As we are nearing the end of another calendar year, it’s a good time to start planning for what lies ahead. For many window film dealers, this is the time of year to review business plans, update marketing plans and look toward the future.
One element to a marketing plan is a social media plan. Here are steps to take to develop a social media plan for the coming year.
Research Your Company’s Current Social Media Presence
As part of a communications audit, you should take a look at your current social media presence. How are you communicating with your audience now? What channels are you using to communicate with your audience?
Take a look at the number of followers you have earned. How many likes, comments and shares have you received each month? Ask yourself whether social media is helping to bring in new customers or repeat customers.
Also, take a look at how your company is managing social media. Who has admin access to your accounts? Who is responsible for making posts and monitoring and responding to comments? Locating the right person on your staff to help you manage your social media is a key ingredient to success.
Understanding where you are now is an important step in figuring out where you want to go in the future. That helps you with the next step – which is setting goals.
Setting Social Media Goals for Your Company
It should go without mention that every window tint business intends for their social media to bring in customers. However, there are other goals to consider for your company when it comes to using social media.
For instance, social media offers a great opportunity to build brand ambassadors. Research tells us that word-of-mouth is the single best form of marketing, and that people are more likely to believe their friends and family members over a company sales representative. Cultivating brand ambassadors – people who are loyal to your company – is an opportunity to gain new customers (their friends and family) as well as foster repeat customers. Facebook launched a new “Top Fan” feature, in which your page’s frequent followers are labeled top fans. Perhaps you would want to incentivize those “top fans” with small discounts.
What other goals would you have for social media? Perhaps it is to increase followers and reach more people. Perhaps it is to improve engagement, or the number of likes, comments and shares. You might also want to simply use social media to tell the story about your company – which can be useful when recruiting new employees, developing a broader fan base or cultivating trust among your customers.
Take a few minutes to identify your goals for social media. Think broadly about where you want your company to be and how social media might help.
Setting Measurable Objectives for Your Company’s Social Media
Just like if you were to set business objectives, you can also set social media objectives to move your company toward reaching its goals. Objectives are measurable, which means that you can measure your success at specific times – for example, monthly or quarterly, to gage how you are progressing and if anything needs to change.
Objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable and timely. You can find a variety of analytics to use to meet your objectives using Facebook’s Insights. Most other social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Instagram, also have analytical tools.
Some common social media objectives include:
- Increase the number of page followers by a specific percentage by a defined period in time.
- Increase the number of engagement (total likes, comments and shares) by a specific percentage month-over-month.
- Increase the number of customer reviews on Facebook by a specific percentage by a defined period in time.
As you can see, these are measurable and specific. Make sure to keep your objectives attainable so that you don’t risk burnout among those who are managing your social media.
Identify Strategies for Your Company’s Social Media
Now that you have researched what is currently going on with your social media presence and you’ve developed goals and measurable objectives – it’s time to look at your strategy.
A strategy is defined as a plan of action or policy designed to achieve an overall aim. Generally, strategies provide a roadmap to your objectives. In other words, they describe the “HOW” to reach your measurable objectives.
One recommended strategy is that you look at the number of social media channels that you are engaged on and question whether they are:
- Reaching your intended audience
- Bringing in the results that you desire – or helping you to achieve your defined goals.
Often times, companies dive into the newest social media channel because it’s the latest craze or the cool thing to do. However, the reality is that they are busy installing film, and they don’t have the time to fully manage all of the channels that they have started. So, customers might find them on Instagram – but see that they only posted five photos about three years ago.
Educate yourself on the different social media platforms. Each year, the Pew Research Center pulls together a report that gives you demographic information and usage information for each of the social media channels. Look at that data and determine:
- Who are your customers? What age demographic?
- Where are your customers? Are they on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and/or TikTok?
- What information and types of content are your customers looking for from you on that channel?
- Are you currently providing the right type of information on the channel to satisfy your customer?
- Do you have the bandwidth to keep up with the necessary posting and monitoring that social media demands?
It might be wise to remove some abandoned social media channels from your website and just focus your attention on those that are providing results and reaching the demographic that you intend. Armed with that information, develop strategies for that specific channel.
Identify Tactics and Measurements
This is where it’s a good idea to bring in your social media manager into the planning process. Look at specific tactics that you want him or her to accomplish to help you reach your objectives.
This should include the number of posts that you want to see made each week, the types of posts (photo, video, stories, etc.), and the content that you want to see covered each month. An editorial calendar can be helpful, too.
Also, consider creating a comment policy to determine who manages social media comments and the approval process to respond to comments on behalf of the company. You’ll want your company to join in the conversation and have a voice. Here are six healthy habits for social media management.
Measurement should be included in the discussion with your social media manager. How often should he/she provide a progress report? Be sure to choose metrics that match your defined objectives. For example, if you are looking to increase the number of followers, then the total follower count should be documented throughout the year to track progress.
Speak to an Expert
Accent Distributing is working for you. It has a marketing firm that it can put you in touch with to help assist with any marketing questions you might have – including creating a social media plan for your company. Contact Inside Sales at [email protected] or at (941) 922-5268.
