Planning Social Media - Yes, It's Possible!
I've been doing a lot of 2010 planning for my clients for whom we run their social media tools. My team and I have been coming up with some really creative ideas to make social media work for our clients in the coming year.
So I thought this would be a good topic for a blog post: planning for social media. What? Plan, you say? Who plans for Twitter or Facebook? I just write what's on my mind at the moment, right? Well, yes... sometimes. That's perfectly fine for individuals using these tools, but when considering running and promoting a business on social media, let's think a little further ahead, OK a LOT further ahead!
Just like any other marketing tool or campaign, you want to plan if you really want it to be successful, and now is the perfect time to plan for next year. So what do you need to think about?
1) Goals - Make sure you have goals in mind for what you'd like social media to accomplish for you and use that to guide your planning.
2) Your Brand - Do you have a social media brand? It might be your company brand or it might be a slightly different brand to better capture the attention of folks on social media. Many businesses don't play well on social media, as they just don't sound interesting to follow. For example, we've branded a cleaning company we work with on social media as Squeaky Clean, so they have the Squeaky Clean blog and they're Squeaky_Clean on Twitter. Maybe you need to change up your brand. Make it fun and interesting but still underscore your company's message.
3) What Did/Didn't Work This Year? Take a good hard look at what brought you good name recognition, media coverage, web site hits and even sales. If it didn't do any of those things and you put a good effort toward it, dump it! What worked well? Do more of that.
4) Think Big! Don't just think "What will I tweet next year?" (though that's not a bad idea either :)); think bigger. Work in 2-4 fun promotions, contests, parties and initiatives you can run throughout the year to increase your followers/readers/viewers/fans, expand awareness of your business, garner traditional media coverage, and generally keep your audience engaged, interested and excited about your brand.
5) Get down to the minutia - We also plan our clients' blog posts, Tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time. Of course, there's still plenty of room for real-time engagement, but we've thought out 80% of what will be posted to make sure its interesting, entertaining, informative and underscores the company's brand. For Twitter and Facebook, plan a week's worth of posts at a time. For blogs, put together a 3 month schedule of content (you can always add more timely news as it happens). For YouTube, plan what videos you'll produce and post throughout the next year and set deadlines for filming and editing. You don't have to be a production company, but use your Flip camera and Windows Movie Maker to get you started.
Do you plan for social media? Will you plan for 2010? What will you change, drop or add? Share with us your planning methods.
So I thought this would be a good topic for a blog post: planning for social media. What? Plan, you say? Who plans for Twitter or Facebook? I just write what's on my mind at the moment, right? Well, yes... sometimes. That's perfectly fine for individuals using these tools, but when considering running and promoting a business on social media, let's think a little further ahead, OK a LOT further ahead!
Just like any other marketing tool or campaign, you want to plan if you really want it to be successful, and now is the perfect time to plan for next year. So what do you need to think about?
1) Goals - Make sure you have goals in mind for what you'd like social media to accomplish for you and use that to guide your planning.
2) Your Brand - Do you have a social media brand? It might be your company brand or it might be a slightly different brand to better capture the attention of folks on social media. Many businesses don't play well on social media, as they just don't sound interesting to follow. For example, we've branded a cleaning company we work with on social media as Squeaky Clean, so they have the Squeaky Clean blog and they're Squeaky_Clean on Twitter. Maybe you need to change up your brand. Make it fun and interesting but still underscore your company's message.
3) What Did/Didn't Work This Year? Take a good hard look at what brought you good name recognition, media coverage, web site hits and even sales. If it didn't do any of those things and you put a good effort toward it, dump it! What worked well? Do more of that.
4) Think Big! Don't just think "What will I tweet next year?" (though that's not a bad idea either :)); think bigger. Work in 2-4 fun promotions, contests, parties and initiatives you can run throughout the year to increase your followers/readers/viewers/fans, expand awareness of your business, garner traditional media coverage, and generally keep your audience engaged, interested and excited about your brand.
5) Get down to the minutia - We also plan our clients' blog posts, Tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time. Of course, there's still plenty of room for real-time engagement, but we've thought out 80% of what will be posted to make sure its interesting, entertaining, informative and underscores the company's brand. For Twitter and Facebook, plan a week's worth of posts at a time. For blogs, put together a 3 month schedule of content (you can always add more timely news as it happens). For YouTube, plan what videos you'll produce and post throughout the next year and set deadlines for filming and editing. You don't have to be a production company, but use your Flip camera and Windows Movie Maker to get you started.
Do you plan for social media? Will you plan for 2010? What will you change, drop or add? Share with us your planning methods.
Tags: 2010, blogging, facebook, planning, tmfc, tmmoney&business, twitter, youtube
Add a Comment
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Comment by Cristie Hurd on November 18, 2009 at 7:39am
- I've been writing a couple of blogs to promote my company and its products and have plateaued in my numbers of avg. readers/ day. I would like to look at other blogs that promote company products and see what makes them successful. Can you recommend any blogs that really work for their company?
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Comment by Synolve Craft on November 18, 2009 at 5:35am -
Lynn:
You have listed several tips for planning social media that I definitely will be adding to my plan in 2010.
There are some tools to help people plan their social media. Hootsuite, TweetLater (recently name changed to Social Oomph) and TweetDeck are just a few. These tools can you help put your plan into action.
Lynn, I hope you will cover some other planning tools in upcoming blog posts on twittermoms. I am sure you have an amazing arsenal of tools at your disposal. Please send me a message when you post about tools!
Thank you.
Synolve
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
The Infinite Field Magazine.com
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Comment by Julie on November 16, 2009 at 1:23pm - thanks for the ideas.
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Comment by Lyn Mettler on November 16, 2009 at 1:16pm -
Wow, I'm so glad my advice has helped that quick. Uh, my house is not as organized (or clean) as I would like it either ;-). Bubble bath? What's that? :)
Lisa, great points! It's no different than offline and you're right, it can be SO beneficial. Had a couple prospects come to me this week alone due in part to Facebook, blogging and Twitter. It really does work.
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Comment by Peninah Lane on November 16, 2009 at 1:09pm - Sometimes I don't know how I do it either but I think it's because my house isn't as organized as I'd like. *embarrassed titter* I know your tips work. I've seen a major improvement in just four days. It is such a relief to know work is getting done and with less stress, maybe I can finally get around to my house and that much-coveted bubble bath! =)
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Comment by Lisa Willlard on November 16, 2009 at 1:07pm
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Great tips! I think it's important to apply offline rules to online rules. And Social media is no exception. To grow a business online, it's just like going to a party offline. You have to show up, right? So, having a plan in place for social media makes sense. Some of weekly plans include. How many blog posts will I write this week? How many articles will I create? or videos? It's amazing the relationships and partnerships social media can lead to if done properly.
Thanks for sharing!
BELIEVE Success!
Lisa Willard
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Comment by Lyn Mettler on November 16, 2009 at 8:56am
- Thanks Peninah! I have no idea how you do all that!! Big kudos to you. :)
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Comment by Peninah Lane on November 16, 2009 at 8:03am
- Thank you for this post. I just came to the same conclusion .. the hard way. It's hard enough to juggle work and family but it goes a little insane when you add in single parenthood, working from home, homeschooling and multiple businesses/websites. For those reading this post, please re-read and implement her tips. Trust me, it helps!
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Comment by MommyBlogExpert on November 12, 2009 at 5:22pm - Great advice. As a PR pro for over 20 years before recently switching to full-time mommy blogging so I can homeschool our triplets (12) and big brother (13) you really summarize the social media planning game well. I look forward to lots more great posts like this.
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Comment by Tamara Maellaro on November 12, 2009 at 7:57am - Lynn I'm going to start making my plan today. Need to plan a contest or other ways to keep our customers engaged. You have inspired me to take action. Thanks for sharing.
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