Posting on Facebook, regularly updating your Instagram, and sharing your thoughts on Twitter on a personal level doesn’t necessarily mean you can just wing it for your business. Like everything else in marketing, planning is essential to make sure a strategy is executed successfully—even something as familiar as social media.

Without a plan, it’s unlikely that you’ll meet the goals that you’ve set for your business. You’ll constantly find yourself scrambling for content, posting haphazard material that won’t engage your audience. Basically, you’re just wasting your time.

Avoid this by taking note of the following things that your social media content plan should have—

1. Well-researched basis for content

The main reason you want to plan what you want to post is so that you’re able to publish something that your audience will appreciate. That means you have to get to know your audience—what interests them? What problems are they trying to solve?

To that end, you also have to know what social networks your audience uses. Generally, most of your audience will be on Facebook. But there are others who prefer more visual platforms like Instagram or Pinterest; or others within more business-centric platforms like LinkedIn. Knowing where your audience actually is, means you can tailor your content perfectly for them for maximum engagement.

2. Key performance indicators

Identify the key elements that will allow you to measure the success of your content plan in quantifiable terms. These could include the number of likes or shares, maybe even comments, impressions or reach. These key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you track whether or not your social media efforts were able to accomplish your goals and allow you to modify your plan moving forward.

3. Tools and software to automate posting process

Doing things manually is certainly an option, but it can be confusing if you’re trying to regularly post on different social media platforms. Sites like Buffer allow you to automatically post on all your various social media accounts. Just make sure that you dedicate a full day to carefully upload and schedule your posts beforehand and double check for typos and errors.

4. Content calendar

Plan your content beforehand in a social media calendar. This will help you avoid posting duplicate content and ensure that you keep to a regular posting schedule. Keep in mind, consistency is important when it comes to social media, so it’s best if you can stick to a consistent schedule.

5. Keywords

Like your blog, social media also benefits from the use of keywords. This is why it’s important to research exactly what your audience is searching for. In the same way that your blog receives a significant boost when you use the right keywords and phrases, your social media gets more visibility too. Doing so ensures that your post is made visible to audiences interested in the same topics and allows you to be more strategic with your efforts.

A great social media plan with all these elements in place can give businesses the guidance they need to reach their target audience, engage them, and ultimately, convert them to become loyal customers. If you think you need more help with this, we’d love to share what we can do to help. Contact us and start by telling us how you want to move forward. We’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have or find out how we can boost your social media efforts.