Fail to Plan = Planning To Fail

It’s one of those cliches you’ve heard from day dot, but it’s something that is an essential part of your Social Media Marketing.

THE DABBLER, CHRISTMAS AND PLANNING AHEAD
At this time of year – business is busy, the party season is in full swing and let’s be honest most of you are waiting for Christmas Eve and some time off to relax

When it comes to your Social Media Marketing you probably aren’t thinking past Christmas … and sure if you just dabble with Social Media it may be a case of waking up in the morning, throwing out a few timely tweets and hoping some stick

As a social media company what we do is plan ahead in detail for the months ahead.

WHAT A SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY DOES?
Yesterday I spend half a day planning ahead the Social Media campaigns for each client up to the end of February

By the end of the day i’d put together the initial outline for 42 separate campaigns over 2 months

This is the process I took

* Brainstorm for 3 months ahead
* Diarise it in the calendar for one day campaigns / week long campaigns / 4-6 week campaigns
* Tie in which campaigns need complementing with offline marketing and consult with Graphic Design / Images
* Set our expectations for follower growth for the months ahead
* Brief in Client of Social Media Diary
* Continually assess and reevaluate the individual campaigns

And next month we’ll be doing the same again for March & April

I saw a great quote from Tony Lark on Twitter this week that Marketer’s are “Trying to convince people to do things that they hadn’t planned to when they woke this morning” – to do that requires all of the above!

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Planning your Social Media campaign is important because

* YOUR USP – It makes you think about what makes your business unique – you define your USP and where you position yourself
* YOUR TIMING – Your message goes out at the right time (with that all important lead in time)
* YOUR OFFLINE MARKETING – You link in offline marketing so they all match
* YOUR ROI – You are measuring and refining all the time rather than drifting & dabbling

WHAT NEXT?
Plan Plan Plan and do it Now Now Now

Altrincham HQ can hold your hand through the Social Media Planning process as part of our Half Days Social Media Training (Details here)

07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann