The small business social media plan is a strategic imperative and a core marketing piece in this world of mobility and social networking. Your small business needs a compelling social media presence to engage with your customers. You can use the power of social media to build your brand, to engage with customers on a whole new level and to build your customer base. While you can advertise, social media sites are free, making them an ideal option for marketing for capital strapped organizations. Social media marketing can:

• Give you a natural, fun and informal way to interact with customers and prospects
• Draw attention to the great content you’ve created for your prospects and customers
• Allows you to position yourself in a busy marketplace and on a level playing field; small and mid-sized organizations that can’t hope to compete with the big guys regarding advertising dollars can have a significant impact on social media

Social media marketing is a must, but if you only begin randomly posting on whatever site seems easiest, you’ll be wasting valuable time. A small business social media plan helps you target your posts effectively and ensures that you are making the most of this compelling and powerful marketing tool

How to Create a Small Business Social Media Plan?

Your small business social media plan starts with your message and your prospects. If you are already marketing on other channels, then you can use your unique selling proposition and your defined audience personas to swiftly identify which social media sites are best for you and what messages you want to publish. Haven’t worked out those big picture details yet? You can still think about them now and start your social media campaigns. Consider the following;

Who is your customer? What does he or she do for a living and fun, and where are they likely to go for information? Do they hang out on Facebook, Share images on Instagram or get ideas on Pinterest? Thinking about these details up front allows you to target your efforts.

What do you want to relay? You already have this information – it’s the key reason people buy your product or service. Make sure the posts you make directly or indirectly support this message. If you sell a fitness related product or service, then the posts you make should appeal to the fitness savvy reader, even if each post does not directly promote your product. This user wants to pin healthy recipes, watch videos on the right lifting techniques and share tips for trimming down times in a 5K; cupcake pictures and unrelated facts about politics won’t resonate or engage this particular audience.

What do you want to Achieve from Social Media marketing?

You’ll be able to measure success better and identify which social media channels work best for you if you have an idea of what you want to accomplish. Do you want people actually to click through and buy, do you want to build your following or to expand your reach? Thinking about what you want to can help you direct your posts and measure your success, too.

Make your goals as concrete and realistic as possible. “Get 100 new followers a month” is far easier to track and evaluate than “build our following.” Define specifics and then work towards obtaining your goals. Possible goals could include:

• Drive “X” number of customers to our website
• Generate “X” number of leads for our sales team
• Direct “X” number of readers to our free whitepaper or newsletter

Target a Site

Where are your customers hanging out? Not everyone uses Twitter – and if your clients are not already using the site, then you’re wasting your time tweeting.

Head back through your research and visit each of the social media sites you’re considering. Check out your competition (both big brands and small) to see where they’re investing time on social media; looking up hashtags or searching for your industry buzzwords can also help you determine which site is your best match. Starting with one section at a time allows you to focus indeed; if you decide Facebook is right for you, then investing your time and efforts into creating a compelling page and building a following allows you to see swift results.

Set up your Sites

Secure your business name for your targeted site and set up your page or profile. Make sure the name quickly identifies you and your brand and that your profile page is fully branded before you go live. You should also include a home or landing page link in your profile, so people know where to go for more information.

Create a Plan

Social media is most effective when you commit to regular, daily posting. Whether you are adding your first site or building up a following on a new site, you’ll need actually to have something to post. Determine how many posts per day you want to create and have a calendar for those drafting and publishing. Having a content calendar allows you to come up with topics and posts in advance and gives you something to tweet, talk or write about.

What should I post?

What should I post?
No one wants to read a steady stream of promotional materials – -it is a common rookie mistake to make every post about you, your sales and your products. For your potential followers, that approach is kind of like watching a steady stream of

Commercials on television – all advertising, no actual entertainment. A mix of posts that are engaging, informational and promotional works best. Shoot for the following combination of topics:

30% Promotional posts – images of your products in action, information about sales, links to your own created content

30% Engagement posts – pose a question, ask for advice, post a quiz (on another site, not your own) and ask how everyone scored. This is the “social” part of social media and how you’ll forge a personal connection with your readers.

40% Interesting information: Share materials created by someone else that your followers would be interested in. Images, news stories, how-to posts and more all work, provided they are not selling anything and are not from your competitors. This allows your followers to see you as an actual source of interesting information and helps position you as a leader in your field of interest.

Define your Voice

Before social media became a must when a Facebook page for business was still just fun or low impact thing, the posting was often left to unpaid interns or to other employees who had the time. It is essential that you use a professional employee with marketing savvy who “gets” both your brand and your customers. The wrong tweet at the wrong time could go viral for all the wrong reasons. Social media is more important than ever to your marketing strategy, so someone needs to be in charge of creating content and posting it to your sites.

Expand your Reach

Once you have one social media site set up and running well, you can begin to add others; repeat the process for each site you are interested in, and that makes sense for your brand. The first site is the most difficult to set up and implement; once you have done so the first time, it becomes easier to create the right mix of content (and some materials can be recycled from one channel to the other). You also have the benefit of a built in following, if you are launching on Twitter, then offering an incentive for your Facebook followers to visit you as you tweet will help you rapidly build a following on the new site.

Committing to social media marketing, starting with a plan and putting the right person in place will help you take advantage of this low cost, high return opportunity and ensure that you continue to stand out in your industry.

Advertising and marketing your small or mid-sized business has never been easier, thanks to the Internet and the abundance of low cost, high ROI marketing opportunities. Your advertising and marketing budget will play a vital role in determining what you can do and how many efforts you can make at once. By assigning the capital, you have to the right shots and correctly targeting your market; you can make the most of what you have to work with.

Have you created your Small Business Social Media Plan? If so, how is it working?