To create a social media plan that works it is important to follow some basic steps, here are what they are.

The definition of a social media plan is an important moment in the creation of a corporate communication strategy. However, it is necessary to follow some fundamental steps to implement an effective social media strategy. So what are the constituent elements of a social media plan and what is their relevance in the context of communicating the values ​​of a brand?

Social media strategy, how to define objectives and budgets

The first step of a social media plan is to define what the goals you want to achieve are. This element is essential in order to then be able to evaluate the performance of the channels used and demonstrate the ROI, or the Return on Investment. The objectives that you are going to choose must be in line with those established in the general marketing strategy, so that the social media strategy is oriented towards the same purposes of the entire communication department.

Avoid focusing only on goals such as the number of likes on Facebook or shares on Twitter: instead, opt for more advanced goals, such as the amount of traffic that arrives on your site or the opinions generated by the posts you share. To ensure that your social media plan is effective, try to set yourself goals that are:

• specific;
• measurable;
• reachable;
• relevant;
• Defined in an established time frame.

Then carefully evaluate what the result of a given goal will be and rely on that result to measure the performance and progress of your social media strategy. It is also important to define a specific budget to allocate for social media activity. This budget will generally be dedicated to an investment in advertising on the various channels, in order to be able to reach the previously set goals more quickly and easily.

Social media management, why take inspiration from the competition

To plan and implement an effective social media plan, another important step is competitor analysis. The latter, in fact, represents a wealth of knowledge that you have at your disposal, from which you can take inspiration and inspiration in the realization of your social media strategy. Through the analysis of competitors it is possible to understand which contents attract the attention of users the most and which activities can distinguish you on social networks.

The study of how the competition deals with social media management will also help you take a cue to set up the response messages to users. For example, you can study the style with which competitors provide feedback to users in the Facebook funnel, imitating the best models or analyzing which tone of voice performs best with your community.

What is the importance of style and tone of voice in a social editorial plan?

The choice of the tone of voice and the style to be adopted for the posts that you will program on your social channels is an essential element to be defined in the social media strategy phase. Through these two factors, in fact, the personality of the company or brand is communicated to customers or potential customers.

On social networks it is possible to establish a real dialogue with users. For this reason, the style and tone of voice adopted must not only represent the image of the brand, but also use a user friendly language. In this sense it is important to remember to speak the same language as the customers present online so as not to fall into the risk of speaking in a self-referential way and appearing to them as incomprehensible and distant, with the consequent distance of the same from the brand.

How to choose the right channels and create a social editorial plan that works?

Another aspect that characterizes the creation of an effective social media plan is the definition of the online channels with which you will communicate with customers. It is often thought that presiding over any social platform is the winning strategy. In reality this is not the case and, on the contrary, this practice could prove counterproductive in the long run: the presence on every social network, in fact, could involve a difficult management of all channels, with a consequent penalization of the brand image.

It is important to identify the social platforms where you can intercept your target audience, also choosing them based on the characteristics of the products or services you offer and the objectives you set for yourself in the initial phase of building the social media plan.

The different social networks can be managed for different purposes: LinkedIn and Facebook to create specific posts on company products and services, Twitter to convey content with links to blog posts and your website and Instagram to communicate the corporate style through images.

In this phase, it also becomes important to clearly define an editorial plan. This is a useful tool to summarize in a single grid the various steps that make up the creation of a social media plan. The advice is to create an editorial plan month by month, within which the main items to be included will be:

• timing , indicating the days and times of publication of the posts;
• number of weekly publications;
• type of address book ;
• copy of posts;
• graphics;
• advertising budget ;
• KPI on which to set the advertising campaign;
• target audience;
• any tracked links that refer to blog posts or pages of the site;
• Note.

The social publishing plan must reflect the objectives identified, the strategy chosen, the corporate style and above all must adapt to the pre-established channel.

Social media plan, the measurement of results

The definition of the social media plan necessarily implies also the measurement of the results obtained and the ROI starting from its implementation. Periodically you will have to test and verify the progress of activities on social networks, while the links that refer to blog posts or pages of the site will be constantly tracked through UTM to get evidence of how much qualified traffic arrives on your brand portal. You can then choose to use tools such as Hootsuite and Google Analytics, to check the success of a social campaign and how much traffic arrives on your site through the selected channels, respectively.