What is a Social Media Plan?

A social media plan outlines your strategy and specific objectives for each social media platform you have outlined in your marketing plan. 

Your social media plan should outline which platforms your business is active on and how often you will post content.

A social media plan is effective in: 

-       Maintaining consistent posting schedules across all social media platforms

-       Avoiding last minute panic and rushing to find content to share

-       Allowing you to keep up to date and utilise trending topics.

Of course, it’s important that you recognise the differences between social media platforms when it comes to creating content and the frequency in which you post. You need to also understand that a post that may work on Facebook may not be suited to LinkedIn and some platforms such as Instagram will lend themselves more to visual posts. It’s imperative you acknowledge the strengths of each platform as you put your social media plan together.

As with any type of plan in your business whether it’s your marketing, content or social media plan, it should have some flexibility to adjust with the changes that may take place within your business or industry.

If you would like help putting together your social media plan, contact Absolute Marketing Communications.

Why You Need A Content Marketing Plan

With so many businesses being online today, content plays a key role in driving customers to your website. It’s the means to which you get people to your site and build trust. This is especially important in a time when there is so much competition.

 So, what is content marketing and how do you use it to get people to your site? 

Blogs, video, social media posts and anything else that tells a story, informs, educates or entertains is content. 

Why is content marketing important?

-       It builds trust and credibility by showing you know what you are talking about.

-       It enables people to engage and get to know you and your product before buying.

-       Fresh content with well-placed keywords is more likely to get picked up by Google.

-       It assists in driving more traffic to your website which can then be converted to sales.

 It’s well and good to have good quality content but how do you deliver it so that it plays it’s part in adding value to your brand and entices customers to purchase? The best way is to have a content marketing plan.

A content marketing plan outlines your topic streams and what sort of content you will produce. It may be blogs, video, social posts, live streams etc. It also outlines how and where you are going to publish and promote them.

 How do you go about creating a content marketing plan?

1.     Firstly, determine what is the right content for your business. Conduct a review of your current content to see what performed well and what didn’t perform so well. Understanding the performance of current content will help with planning future content. Try to structure content around key activities in your business. If you are launching a new product or service, create content that supports that. 

2.     Once, you have determined what you will be communicating about, work out what you want your content to do. Your content marketing needs to have a goal. Do you want your content to build brand awareness, generate leads or increase sales? Once you determine the goal then you can create content that aims to achieve that goal.

 3.     Now you need to decide how you will present your content. Content is now so much more than written content. Videos, infographics, podcasts and live streams etc all have a place in the content marketing plan. You need to decide how best to get your message across and how effective that medium is in getting your audience to respond.

 4.     You have your content sorted; how often will you post? Will it be daily, weekly or monthly?

 5.     Promotion is a key part of your content marketing. It’s great to have content available but how will you let your audience know it’s there to view? Social media posts, email, forums etc are effective ways to promote your content. Keep in mind your promotion methods should be based on you ideal customers preferences for consuming content.

Creating a content marketing plan doesn’t need to be hard. It’s all about working out what content is best suited to your business and your ideal customer and how best to promote it.

If you would like help in developing a content marketing plan, contact Absolute Marketing Communications.

Living Vs Existing

Often in life, people talk about only existing and not actually living. It often takes a life-changing event for people to realise they’re not living life to it’s full potential.

The same can be said for small business. Often small business owners get caught up in the usual day to day activities without giving thought to the potential they can unlock to make their business prosper. It’s the whole philosophy of working in the business versus working on the business. Often it comes down to managing the work you have and not creating an unnecessary increase in workload.

While Covid-19 has had a negative impact on life in general, for some aspects of life there have been positives. The big positive is that families suddenly have more time to spend together. While there have been negative effects for a lot of business sectors, in some cases small business owners have had an opportunity to evaluate their businesses and implement some positive changes to help their businesses move forward.

 While no one has enjoyed the down-turn in business, this quiet time has provided small business owners with the time to actively promote their business and look at new ways to expand and grow. Time; that up until now wasn’t available.

What can you do to improve your business during this time?

-       Update websites (re-design, write new copy etc)

-       Update social media pages (re-vamp existing profiles or start new ones on other platforms you have not yet explored)

-       Research resources designed to help you promote your business (business directories, forums etc)

-       Database management (ensure your databases are current)

-       Work on content (blog articles, EDMs etc)

Working on these aspects of your business can give you a great sense of accomplishment and allow you to put processes in place that will ultimately help you to work smarter not harder.

If you would like assistance with any of your marketing communications activities, drop us a line. We’d be glad to help.