The document provides an overview of creating an effective social media plan in 6 steps: 1) preplanning, 2) listening to conversations, 3) creating target profiles, 4) setting goals, 5) joining conversations, and 6) measuring returns. It also discusses budgeting and getting started on social media. The document is aimed at helping businesses understand social media and how to develop a strategic plan to meet their goals.

1. By: Cory Williamson
For: Fiverr.com
Creating a Social Media Plan

2. Overview
Social Media Channels
6 Steps to Creating a Social Media Plan
Budgeting for Social Media
Getting Started
Questions

3. What is Social Media
Social media is media designed to be disseminated
through social interaction, created using highly
accessible and scalable publishing techniques.
- wikipedia.org

4. What is Social Media?
An ongoing conversation that’s happening RIGHT
NOW
A promotional channel for content distribution
A long-term return on investment
A steady stream of information for:
 Research
 Feedback
 Building Relationships with customers, clients, contacts

5. Current Statistics
Over 50% of people in the US have at least 1 social
media account
Social media makes up over 17% of all online usage
 Overtaken email as #1 activity on the web
93% of Americans believe companies should have a
social media presence
 85% believe those companies should be interacting with
customers

6. Social Media Facts- Facebook
1.5 Billion active users worldwide
 819 Million on mobile devices
 Mobile users are twice as active as non-mobile users
53% female, 46% male
300 Million Photo uploads per day
Thursdays and Fridays, engagement is 18% higher
Average time spent on Facebook is 20 minutes
4.75 Billion pieces of content shared daily
Largest segment is 25-34 years old

7. Social Media Facts- Twitter
1 Billion registered users
500 million tweets sent daily
100 Million active users daily
170 minute spent per user on Twitter Monthly
Peak days to tweet are Tuesday & Wednesday
Millennials and Teens are most active segment

8. Social Media Facts- YouTube
1 Billion unique visits each month
Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each
month on YouTube
 Almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than
last year
100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every
minute
70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US
adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

9. Social Media Facts- Pinterest
70 Million users as of 2013
47% of US online consumers have made a purchase
based on recommendation from Pinterest
Pinterest generates 4x more revenue per click than
Twitter and 27% more than Facebook
Pinterest buyers spend more money on items than
any of the other top 5 social media sites
Conversion rates for Pinterest traffic are 50% higher
than conversions from other traffic
80% of total pinterest pins are repins

10. Social Media Facts– Google+
Over 350M Users
Google plus has great SEO benefits
 Google plus links are all “dofollow”, meaning they pass
valuable link juice
 Posts are crawled and indexed immediately
 Bots crawl 2,500 words on a + page, vs 275 on Facebook
Google Plus for business offers more integrated
analytics on your business page

11. How is Social Media Used?
Customer Service
Product/Service Feedback
Networking and Job Searching
Lead Generation/Sales
Promotions
News
Internal communication

12. Creating a Social Media Plan
Steps:
1.Preplanning
2.Listen to the Conversation
3.Create Your Target Profiles
4.Set Specific Goals
5.Join the Conversation
6.Measure ROI

13. Step 1 - Preplanning
Questions to ask internally:
Where do our customers get their information
What influences our customers?
How does information flow in our industry?
What promotional channels are we currently using?
 Are they working?
What is my sales funnel? How are leads qualified?
Asking questions indicates how social media can be
used to complement your business goals.

14. Step 2 – Listen to the Conversation
Secure your brand on social platforms
 Usernames are often unique
 Use consistent usernames across all platforms
Set up monitoring channels
 Google Alerts
 Social Mention
 Technorati
 Twitter Search/Twitter Lists
 Radian6
Monitor: individual influencers, competitors,
blogs/comments, and industry news sources

15. Step 3 – Create Your Target Profile
Focusing on key target segments lowers marketing
costs
Example:
 Target Audience is 25-35
 $350 Billion in spending power
 Spend 20 hours online weekly
 96% of them join social networks
This information can be gathered through market
research, surveys, or previous studies
What is the perfect prospect?

16. Step 3 – Create Your Target Profile
Find key attributes from monitoring channels
Chart presence on social media
Determine Market Segmentation
 Demographic
 Geographic
 Psychographic
 Behavioralistic
Continue gathering customer data at each step of
your plan

17. Step 4 – Set Specific Social Goals
Generate Leads
Increase brand awareness
Increase traffic/Opt-ins
Develop relationships with current customers
Boost SEO/SEM results
Reduce CRM costs
Increase Revenue

18. Step 5 – Join the Conversation
3 Phases of Social Equity
 Awareness
 Qualify fans and followers as leads
 Engagement
 Increase long-term communication
 Exclusive promotions will help turn advocates into customers
 Social Commerce
 Determine small data set to introduce products to
 Gather product reviews

19. Step 5 – Join the Conversation
Establish an Editorial Calendar
 Choose specific days for posting content
 Be consistent – you’re a news source
 Helps stay on track and organize content
 Choosing specific topics each day helps find content ideas
Share calendar with everyone involved
Use video to build quality content
 Doesn’t have to be professional
 Include descriptions and tags for search engine optimization
 Post video with content on your blog/website

20. Step 5 – Join the Conversation
Be Transparent and Authentic
 Don’t be evasive
 Offer your name, title, experience
 Admit your interests in the topic
 Define your credibility (Use LinkedIn to build your credible
profile)
 Contribute quality input on topics of interest
Strive to answer questions about your authenticity
Don’t focus on selling, focus on engagement
Earn a reputation, build trust, then sell to qualified
leads

21. Step 5 – Join the Conversation
Be the expert in your industry
 Write about what you know
 Offer insights to those who ask for it
 Share links to resources you think add to the conversation
Use topics you monitor to start conversation
 Articles/blog posts
 Community Forum Threads
 Conversation from social media groups
When customers trust your content, they’ll trust
what you’re selling

22. Step 5 – Join the Conversation
Have rules of engagement
 Know what to do with negative responses
 Determine who in your organization is involved in responding
 Admit to mistakes and thank those who bring it to attention
 Respond Kindly
Share these rules with your team
Turn brand “detractors” into “advocates”
 People remember bad experiences, but will buy again if it’s
corrected

23. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
What is a Return?
 Non-financial
 Visitors, word of mouth, page views, fans, followers, referrals
 Financial
 Sales, Transactions, Coupons
 ROI
Not all returns have to be $$ to bring value

24. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
Qualitative
 Are we part of our industry’s conversation?
 How do our customers perceive us versus our competitors?
 Did we build key relationships?
 Are we moving from monologue to dialogue?
Quantitative
 Website Analytics
 Social Mentions
 SEO Rankings
 Linkbacks
 Subscribers

25. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
Establish before/after baseline
 What did our online environment look like before social
media?
 What online channels were we using?
 What does it look like now?
Determine hard numbers here
 5.5% conversion rate before
 8.5% conversion rate now
This baseline should track at least 6 months

26. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
Develop Activity Timeline along same baseline
Diagram exact dates in which key SM activities
occurred
 8/11 blog started
 8/13 Facebook page started
 9/15 FB ad campaign begins
 9/17 FB ad ended
Note Milestones on diagram
 500/1000/10,000 fans
 100 clicks back to blog link

27. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
Look at Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
 Transactions
 New Customers
 Sales
 Revenue
 Average Order Size
 E-mail list size
Use Google Analytics to determine exact numbers
What are the transaction precursors?
 Brand mentions
 Loyalty metrics
 Store traffic
 Free sample offers

28. Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
Overlay all timelines and look
for patterns
 SM Activities
 Web Analytics
 Store Metrics
 Loyalty Metrics
Circle areas where increases
occur
How were specific numbers
achieved?
 Facebook promotion
 Product launch
 Press release
 Coupon offer

29. Budgeting for Social Media
Allocation vs. Addition
 Do you raise new funds or borrow from existing budgets?
How to determine Allocation or Addition
 What are your goals?
 How much is your existing marketing budget?
 Which current tactics work? Which are most expensive?
 What internal resources are available?

30. Budgeting for Social Media
What to budget for:
 Time
 Design and Branding
 Analytics Tools
 Social Monitoring
 Automation Applications
 Social Media Advertising
 Outsources/Consulting

31. How to Get Started
Start with platforms you can actively maintain
What outsourcing is needed?
 Design, development, content management, market research
Plan your content flow
 Will you push content through all channels?
Find tools to automate processes
 Tweetdeck (now by Twitter)
 Hootsuite
 Sprout Social
 Mailchimp
 Sendible

32. Additional Resources
Blogs
 Socialmediaexplorer.com
 Socialmediatoday.com
 BrianSolis.com
 Mashable.com
Tools
 Tweetdeck
 Sendible
 Hootsuite
 Shoutlet
 Buffer
 Trackur

33. Questions?
Contact me at:
 Twitter.com/corywilliamson
 Linkedin.com/in/corywilliamson
 About.me/corywilliamson