As with just about any other endeavor in life, a successful social media campaign requires a basic 3-step process: 1) Research/Preparation, 2) Execution, 3) Evaluation. Fluttering Ivy Media does all three.
STEP 1: Research/Preparation - Your Social Media Action Plan
A Social Media Action Plan is a step-by-step strategy for running your social media campaign across all relevant networking sites. This original blueprint is one I will create specifically for you based on the unique nature of your industry, business, goals and personality.
This customized Social Media Action Plan helps you:
1) Create a statement of intention that reflects your ultimate goal in terms of how you want your social media networking to help people improve their lives
2) Focus your statement of intention into educational and/or entertaining content that your connections will want to share with theirs
3) Make key connections and engage in ways that will build your network on a strong foundation of mutual interest, respect and trust.
Your Social Media Action Plan includes:
Interview for you to share the nature of your business/endeavor, industry, goals, apprehensions, expectations and just to give me a general idea of who you are, as communicating voice and personality is key to social media success
Comprehensive review of your current social media presence
Detailed, customized Social Media Action Plan unique to you and what you do
Blog Plan regarding:
- Your focus
- Frequency
- Topics
- Title
- Length
- Format
- Images
- Videos
- SEO
- Linking
- Tags and categories
- Social media icon integration
- Promotion
- Comments
- Blog directories
- Other as identified
Twitter Plan regarding:
- Your profile
- URL link
- Settings
- Background
- Tweet frequency
- Automated tweets
- Blog promotion
- Video promotion
- RTs
- Replies
- Mentions
- DMs
- Link sharing
- Lists
- Favorites
- SEO
- Hashtags
- Trending topics
- Search tool
- Who to follow
- Who not to follow
- Following/follower ratios
- Twitter directories
- Twitter chats
- Other as identified
Facebook Plan regarding:
- Your personal profile
- Fan/business page
- Privacy issues
- Update frequency
- Blog promotion
- Link sharing
- Info profile
- Photos
- Videos
- Events
- News
- Discussions
- Comments
- Building fan base
- Facebook ads
- Other as identified
LinkedIn Plan regarding:
- Your personal bio
- Business page
- Links
- Updates
- Recommendations
- Building your network
- Other as identified
YouTube Channel Plan regarding:
- Your profile
- Focus
- Video ideas
- Video length
- Video titles
- Video descriptions
- SEO
- Upload frequency
- Favorites
- Getting subscribers
- Your own subscriptions
- Comments
- Other as identified
Flickr Plan regarding:
- Your profile
- Focus
- Photo ideas
- Photo titles
- Photo descriptions
- SEO
- Collections
- Sets
- Galleries
- Slideshows
- Friends
- Comments
- Promotion
- Other as identified
Other social media sites may be added to the Social Media Plan as requested or recommended, such as:
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Groupon
- Tumblr
- Google+
- Meetup
- Quora
- Ning
- Eventful
- Eventbrite
- Care2
- Kickstarter
- Crowdrise
STEP 2: Execution – Social Media Marketing
With a quality Social Media Action Plan laid out like a blueprint before you, it’s time to put this plan into action with the day-to-day duties associated with executing a successful social media campaign. As your social media campaign manager, I provide the following services across all social media sites outlined in your Action Plan:
- Follow news relevant to your niche market
- Post content in a compelling, SEO-friendly manner
- Build a quality following
- Involve people in genuine conversations
- Engage with key influencers relevant to your market
- Share the content of others that is relevant to your niche
STEP 3: Analysis - Social Media ROI
One of the biggest mistakes a business can make with social media is entering into it expecting immediate results (i.e., sales). On the contrary, social media networking is just that — an opportunity to engage with people who are interested in information, opinions and genuine conversations, not sales pitches. Get to know people, and let them get to know you; it’s hard to imagine a more ideal scenario for building your brand and your business.
If you want to know the return on your investment in a social media campaign, look at:
- Your level of engagement with followers, fans and/or viewers
- How often people are clicking on your shared links
- How often your content is shared
- Relationships built with key influencers
- Traffic generated to your website
And give it time. It’s important that we stick to your Action Plan, executing it diligently for a full 3 months. Then we’ll do a comprehensive analysis, evaluating the 5 main ROI indicators outlined above. We’ll tweak your Action Plan accordingly and get back to the guts of social media — having fun!
With gratitude,
Meredith Simonds, Social Media Reviewer, Blogger and Consultant
