Your Social Media Plan, What to Post, and How to Post It

By: Madeleine Pinomesa

Social media marketing is “the practice of using social media channels to sell or promote a brand, product, or service.” Social media marketing is most effective when there is a plan that aligns with the audience’s interest to help know what to post and how to post social media content. The social media plans are strategies used to strengthen the overall profile and successfully promote a brand, product, or service, so when social media platforms use these plans and resources to their full potential, brand awareness will increase as well as customers and many other things. It is important to understand how significant social media is for all businesses, so multiple concepts need to be considered and incorporated into the social media marketing plan of what is posted.
The first thing that needs to be clearly understood when making a social media plan is to establish a realistic starting point, and this can be accomplished through a SWOT analysis. By creating a SWOT analysis, the business gains a better understanding of the marketing environment by determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the company. Knowing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a company creates a base that all social media can then be built off. This also allows business owners to recognize the key concepts that will allow their company to strive on different social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, among many others. Following the SWOT analysis, business owners will recognize who they are targeting and learn to create content that will resonate well with that target market. Objectives can then be made concerning the information collected from the SWOT analysis and target market. Objectives help a business define its goals and the intentions of its social media marketing. Objectives are one of the biggest parts of a marketing plan because they position a company in the right direction and allow for successful outcomes since decisions are based on the company’s best interest when they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.
With these three main concepts in mind, social media planning becomes more compelling and engaging for the audience. It also allows business owners to resonate well with at least one social media platform that communicates through photos, videos, polls, user-generated content, blog posts, and endless other content. It is necessary to take advantage of these tools, work with all parts of the social media plan, and include the audience’s interests to establish a constant and strong company brand that can be represented through social media. 
Although these few concepts are necessary for social media success, it is also important to find ways to maximize your reach to create long-lasting content and then continue to advance your social media marketing plan. For example, when following these social media marketing steps, remain constant with your company motto and message, be authentic to your company’s mission and brand values through organic and original content, like, comment, and share content that resonates with your brand, create engaging social media posts. These are a few examples are of ideas that can be posted in your social media marketing plan, but there are always more ways to engage with customers, increase brand awareness, and continuously add to your plan if you have a starting base for your company. Social media marketing plans might not always seem important, but they will allow a business to see where they are at, where they want to be in the future, and how they can get there, so do not give up if you feel like you are not accomplishing anything or getting immediate results. 

Don't be afraid to get started and get to posting. Keep your content flowing and test what works and what doesn't work. Just remember, enjoy the process.