Creating your personal Social Media Marketing Plan is an important and necessary part of promoting a business online.

My social media marketing has taken various forms over the last 2 years since I started my business online. In the beginning, I used to spam my links like crazy in Facebook groups and Google Plus communities, with no results. Now, I post with a purpose and a strategy designed to build my brand, increase my authority and attract my target audience. The techniques described in this article are derived from my own experience of trial and error over the past 3 years.

The Components of a Good Social Media Marketing Plan

A good social media marketing plan should be comprised of the following minimum components:

Goals & Objectives

Before you make your first post on social media you need to define your goals and objectives. There are 2 important reasons to do this as your first step. First, the results you hope to achieve will impact the content and nature of your posts. For example, your posts may be quite different if you are trying to build an MLM team versus trying to increase product sales in a health and wellness company. Second, you need to have clearly defined goals to measure your results against. For example, “I want to get more Twitter followers” is not a measurable goal. Rather, “I want to increase my Twitter followers by 1,000 each week” is a goal you can measure as compared to your weekly results.

Defining Your Ideal Customer

In Step 2 of Create a Powerful Social Media Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps, MLSP explains “Defining your audience and truly understanding who you are creating your content for will help determine where you should be promoting.” This is a critical step that must be completed before moving on with your social media marketing plan. As you will see in the next step, Selection of The Proper Social Media Sites, each social media platform tends to attract users from different demographics. Therefore, it is important to know who you are trying to reach before selecting the best place to reach them.

Selection of The Proper Social Media Sites

If you have spent any time on more than one social media platform, you already know the obvious, each social media site is different. It’s important to know the significant differences in each platform so you know how to use them. Always remember, what works on one site may or may not work on another. Understanding this is important so you don’t waste your time or worse yet, get frustrated and give up. According to How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business published on Inc.com, “Owners shouldn’t think in terms of this service or that one, but look at all the options to develop a strategy.” Explaining all of the differences in the major social media platforms is beyond the scope of this article. For more information, check out Which Social Media Channel is Best For My Business? by MLSP.

Development of Valuable Content

Content for purposes of your social media strategy can take several forms. This can be a blog article you write, simple ad copy you write, content you find on the web, or content written on your behalf. Each of these types of content can be valuable in their own way. Finding and sharing great content can be especially beneficial if you are just starting out. You will find this is one of the quickest ways to build your brand and increase your authority. Here are a couple resources to help you get started with content development…

Posting & Interaction On Your Selected Sites

The best advice I can give here is, do not start posting randomly on your selected sites. Your posts should be given careful thought and be well-planned before you begin. Remember, regardless of your business objective, your posting objective is to provide value and attract your target market to you. As a general rule of thumb, approximately 80% of your posts should be designed to provide value as well as personal information that reveals a bit about you and your values. Approximately 20% of your posts should be about your product or service with the intention of actually making a sale. The total number of posts you should make per day will vary based on the site as well as your following. How Frequently You Should Post on Social Media According to the Pros, from Forbes.com is a good starting point. Finally, social media is called “social” media for a reason, it’s a place to be social. Make sure you set aside some time to communicate, interact with others, and work on building your network. If you are in it to merely post your own content and walk away, you will be quickly disappointed with your lack of results.

Creating Your Social Media Marketing Plan for Maximum Success