How to write a social media plan

Yes, there's a plan for everything! If you create a marketing plan it's likely that you'll include a section on Internet marketing anyway, but social media as an area of internet marketing is big enough to warrant its own strategy.

We're defining "social media" here as online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, social bookmarking websites such as Delicious and Technorati, YouTube and other video sharing networks, picture sharing sites such as Flickr, also blogs and podcasts.

One of the reasons for writing a social media plan is that it's so easy to start using these media, because they're quick to set up and before you know it you've lost momentum or direction. Social media is like any other marketing, a set of marketing tools to help you achieve your objectives but there's a lot of choice so a strategy is advisable. This becomes critical when more than one of your team is using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to promote your brand.

A social media plan will also enable you to establish how you will measure the effectiveness of your social marketing activity. Measuring social networking is quite possible but using different sets of criteria to traditional marketing, such as "engagement".

Here are our tips on how to put together a social media plan (our version, so please feel free to add your thoughts and experiences by commenting):

1. Where you are now, a brief analysis of what you're already doing (if anything) with social media, and successes/failures using stats if you have them. This not only helps to set the scene for anyone using the plan but makes it clearer in your mind where to start from.
2. Social media objectives. This is valuable and helps to define why you're using social media as a marketing tool. Typical objectives can include: Engaging with your customers, reaching potential customers (raising awareness), positioning your business as expert in an area, enabling customers to talk to each other, a platform for enabling or encouraging reviews, building brand awareness and credibility.
3. The approach. How will you adopt social media, what will the tone of voice be, core messages and policies?
4. Positioning. Define how your online social marketing activity will sit compared to competitors. The key here is to differentiate yourself if you can. For example, the business arm of Dell chose to set up a social media forum on Facebook for small businesses to help each other rather than use it as a direct selling platform. And the Compare the Market "Meerkat" social media campaign engaged a phenomenal number of followers. Sometimes a bit of lateral thinking will provide a much richer method of engaging with your customers.
5. Specify the social media that you will use. By this point you'll have a fair idea of what's available that will fit with your objectives, approach and positioning. Here is where you can define the list of media such as a blog, Facebook page, YouTube channel and so on. Under each medium, outline how you will use it such as the theme, topics, direction.
6. Listening. I make a point of including this because engaging with social media properly means you have to listen as well as post. How will you monitor what others are saying about your brand in the social networks? Also listen to find out what's trending as this could provide good foundations for your next blog, and think about commenting on other blogs and social networks - engagement should always be a two-way process.
7. Dealing with comments and feedback. Outline a procedure for doing this, especially important if there are several people in the business involved with social media. Drafting a policy is useful if this is the case so that you can be consistent and avoid PR disasters. Above all, do plan to respond to comments and questions on your own social pages as they should never be left unanswered as that sends out the wrong customer service message.
   
8. Timing and regularity. Now that you know which media you will adopt, it's time to decide how often and who. Using Twitter for example should be at least daily, preferably several times a day whereas blogging might be once a week.
   
9. Measurement and evaluation. Include the methods you will use to track the success of your social media activity. There are a variety of ways to do this such as engagement - how many followers/fans/comments; traffic statistics using Google Analytics on the blog so you can see where traffic is coming from (referrals); tracking mentions using feedback from Google Alerts can also provide a picture of the reach of your activity.
   
10. To Do List. I find this useful at the end of any marketing plan. After you have decided on the strategy, what are the priorities, who is doing them and when by? You can add costs here too if appropriate.

You can find more tips on putting together internet marketing plans on one of our previous blogs, "10 reasons to put together an Internet marketing plan".

Happy planning!

Karen McNulty
MarketingPlanWiz and BusinessPlanWiz

Business Networking Tips for Success

Hands up - who hates networking?

The very thought of meeting strangers and making small talk with people we don't know can send even "marketing people" running for the hills. But of all the marketing tools that I use, networking is still the one that often surprises me as the results can be quite amazing.

When I say "networking" I mean off-line for the moment. Online social networking is great, but it doesn't beat face-to-face relationship building, at least in the first instance. By all means continue business relationships online and meet lots of potential customers and suppliers, but it's invariably the people that you know that you build long term bonds with.

Traditional business networking involves either joining regular business networking groups, or attending events, launches, AGMs, training, exhibitions, trade fairs, even golf days. The networks that suit you will depend on who your target audiences are.

For example if you're selling to the general public, events, sponsorships, trade fairs or launches all offer the opportunity to network with potential customers. Sometimes, even business events will generate consumer opportunities as we're all consumers outside of our business lives.

I was at a business networking event recently with a fellow networker who was launching a perfume business and she was questioning whether a "business" network was appropriate as her customers were not other businesses. But when it boiled down to it, there were quite enough of the right target audience in the room who may need to buy gifts for wives and girlfriends and plenty of females who wanted to buy for themselves. People really do buy from people and this is another reason why business networking works even for B2C - and I did buy some perfume that day.

Often networking isn't just to find customers, but to find other businesses to collaborate with, contacts who may lead you to customers or simply to share the experience of being in business and find solutions together. I've met plenty of other marketers through meetings like this, many of who I've done business with at some point, even if only to refer other customers to them because they have a particular area of expertise.

There are some golden rules which are worth noting, but my best advice is to be yourself as far as possible. It doesn't work otherwise as you can't build long term relationships being somebody else.

Good networking tips are:

1. Always take business cards. This is strangely easy to forget, probably as we're dashing out of the door we forget to check (spoken from experience I'm embarrassed to admit), but without them people can't get in touch or follow up.
2. Prepare an elevator pitch, less than 1 minute if you can about what you do, and what's different about your business so that you differentiate yourself from everyone else. For example, if you're an Accountant, what can you add? I'm an Accountant who specialises in taxation, or who provides a small business package for a fixed sum. And what are the benefits to the product or service that you offer? So you don't have to worry about getting your self assessment in on time... This might take a bit of practice and it might change over time, but it's well worth doing.
3. Have objectives before you enter the room. Are you there because you want business leads, somebody to work alongside, a new supplier? Or maybe you just need to meet some like-minded people. The clearer you are the easier the process is.
   
4. After the event make sure you follow up if you promised to do something. This is often the best start to a long-term business relationship as if you deliver it builds trust.
5. Don't forget that you can network anywhere. You meet people at the shops, in restaurants and at events - they're all great opportunities to talk to people. Just remember that elevator pitch when somebody asks "what do you do?".

To continue networking after you've met somebody face to face, make sure your business card also has your twitter identity, LinkedIn address or other social networking contact details, as well as the usual email address, website address and telephone number.

For further inspiration, there are also some excellent articles about business networking on the Business Link website, worth a read.

Karen McNulty

MarketingPlanWiz and BusinessPlanWiz
www.twitter.com/karenmcnulty

Internet Tips from Doug Richards and More

I know it's nearly two weeks ago, but this is still fresh in my mind. Fay and I went to the Enterprise Nation Home Business Conference on 20th November and apart from meeting lots of like minded small businesses (with big plans to grow and good luck to us all), picked up some good marketing tips.

First of all, keynote speaker on sales and marketing Doug Richards, now running School for StartUps, couldn't emphasise enough:

• Low cost and value for money marketing is good whether you're a small or large business
• That means that using social media is a good idea for most of us. I would add to that, you still need to make time for it but most social networks are free to join and use and if you don't participate you miss out being seen if nothing else
  
• Video, video and more video! It's so low cost and easy to use even a basic video camera and set up a free YouTube account. I'll add to that Google likes video (it owns YouTube), it adds interest to your website and being on YouTube gets you links to your website.
• The other thing about video on social networks is that quality isn't as important as content. So if you've got something to say, why not try video - far more interesting than text? You can add video to Facebook, link to video on Twitter and embed it in your website.
  

You can find out more about Enterprise Nation on their website, and we're regular contributers to their blog posts we're pleased to say. Well, going on and on about marketing is something we're always happy to do...

Karen McNulty
www.MarketingPlanWiz.co.uk

Isn't Social Networking for Young People?

This is the question I get asked most often when talking to businesses about Internet Marketing and in particular using social networks to communicate with their target audience.

The thing is, it's easy to forget that the people you are targeting probably use these media to communicate. Many of us struggle with the concept of marketing via social networks because we don't use them ourselves. It's true - many adults with busy home lives, businesses or other work commitments, simply don't have time to log on to Facebook when they get home. For many very successful marketers even, checking out what's happening on Twitter when we get up in the morning is not the first thing on the list. I've certainly noticed that a lot of 35 - 50 year old professionals are struggling with this one.

But that's not a strong enough argument not to add them to your marketing toolkit or even your media list. If you're trying to reach consumers (B2C or the general public), then these days individuals are even using their social network of choice as their search engine too. They're here to stay and we must consider them when we're marketing.

But just look at the stats for UK usage of social networks, it seriously isn't just young people...

Even for business to business (B2B, or marketing your services to other businesses), they are increasingly relevant because the Search Engines are starting to introduce social networking results into their search results - Google and Bing have now both signed a deal with Twitter to inlcude real time Tweets in results related to search terms. This shouldn't come as a surprise, given that search engines want as much current, relevant content as they can to match search queries and satisfy searchers.

So how do you use social networks for your marketing? Well you can start by looking at a Facebook Business Page. Do you write a blog, have pictures about your products or services, even video? You can post all of these onto your page - take a look at how some of the well known players use them, such as Coca -Cola.

If you do have video (if not, can you make one?), then set up an account on YouTube - it's free! Once you get your head around the "openness" of using these media, it becomes an opportunity to engage with your customers as never before. But that's another blog I think.

Karen McNulty
www.MarketingPlanWiz.co.uk

Reviews are King

There's yet another growing trend on the internet which is definitely making websites more popular and sort of makes more sense of "Web 2.0" for me. I knew that Web 2.0 was all about interacting and that websites these days had to do more of that, but short of being tolerant of social networking sites (as I get them now, but still find it easier to pick up the phone) I couldn't work out what all the fuss was about.

Then I discovered that more and more shopping sites are inviting comments or reviews on what people buy from them. You've probably seen it on Amazon but now you'll find customer reviews on all sorts of websites from clothes (Boden, M & S) through to electrical retailers such as Comet. Dodgy stuff you would think, given that presumably customers can slate your product just as soon as rave about it. But, in fact it works. Most people just give a fair assessment of what they thought and guess what? New customers trust this more than anything they read by the retailer and feel more inclined to buy as a result.

There's another new thing to add to my list of marketing things to think about...

Karen McNulty
www.marketingplanwiz.co.uk