Lesson #1
LESSON NOTES: SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN
Social media is a crucial component of the marketing plan for every business owner, both large and small. With 7 out of 10 Gen Xer’s purchasing something from a brand they follow, 30% of millennials engaging monthly with a brand they follow on social, and 60% of baby boomers looking for promotions on social media (reference Sprout Social), the days of flying fast and free without a social media plan for your business are over and done. Using the steps below we will walk you through the process of determining which social media platforms are the most valuable for your niche client and market and exactly how these clients can get the most value from your content. We will then develop an exact plan and schedule for creating valuable content and posting it to your clients in order to gain the largest amount of engagement.
PLATFORMS
As with most of your marketing decisions, determining which social media platform(s) to use for your business is largely based on the behavior of your niche client. Often, I recommend surveying your current ideal clients as well as their lookalikes (i.e. Other individuals that share similar goals, demographics and behaviors as your niche client), in order to discover (a) which platforms your niche client actively uses and (b) how they use these platforms for shopping, engaging and information gathering with businesses and brands (i.e. Search for reviews, inspiration, instruction, bargains, etc).
EXERCISE
While considering the following list of social media platforms, please select the top platform that your niche client would possibly use in locating, researching or connecting with your type of brand and business (NOTE: Using questions 1 to 3 below on a client survey or Facebook survey would be an ideal way to determine which platforms your ideal client would use for locating services like yours and how they use these platforms.)
___ FACEBOOK
___ INSTAGRAM
___ LINKEDIN
___ NEXTDOOR
___ TIKTOK
___ TWITTER
___ YOUTUBE
___ OTHER: ___________________
2. For the platform you selected, list the two leading ways your client currently interacts with this platform. Consider these ideas when deciding on their typical interaction:
Search for Reviews, Writing Reviews
Education and Learning from Content
Gaining Inspiration
Searching for Bargains and Deals
PLATFORM:
TYPICAL CLIENT INTERACTION:
3. Estimate the frequency of their interaction with the platform
Once Daily
Throughout each day
Weekly
Monthly
PLATFORM :
CLIENT FREQUENCY OF INTERACTION:
YOUR GOAL FOR FREQUENCY OF POSTING EACH WEEK:
4. Based on the leading platform for your clients, do you currently have an account on this platforms or will you need to set one up?
5. In order to maintain consistent account names and business branding across all platforms, what are the available names (if unique account names are required) that would work well for your brand?
6. For several of the platforms mentioned above, you have a decision to make about creating both personal and business accounts. See the details and links below for more information on making these decisions. (NOTE: Do NOT create any new accounts until you have fully completed this assignment as some of your social media decisions will be dependent on the time and budget availability you currently have for the work required to keep the account up to date):
Facebook: Creating a Personal and a Business Page
How to Create a Business Page LINK
Instagram: Pros and Cons of Having a Business Page + a Personal Page
The advantages of having an Instagram business page - LINK
LinkedIn: Setting up your Personal + Company Page
How to create a company page - LINK
Twitter: Creating a Personal and a Business Profile
How to Create a Business Profile - LINK
Youtube: Creating a Personal Profile and Business Channel
How to create a business channel - LINK
GOALS
Now that you have determined the leading type of social media for your niche client and business, we need to decide on the specific goals and purpose behind your content on this platform? Using the list below for inspiration, for your leading social media platform, determine one to three goals for content that you will have for each platform:
Locate new clients
Introduce Yourself
Online bio/resume
Share personal data about yourself to become more relatable
Teaching: Showing viewers how to exercise, eat, live, etc
Brand development
How do you plan on building your brand throughout all of your posts?
What will consistently tie your posts to the principles and philosophies that you have built your business around?
How will your posts differentiate your business from your competitors?
Inspiring: Showing you and trainers leading healthy lives, quotes, Pics,
Testimonials/Social Proof
Increase Follower Count? Why?
Reference: Sharing your blogs, as well as content from like minded experts or publications
Sample Workouts: Detailing specific ideas on programming for certain goals
Announcements/Promotions: i.e. Events at your facility, Events in your Area, Healthy Products
Other: ____________________________
PLATFORM :
GOALS:
If Instagram is your leading platform, another helpful exercise is to plan out your company’s home screen on Instagram and the first nine tiles/posts that show under your company header. For example, at DIAKADI, our ideal posting schedule might look like this for our leading nine Instagram tiles/posts:
For Instagram users, use the blank grid below to create an ideal list/schedule for posting each type of content you selected above.
SCHEDULE
Based on your leading social media platform, we need to determine an exact schedule for your content creation as well as your posting schedule for interactive platforms. This scheduling process will help you understand the amount of time required to meet your ideal goals for posting and eventually give you insight into whether or not you have the bandwidth to handle the content creation and posting schedule yourself, or if you need to hire help for these.
CONTENT CREATION
For the goals your listed above for content and frequency of posting, for your leading platform, estimate the weekly time commitment you will have for creating this content:
PLATFORM :
WEEKLY TIME COMMITMENT:
A RECOMMENDATION: If you are like me, you frequently will come up with brilliant ideas for social media posts as I am walking down the street, or maybe even while I am laying in bed at night. I highly recommend keeping a running list of these ideas, ideally somewhere central to you at all times (ie. Using ‘Notes’ on your phone), so that you can refer to it for inspiration during your content creation work.
POSTING
Based on your current schedule as well as your engagement goals, how frequently do you plan on posting for your leading platform?
PLATFORM :
POSTING FREQUENCY GOAL:
The majority of your posting schedule decisions should be made based on your niche client’s typical schedule for using the platform. Using the analytics for each of your platforms (i.e. Instagram Insights - LINK for details) can be very helpful in deciding the most beneficial days and times to post content for maximize client interaction. Based on your frequency plan above, what days and times do you plan on posting for each of your leading platform?
PLATFORM :
POSTING SCHEDULE DAYS/TIMES:
A RECOMMENDATION: We have found GREAT success in using the app called Later to preload our Instagram posts for the week on a single day, and then the app will automatically post these on your specified day and time. I recommend considering this same method once your schedule has been created.
HINTS: To reduce the amount of time required to post similar content on several platforms, we recommend using the automation tools available to share content automatically between platforms. For example, if you link your accounts, when you post on Instagram, you can automatically post the same content on your Facebook account. (LINK for details) There are also products on the market, such as Hootsuite which assist with streamlining your posting work on multiple platforms.
OUTREACH/ENGAGEMENT WORK
The last consideration for weekly schedule will be the amount of time you set aside for outreach and engagement with your current and future clients through each of the platforms. Based on your current availability of time, how many hours per week can you devote to connecting, following, engaging with your current followers as well as creating new connections?
PLATFORM :
WEEKLY ENGAGEMENT GOAL:
BUILD A ONE MONTH MARKETING PLAN
Using all of the information you have gathered above, build out a sample first month plan and calendar around the posts and marketing work you would like to accomplish in your first month. This plan should help in giving you a clear idea about how much work and time commitment this will require each month.
PLATFORM :
ACCOUNT NAME:
GOALS FOR THIS PLATFORM/ACCOUNT:
POSTING SCHEDULE/FREQUENCY PLAN:
CONTENT CREATION SCHEDULE PLAN:
SOCIAL MEDIA PLANNING CALENDAR
Using the blank calendar below, calendar appointments for the following:
Content creation work
Posting schedule
Outreach/Engagement work
NOW GET TO WORK
Building out the sample social media calendar above is the final planning step to take. You now have all the information you need for get started on the following:
Based on your client preferences and your current bandwidth (timewise and budget) you can now create the necessary social media accounts/pages/profiles (both personal and business)
You can calendar out your commitments for content creation, posting, and engagement
Start following your plan, creating content, and posting on your leading accounts.
Consistently review your the analytics and insights for all of your social media accounts, as well as your website, to monitor which of your social media platforms are providing the biggest bang for the buck results for you and your business.
Get to it and GOOD LUCK!
RECOMMENDED REFERENCE
We gathered together a group of four trainers that are Instagram power users, all with their own unique style and set of strengths. I recommend using this LINK to check out their presentations and advice for growing your most successful following on Instagram.
