likes, shares, retweets, and other crucial metrics.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

Working on your flaws helps you be on track, and if you follow the right path, it will further help you hit the bull’s eye.

Conclusion

2017 is all about Content and Social. If you do it right, you survive; if not, you might as well embrace oblivion. The right plan will take to your goals. To ensure that your social media plan 2017 performs, keep the 7 things as mentioned above in your mind.

What extra can we add to the above list? Share your valuable feedback below!