Friday, January 06, 2012
Your Social Media Plan
Using Social Media for marketing is efficient and sholud give you a very high ROI compared to other marketing methods both online and offline. In this article I will look at the importance of a good Social Media Plan and how I think you should plan and work with your online marketing.
Overview and the "big" lines.
When working with your Social Media Plan the first thing you need to do is to get an overview of what you want to do, what your goals are and so on. I call this the "big" lines. For example if you are just starting on with a new Facebook Page for your business the "big" line would be something like this:
Next we need to figure out how we should target these potential fans and how we turn the into fans. There are several ways to do this - let's take a quick look at a few of them.
Overview and the "big" lines.
When working with your Social Media Plan the first thing you need to do is to get an overview of what you want to do, what your goals are and so on. I call this the "big" lines. For example if you are just starting on with a new Facebook Page for your business the "big" line would be something like this:
GET FANS/LIKES -> KEEP FANS -> TURN FANS TO CLIENTS -> TURN CLIENTS INTO LOYAL CLIENTS
When seeing this it looks very obvious of course, but the fact is that a lot of businesses forgets about the "big" lines and one of the biggest mistakes is that many businesses tries to jump form "get fans" to "turn fans into loyal clients" without taking care of the points inbetween. If you do this correctly you will get to the end of the "big" line as well and that is "Turn Fans & Clients into Marketing Channels".
Ok, lets have a look at the points in our "big" line and see how we can turn this into a Social Media Plan.
Get Started
Get Fans/Likes
You need a budget!
There is a cost to any marketing, so also Social Media Marketing. The first thing you should do is to make a budget for your Social Media Marketing. The most important points to this budget are:Social Media Management
Someone needs to take care of your Social Media Marketing. This can be someone inhous or you can outsource to a professional Social Media Manager like Netxolutions. The cost of this variates depending on how your Social Media Plan looks. But it can be anywhere from $ 500 to several thousand a month. Most likely you will get the best ROI using a external professional.
Online Advertising
Remeber to set enough funds to do online marketing. The good thing about PPC advertising on Facebook and Google is that you have 100% control on your spending. If you today use only offline marketing and your overall budget on this is $ 5,000 per month you should at least use 40% of this on online marketing. Remember that online marketing does not come in addition to your other marketing it comes together - so what you should do is to move some of your spending from offline marketing to online marketing.
Offline Advertising
As I have talked about earlier you need to look at your total budget. If you have not don online marketing before you should reduce your offline marketing budget and put those funds towards online marketing. The first time around however you need th think about extra costs for new business cards, letterheads, invoices, roll-ups, clothing etc. I will talk more about that later in this article.
Design and Layout
You should make sure your business profile is also reflected on your Facebook Page, Twitter profile and YouTube Channel. Getting these designed by a professional like us is not as expensive as many think, and it is a cost you need to take.
Other "production" costs
Depending on your Social Media Plan you will also get costs on video production, photos, copywriting, banner production etc. Talk to your Social Media Manager about this.
Get Fans/Likes
This is the first crutial point to your Social Media Plan, and this is the point that many businesses gets it wrong. Getting fans is of course very important, but it is not the number of fans that is important it is the quality. A quality fan is a fan that is in your target group. If your business in selling cars your target group is totally different from a hotel. So your first job is to define your target group - who are your clients?
- Geographical area
- Age and sex
- Education level
- Interests
Next we need to figure out how we should target these potential fans and how we turn the into fans. There are several ways to do this - let's take a quick look at a few of them.
Facebook Advertising
If you are looking for Likes/Fans this is the best way to get them. Sure you can get thousands and thousands of likes from all over the world through "guaranteed likes" services for a very low price, but this is not really tha fans you want. Using Facebook Advertising however you can target your ads towards exactly the people you want as your fans. To get the most out of your advertising you should use a service like Netxolutions to manage your campaign for you - chanses are you will get more out of your budget using a professional that you would get doing it all by yourself.
Sweepstakes and other competitions
Use sweepstakes, quizes, video competitions, photo competitions and any other kind of insentive to get fans/likes. There are many ways to do this, and you can take a look at some examples on our Facebook Page. (Video Competition - Essay Competition - Sweepstakes )
Other online marekting
Getting fans and likes is obviously best done through Facebook Ads, but never forget about Google, Bing, Yahoo and other sites. You should consider at least also a Google PPC campaign. As with Facebook Ads you can and should use a professional.
Offline marekting
Even thoug you should use more and more of your marketing budget doing online marketing you should not forget about your offline marketing. Offline marketing is not only newspaper ads, radio spots and tv. Also remember you flyers, business cards, invoices, posters, signs, stickers, roll-ups, folders, clothing etc. All of these shoul include your Facebook URI. Also remember that you can do many exciting things with QR-codes and mobile platforms.
Keep Fans
Keeping your Fans is essential, and to do this you need to engage your fans. This is not easy, and this is the point you need to use the most time. If you get this point wrong, you can simply forget about the next steps. So, let us take a look at what you can do to achive this.
First off all - you should take a look at our FREE Video Seminar that we offer from our Facebook Page.
First off all - you should take a look at our FREE Video Seminar that we offer from our Facebook Page.
Forget your brand, products and you!!
This is the biggest difference between traditional marketing and Social Media Marketing. People simply not care about you, your products, your brand or your business anymore. The only thing they really care about is; "Me - right here - right Now!"
So what does this mean for you? Well you need to change your thinking - you should not think about what you want your audience to want, but what they really want. And this is the secret to keeping fans - giving them what they want, and what they want is to be engaded. They want to communicate, they want to be entertained, they want to communicate and the want it right now - right here.
Create Curiosity
If you for example are launching a new product, dont tell it all at once. Simply reveal a tiny bit firstand get your clients to guess what it is. Use Sweepstakes or other competitions to get the fuzz going.
Listen and Converse
Never ever ignore your fans. If a fan ask for something, try to answer as fast as possible. If a fan writes a complaint on your Facebook Page, don't delete it - answer it. With good ansers and good communication you can turn complaints into good promotion in no time.
Engage - engage - engage
Engading your fans is so much more easy than you think. Ask a question, post a poll, ask for pictures, videos etc. If your business is a Hotel you can for example ask; "What is your best vacation memory?"
Provide good relevant content
If you start doing Social Media Marketing you need to keep it going. Provide information on your sites on a regular basis. A dead page is a forgotten page.
Adapt
If anything of what yopu do is not working - Change It! Listen to your fans and adapt!
Turn Fans Into Clients
If you get the Keep Fans part right you will find that this point comes fairly easy. If you have fans that are engadged you will turn them into clients. A few things you can do to make this easier are:
Reward your fans
Create giveaways, special Facebook offers, coupons when they become a fan and exclusive footage. Provide information and material that they won’t find everywhere else. A satisfied fan shares!
Turn Clients Into Loyal Clients
More of the same. Give your clients special "unlock codes" to special Facebook Offers only avilable to clients. Start a client loyalty club, Start a "by Invitation only" Facebook Group just for your clients.
The possibilities are limitless - and you should take advantage!!
The possibilities are limitless - and you should take advantage!!
Turn Fans & Clients Into Marketing Channels
This is the point I really love with Social Media Marketing. If you get all the other things in this article right your fans and clients will become your new and most powerful marketing channel. They will share, tweet, reccomend, like, re-tweet, link and blog about you and your business without you even asking them to.
This is where the power of Social Media is - your marketing goes viral!
Next
In the next article I will talk more in debt about using Sweepstakes and Giweaways on Facebook.
This is where the power of Social Media is - your marketing goes viral!
Next
In the next article I will talk more in debt about using Sweepstakes and Giweaways on Facebook.
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