How To Create A Successful Social Media Marketing Plan In 7 Steps
Last Updated on July 9, 2021 by Nicky Johnson
Want to use social media marketing aNew s a Christian blogger? If you want to spread your message to the masses online, creating a social media marketing plan is one of the first strategic steps you should take. This post will show you the 7 steps to creating a social media plan that rocks.
Using social media as a blogger or business owner can be a little overwhelming and confusing. I know that I have struggled with it.
How do you know which platform to use?
Should you use all of them or just 1 to start?
How do you know where your blog’s or business’s audience is?
How often should I post?
What should I post?
There’s a ton of questions to ask and lots of different answers. What I’m learning slowly but surely is that keeping it simple is the smartest approach.
In this post, I’m going to outline a simple 7 step social media marketing strategy that you can use to create a social media marketing plan that will help you get the word out about what your business stands for.
First, let’s identify the problem.
What’s The Problem When Using Social Media As Christian Bloggers?
The problem is we have just been publishing random social media posts on Facebook or Instagram and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it.
What Is The Goal That We Have As Christian Bloggers When It Comes To Social Media?
The goal is to create social media posts that align with your Christian blog’s overall purpose and message and will create a consistent brand for your businesses.
How Do We Fix This Social Media Marketing Issue As Christian Bloggers?
The way you fix just throwing random posts on your Facebook page is by coming up with a strategic social media marketing plan.
That’s what this blog post is going to teach you to create, step by step.
Then at the end, I will show you a planner you can use to bring all of these steps together in one convenient package.
That way you can create one strategic social media plan after another.
And if you need some more step by step guidance on blogging and business then be sure to download my Christian Blogging Business Roadmap for free.
It’s got step by step instructions on how to get started as a professional blogger.
Click below to get a copy of my free blogging business roadmap!
This post may contain affiliate links which means I get a commission if you purchase something after clicking on one of those links. But don’t worry. I’m not going to recommend something I don’t really believe it because that would just be wrong.
7 Steps To Creating A Strategic
Christian Social Media Marketing Plan
Step 1: Get super clear on your blog’s purpose.
Why it matters: It matters because your blog’s purpose will determine what you post on social media.
For instance, if your blog’s purpose is to promote your modest clothing line then your social media posts will reflect that purpose.
You might write blog posts about modesty and create social media posts that link to that blog post.
You might have share memes on your Facebook page that mention modesty.
You might share news stories on your page about modesty or lack thereof. You might post pictures of you or models in your clothing line.
You get the picture.
Step 2: Decide which platform(s) is right for your business based on where your audience hangs out.
This is really important.
You could create amazing social media posts but if your target audience isn’t hanging out on that platform then you aren’t going to get much traction.
You could create amazing social media posts but if your target audience isn't hanging out on that platform then you aren't going to get much traction. Click To Tweet
It’s important to figure out who your target market is and see where they congregate online.
If you cater to a more professional or business crowd, they might be on LinkedIn or Facebook.
If you cater more to stay at home moms, it might be Pinterest.
If you are targeting millennials, Twitter or Instagram might be your best bet. You have to do some digging to find out which one to choose.
Facebook groups are a good place to do some investigation.
I belong to some Christian business Facebook groups and I asked them which social media platform they tend to use the most.
They mostly said Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
However, I was doing a lot of marketing on Pinterest which wasn’t good.
Now I know that in order to reach more of my target audience (Christian bloggers and entrepreneurs), I have to target both Pinterest (Christian bloggers) and Facebook (Christian entrepreneurs).
How many times a day you post will depend on which social media platforms you have decided to use. They have all different recommended posting frequencies.
For more information on that, you can check out this post: How Often To Post On Social Media.
You can find all kinds of social media post ideas online. Pinterest is full of them. Just go to Pinterest and type in “Social media post ideas” and you’ll be hooked up.
You can also search more specifically like Facebook post idea or Instagram post ideas.
Some ideas are like sharing a tip, show your life behind the scenes, post a meme.
But when you do these things always go back to your original purpose.
If your blog’s overall purpose is to promote your modest clothing line, you probably won’t be sharing tips about healthy eating very often as that doesn’t have much to do with the purpose of your business.
Instead, you might share tips on how to shop for clothes that are modest or cover you up and are still flattering.
Know what I mean Verne?
So the next part of creating your social media marketing plan is very important for consistency’s sake.
Creating your social media posts in bulk will mean that you have a ton of content all ready to go and you won’t be tempted to post things that are off-topic to your business’s brand.
Something to keep in mind when you create lots of social media content at once is this: You should marry your social media content with your blog's editorial content and your promotional calendar.
Ok ok ok let me explain what all of that means.
Your editorial content is what you post on your blog.
Your promotional calendar is the schedule of when you will promote certain items that you are selling.
You may decide to promote a new dress collection for 4 weeks in the summer.
You will create blog posts (your editorial content) that will help educate, inform, and entertain your audience in regards to that new dress collection during those 4 weeks (promotional calendar).
Your social media marketing plan will also tie-in with the promotional calendar.
If you’re promoting a dress collection, the posts that you create for social media should be related either directly or indirectly to that dress collection.
Make sense?
Resist the urge to just do one post after another showing your dress collection.
This is spammy and annoying. Instead, you can do other posts that are not directly related to the dress collection promotion but still tie in with your business’ overall brand.
Step 6: Schedule Your Social Media Posts.
Yes, you could definitely just do them all manually but it’s likely that you will forget to post as consistently as you would like (or maybe that’s just me, no?).
You can use Facebook’s own scheduler.
I’ve also used the Facebook scheduler that’s on Tailwind.
Tailwind also has an Instagram schedule. Buffer is another scheduler that you can use to schedule to multiple social media platforms.
If you know your blog or business's overall message or even better, you have a promotional and editorial calendar for the year, then you can schedule your social media posts for months in advance.
Step 7: Check Your Social Media Analytics
I know that Pinterest has an analytics dashboard.
Facebook and Instagram do as well. Just make sure that you have a business account or business page.
I don’t believe you get analytics with any of these platforms if you don’t have a business account/page.
Why this is important: Check the analytics and seeing which types of posts resonated with your audience the most will be a good indication of what types of posts to create in the future.
You might even tweak some of your scheduled posts based on the analytics.
Next Steps: Use A Social Media Planner To Organize Everything.
Following all of these steps on a consistent basis might be a little overwhelming.
You might start off posting strategically and then as life gets busy you might just post whatever on social media or not post at all.
That’s why I created this social media planner to help us keep all of these steps straight.
This planner will help you create the social media marketing plan that you need to help take your business to the next level.
It will take the stress out social media marketing because it helps guide your thinking and planning. Take a peek at it below.
These are just a few pages from the planner.
You can click here and download the first 8 pages of the planner for free so you can take a closer look at it and see if it could help you organize your social media marketing plan.
You can also look at the planner on Etsy: Strategic Social Media Planner
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions please sure to post them in the comment section.
Ta-ta for now,
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