Creating social media plan in 7 steps

But just posting without a strategy rarely produces the desired results. So you need a good plan. But how do you make such a social media plan?

We'll show you.

What is a social media plan?

When you think of a social media plan, you probably think of a list of posts and when you are going to post them.

But a good plan is more than that.

A good social media plan contains the complete approach for how you will achieve your business goals with social media.

Yes, it describes your content strategy and planning. But also your goals, target groups, the best channels, your budget and measuring results are covered in a good plan.

Why is it important?

In short: without a plan, social media often takes a lot of time and delivers little.

• But with a good plan:
• increase your visibility
• reach the right target group
• create content that fits your business (and your customers)
• work more efficiently
• And you will see real measurable results

Create a social media plan in 7 steps

Create your own social media plan?

1. Determine your goals

Without goals, you won't know if you're on the right track. They give direction to your strategy and help you evaluate later whether your approach is working.

In other words: you avoid just doing anything and you work towards concrete results.

So first, set your goals. Determine what you want to achieve with social media. Think about:

• generate more awareness
• attract more visitors to your website
• attract new customers or leads
• show your expertise and build trust
• or strengthen your community

Formulate your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-bound.

It looks like this, for example:

• generate 500 new followers on LinkedIn within 6 months
• Generate 5 new leads per month
• within 3 months 15% more sales via Instagram stories

2. Define your target group

Now that you know what you want to achieve with social media, you also need to know who your target audience is. If you don't know your target audience well, you will create content that does not appeal to them.

But if you do know your target audience inside out, you can create more relevant content and thus increase the chances of interaction, conversion and customer loyalty.

So ask yourself questions like:

• Who is my ideal customer(age, gender, location, position, etc.)?
• What are your customers' issues, interests and needs?
• Which channels do they use?
• And how do they use social media; to stay informed (informative), for entertainment or to buy something?

For example, as a clothing shop you can target women between 30-40 who are active on Instagram and interested in quality and durable clothing with timeless design that can be worn both casually and at the office.

Or something like that.

3. Choose the right channels

You don't want to waste energy, time and money on a platform where your target audience hardly looks.

You want just the opposite. Use your time and budget efficiently and increase the impact of your social media posts.

Choose the channels where your target group is active (see step 2) and that fit the content you want to create.

In brief:

• LinkedIn: B2B, professionals and knowledge sharing
• Instagram: lifestyle, creative and younger audience
• Facebook: local reach and older target group
• TikTok: short videos and entertainment for young people
• Pinterest: inspiration for visual audiences
• YouTube: videos for detailed explanations and storytelling

Of course, you don't have to limit yourself to one medium.

You can make a video for Youtube and also share it on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. Good idea even!

4. Develop your message

Your content determines how people experience you, your company or your brand.

Your message must match your image. This creates trust, makes you recognizable and ensures that people take action more quickly (follow, click, buy, etc.).

It will help you reach your goals faster.

Your message also depends on these goals. Think carefully about what you want to convey, in what tone of voice and in what form.

And by that form you can think of:

• Informative content with tips, step-by-step plans and video tutorials.
• Inspirational content with trends, customer stories and behind-the-scenes
• Actionable content with offers, launches and promotions
• Content for engagement with polls and questions

Example: a coach for entrepreneurs posts a video every week with a tip, a motivational quote and a client story to increase his awareness, demonstrate expertise and build a connection with his target audience.

5. Create a content calendar

In a content calendar you list all the posts for the coming period. You take notes:

• post subject
• the type of content (video, customer story, link to blog, etc)
• the channel
• publication date and time
• and the goal of the post (engagement, traffic, conversion)

You create structure. You plan ahead and you know which content you need to post and when on which channel.

This prevents stress, saves time and ensures consistency ... and success.

6. Determine your budget

Social media takes time. And sometimes money (if you advertise or hire a designer, cameraman or copywriter to create the content for you).

It is good to determine your budget in advance.

It forces you to make choices. It prevents you from spending money unnecessarily and helps you get more return on your investments.

Therefore, think about:

• monthly advertising budget
• Possibly budget for content creation
• Distribution of budget per channel or campaign

Keep in mind that social media is flexible. You can scale up or down every month!

7. Measure (and analyze) your results

Your social media plan is almost done. Almost.

You have your goals and target audience clear. You know what, how and when you will post.

But you don't know if it will actually work and you may keep repeating what produces little or no results.

This is why you need to analyze your social media plan.

By measuring and analyzing you can determine what social media delivers and improve your strategy based on data.

So use tools like Meta Business Suite (for Facebook and Instagram), LinkedIn Analytics and Pinterest Analytics to see how your social media content is performing.

Also, use Google Analytics and UTM tags to track social traffic to your website and see what it brings there.

You can think about important KPIs such as:

• Reach: how many people see your content?
• Engagement: likes, comments and shares
• Click-through rate (CTR): how many people click through to your website?
• Conversions: downloads, subscriptions or purchases
• Number of followers: growth of your community over time

Plan fixed moments to review your statistics (for example per month or quarter) and adjust your strategy if necessary.

For example, have you noticed that your Instagram Stories are getting more reach and generating three times as many clicks as regular posts? Then you can focus more on that in the coming months!

Create a social media plan together?

Still have questions? Do you need help with the target group analysis, your content calendar or setting up Google Analytics? Feel free to contact us. We are happy to help you create and implement a complete and practical social media plan.