The Third of Five Ways to Promote Your Agency Using Social Media

3. Create a social media marketing plan.

In ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Lewis Carroll wrote,

“If you don’t know where you want to be, it hardly matters which direction you take.”

Usually, you start with a plan but I think it’s important that you have first hand “experience” with the social media tools that are available. Get a feel for where your target audience “hangs out” online, what’s their interests, their challenges, what information are they searching for and what are the best channels of communication to reach them, etc.

Once you’ve had a taste of the tools and a feel for how they can be used to promote your agency, the next step is to develop a “simple” plan of action.

At the core of every good team there’s a good plan. Along with the plan, having a person who pulls everything together. Building a Social Media Marketing plan and determine what the objective of the campaign is and therefore what tools should be utilized and how.

It is useful to step back and think strategically about where and how you’re going to commit your marketing resources online. Tap into the creativity of your staff  to create a simple social media marketing plan.

POST is one of the most effective acronyms since the four P’s of marketing. It’s a four-step approach that helps marketers define a social media marketing plan for their business and/or clients.

 

The POST method is the heart and soul of the book, Groundswell, written by Forrestter Research analysts, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoffand. It is  highlighted in Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell blog post, The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy. The POST Method serves as a guide to help you determine the right strategy for the right audience.

Your purpose should dictate strategy and the tactics used for reaching desired goals. A few common outcomes for your social media marketing efforts should include:

  • Gain insight into your target audience – You can use all the qualitative data you want, but some of the most interesting and helpful market research can be found within the social communities where your prospective clients interact, share information and make recommendations.
  • Link building for traffic and SEO – According to Marketing Sherpa, 80-90% of business to business transactions begin with a search on the web. Creating linkbait and promoting it to social media news and bookmarking sites can attract a slew of links from bloggers that read them. Creating value for the community is not the only rule, creating value and behaving according to formal and unwritten rules is what sustains social media sourced link building.
  • Build brand visibility and authority– You’ve heard it before, “Conversations are happening online about your agency’s brand, with or without you.” You might as well participate and do so in a way that pays close attention to the interests and needs of your prospective clients – providing them with information and interactions that further support your agency’s brand.

Related Resources:

About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

Comments

  1. Thank you for the insight Michael; you break it down into a simple process. I look forward to learning some more social media strategies from you in the future.

    Mark

  2. Mark, I’m glad you found it clear and helpful. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

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