Create a social media marketing plan with this 6-step approach

Today, social media has become a go-to-market strategy and a key element that drives your business growth. So every startup and emerging company has developed a social media plan that is strategically backed by a social media budget.

While budgeting ensures you have the funds to meet your goals, it can be difficult to plan your social media spending or make the right decisions about which channels you want to invest in.

However, living in the digital age has made it clear that there is no one-size-fits-all concept for developing a social media budget. Each company has its own goals and resources to achieve those goals.

In such a situation, marketers need to ask themselves how much they intend to invest in their social media plan, which will eventually help them acquire new leads and new sales.

Here’s a six-step approach to designing an optimized social media budget for your business.

Know your audience

Social media isn’t just a quick way to build a profitable small business; this may influence a user’s purchasing decisions. As an entrepreneur, before investing money, time, and resources on social media, you need to know your purpose and your target audience.

Remember, your ultimate goal shouldn’t be to get sales, but to build long-term trust and branding with people.

Social media influences consumer buying behavior and creates a voice for your brand. Therefore, relationship building and customer retention must come first.

You need to reconsider your business goals if your sole motive is to sell a product through social media rather than building relationships.

Choose the right media platforms

Social media platforms have different cultures and different values ​​to offer. Choosing the right media platform doesn’t have to be the best/most popular platform, because there’s the right one for every business.

Before you start, ask yourself which social media platform your target audience is most active on?

There is no guarantee of producing results for your campaign if you invest in multiple social media platforms without doing your research. Understand how each social media platform works for your business using “testing methods or strategies,” and you’ll be on your way to taking your next big step.

Initially, you may need to invest some money in the main social media advertising channels. A good tip is to run smaller campaigns and test everything to determine whether or not you should stick to one channel.

Create a user-friendly value proposition

If you want to stand out from the competition, work on your value proposition to achieve this. Being relevant, visually appealing, clear and concise and not forgetting including a call to action option are ideal ways to make this work.

This will ensure users click on your ad when you advertise on any social media platform. It could be promoting a product on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, but your ad should be unique. It is essential to represent the USP of the product/brand. Running ads about great discounts and sale offers tends to increase conversions.

Create different types of content

Content marketing has paved the way for success for all businesses. Generating high-quality, engaging content can allow you to showcase your business to a wider audience. Therefore, one must invest time in innovation and creativity in their social media content by driving engagement through video content and content personalization.

Marketers can also create interactive content or develop video marketing strategies for their social media. Besides content, marketers should consider creating video tutorials, infographics, podcasts, etc., to increase brand awareness.

Finally, tailoring your social media content for each platform you invest in makes a big difference. Every social media platform has its value and a unique set of audience.

Creating different types of content for each social media platform could allow you to target your audience on a broader level and drive more conversions.

Optimize, manage and review your campaign

Planning your marketing strategies for the next quarter might not go as planned. A daily review is necessary to regularly check the status of your campaign. Therefore, to monitor your ongoing campaign, you can use some tools to analyze and track your campaign progress.

This will help companies understand the gaps and amplify their next step accordingly. Knowing what works effectively and what doesn’t helps you run your campaign successfully. Your campaign can be regularly tracked using analytics or social media insights.

A/B test all channels to decide which works best

A/B testing can be very helpful. It is a form of real-world research that allows you to test two variations of marketing materials and show them to different segments of visitors at the same time. Later, they compare the variant that generates the most conversion.

Spend your social media marketing campaign budget wisely by initially testing on different social media channels to determine which channel works best. Promote your social presence on different platforms before finding the most relevant platform to build your social budget.

Now is the best time to amplify your social media strategies within your set social media budget. Using the six-step approach above will help you get the most out of your social media marketing budget.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)