5 Steps To Create A Kick Ass 12 Month Social Media Content Plan

1. Know Your Target Audience

 

The same as any project you do, you need to know who your target audience is. Is it for digital marketers, beauticians, mothers, dentists... You need to know exactly who you are targeting, and what their problems/needs are in respect to what you are offering.

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I’ll give you an example to explain the importance of why? It's your grandson's 12th birthday. You know he's into football so you buy him a football. You hand him his birthday present and to his dismay it’s another football, his 6th in fact.

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What have you done wrong here? Yes you know his age, gender and interest, however you don’t know what he actually needs. Based on the information you had on him you ASSUMED. This is a common pitfall marketers fall into.

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How would it feel to know your 12 month social media content plan is based on some quick assumptions? Don't get lazy, do the research!

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I recommend creating a ‘customer avatar’. There are lots online you can choose from, all of them will easily guide you through this task. Make sure you cover the below as a minimum:

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• Demographics

• Interests

• Behaviors

• Problems/needs

 

Bonus Tip

 

Another thing to take into consideration, generations can change behaviors and interests of your target audience. Therefore, even though you may have created a customer avatar in the past for another project, it is prudent to update it every now and then.

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2. Know Your Social Media Goals

 

It is super important to know your social media goals. What do you want to get out of your 12 months of posting on social media? More sales, subscriptions, emails... Once you have them break them into smaller goals to be achieved and tracked each month.

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I understand you might still not quite understand what you can get out of social media. To help you here are some key things to take into consideration when creating your goals:

 

1. Don't assume people are on social media to be sold to

2. Don't focus on followers

3. What is the impact you want to achieve?

4. What do you want to influence in your industry?

5. Where would you like your company to be positioned in the industry?

 

3. Research What Draws The Attention Of Your Audience On Social media

 

As well as knowing who your target audience are, you also need to know what draws their attention on social media.

 

Research

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• National holidays

• Observances

• Industry Events

• Industry Celebrations

 

You need to look at these as small guaranteed windows of social media activity from your target audience. In addition, these will likely be things your target audience are very passionate about. This evokes strong emotion, therefore can be very effective to capitalise on.

 

“Emotion creates conversions”.

 

You should factor in all of this research when creating your content for your marketing campaigns; new product launch, website, blog, whatever it is you need to smartly position and adapt your content to these windows of opportunity. This immediately strengthens your marketing campaigns maximising your potential return on investment.

 

Things to be mindful of:

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• Be careful of sensitive subjects

• You don't need to engage in everything, only the things that relate to the problem you are solving.

 

Bonus Tip

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Don’t just rely on your planned content. Make sure you interact with your audience and post about any news and trends relevant to the problem you are solving.

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4. Make Sure Your Content Is Valuable And Engaging

 

All of the points addressed in step 2 are hugely important to take into consideration when creating valuable and engaging content. However, I want to really focus on one of them.

 

• Don't assume people are on social media to be sold to

 

I will give you an example for you to picture this, John joined social media to keep in touch with his mother. John is interested in learning social media marketing. He keeps on seeing posts from two different companies, one keeps on posting offers the other one keeps posting useful blogs. John doesn’t know either company, which one is he likely to choose?

 

Post 1 - Wondering where to turn to for social media marketing knowledge. Look no further! Click on the link in this post to get 20% off my beginners social media marketing course!

 

Post 2 - Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of learning there is online about social media marketing. Don’t worry I’ve got you covered! Learn all the basics of social media in my new blog. If you have any questions, comment on this post. 

 

He is going to choose post 2, I will tell you why. On average people will spend no more than a few seconds reading a post. Would you ask someone out on a date within a few seconds of meeting them? Would you make a decision to buy a car within a few seconds? Would you buy a house after seeing it for a few seconds?  Unless you are extremely impulsive, which the average person is not, you would not. 

 

Remember social media is a window to new customers. Nurture them, show them why you are the best at what you do and why they shouldn't go anywhere else. Do this through content that relates to the problem you are solving for them.

 

“Emotion creates conversions”

 

Now I am sure you are asking, “So I can’t post any offers?” Of course you can, but understand these posts are only relevant to your current customers/followers. Therefore, they will unlikely draw any new customers.

 

You also need to think about the type of content you are creating. There is a huge difference in engagement when it comes to different types of content. Below I have rated them in order of highest to lowest engagement on social media

 

1. Video

2. Photo

3. Written

 

You will find lots of stats and facts online to back this up, here are some interesting ones.

 

• Video posts get at least 59% more engagement than other post types. (BuzzSumo, 2019)

• Social video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined. (Wordstream, 2020)

 

5. Put Everything Onto A Social Media Calendar

 

Finally put everything we have discussed onto a social media calendar. I recommend spending a few quid to get it printed into a big whiteboard. This gives you the freedom to write all over it. Make sure you leave enough space in each date for you to write down current news and trends. This calendar will act as a way for you to visualise the year ahead, giving you the freedom to think creatively, come up with new ideas and see opportunities where you can smartly reposition your campaign content. 

 

Remember social media is in the moment, so for you to be able to create a 12 month social media content plan without having to adapt it, is impossible. Use your content plan as a guide but don't be strict to it, IF it makes sense to reposition a campaign one month then go for it. However, this does not mean you should keep changing your plan just because you feel like it, don’t forget you spent a lot of well thought out time on planning your social media content plan.

 

Social Media Calendar

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• National holidays

• Observances

• Industry Events

• Industry Celebrations

• Marketing campaigns

• 12 month goals

• Monthly goals

• Hashtags

• Keywords

 

Thank you for reading my blog, I really appreciate it and promise that you are now on a fast track to creating kick ass social media content.

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