Do You Have A Social Marketing Plan?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 21 of June , 2008 at 10:03 pm

If your business ‘professional’ then you will know all about plans: business plans, marketing plans, cash flow plans (also called budgets but still plans), so do you also have a social marketing plan?

Most website owners do not! They do not see the purpose of planning their social marketing campaigns, after all, it’s social and that is ad-hoc. Well it is isn’t it?

The answer is no, it is not ad-hoc. Quite the opposite. To be successful you need to carefully plan your social marketing strategy to ensure you receive maximum benefit for the time to you put into it. The bigger question should be, how do I plan my social marketing campaign?

That question is not quite so easy to answer as each of the sites requires a different plan of attack. What works on one site is not necessarily going to work on another. There are however a couple of things you can do.

Look, Listen and Learn
My first suggestions is simply to visit any one of the sites you intend using for your social marketing program and watch. Have a good look around, get a feel for the site and people on it, listen (read) to what other people are saying and doing, and learn as much as possible from your observations.

Profile, Profile, Profile
Look at other profiles and try to design yours to the same standard as those within your niche. Your profile page is often the first place people visit to find out more about you - don’t disappoint them; don’t frighten them away either. Don’t add every Tom, Dick or Mary who asks to be your friend. Leave that to your social marketing plan.

Ask, Answer and Participate
Whilst looking around, start to ask questions if you are not sure of something. You will be surprised at helpful most people are on many of these social sites. If you come across a question you feel you can answer, answer it - make sure you really can provide a decent answer - don’t just reply to every question with half baked answers.

Once you have an idea of how the site works and what sort of social marketing is acceptable, start to develop a plan. The first part of your plan should be to target ‘friends’ in your niche who can be of value to you. From there, read, comment, and, if necessary, vote on material they have supplied.

Your first plan of attack should be to add value to their side of the relationship. Over time they will start to reciprocate and before you know it you will have a fairly decent friends base to build on. Social marketing is about being social - however it is being social with a long term goal.

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Category: Social Marketing

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