Planning for a social media initiative – regardless of budget size – matters. This point was stressed by Brianna Huff, Communications Specialist at Navient and a featured speaker at The Social Shake-Up, a virtual social media conference. She discussed strategies for making the most of a meager social media budget.
And, like most things in life, maximizing social media success starts with a plan – which I like to look at as a four-step process, something I call the GOAL. Let’s break it down.
Goal
Step one, identify and set clear, measurable goals. Ask yourself, your team and your client what success looks like. Are you hoping to increase engagements; reach a broader audience; increase your client’s social following; drive website traffic; or encourage customers to write positive reviews? No matter the goal, make sure the team and client are in agreement. This ensures that the entire team is on the same page and working to accomplish a unified purpose.
Objectives
Step two, set your objectives. Make sure they are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. Yes, another acronym ?.
When setting objectives, I like to brainstorm different ways in which the end results can be reached. From there, I usually narrow these down to about three bullet points – the more specific the objective, the clearer your team and client expectations will be.
Approach
Step 3, identify your approach and game plan. During The Social Shake-Up conference, Brianna suggested taking an approach that creates an experience where people want to join the conversation and engage. An approach that includes a clear “call to action” is outside of the box and unexpected yet remains relatable, relevant and timely.
And for those working with little to no budget, this step is especially important, because you have to really finesse your approach in a way that can stand on its own and drive solid results, without having to rely on paid campaigns to drum up additional engagements.
Launch
Step 4, it’s go time, baby. Launch your campaign across your social channels, whether that be LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or even TikTok!
What I like most about this strategy is that it’s simple, straight-forward and versatile – any size business, enterprise or startup can take this approach.
The best part about taking the route outlined above is that it saves time and energy. And it works! It has helped to deliver fabulous results for Bospar’s social media clients.
