Review your Social Media activity with this Social Media Planning Checklist

As the new year gets underway, now is the ideal time to review your social media activity and plan your strategy for the year ahead. What went well last year? What's changed in your business recently? Have you been able to measure growth across your social media accounts? Or perhaps you're looking to kick-start a new social media campaign. Here are 10 steps to help you review your social media marketing for 2020.

Choose your social media channels

Consider which channels make the most sense based on your industry and audience. Contrary to what many people believe, you don’t need to be on every single social media platform! Choose the platforms that work well for your industry, or the type of content you expect to share. If you’ve got a visual product, then platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are likely to be more effective. If your industry or target audience spends more time on Facebook, then focus your efforts in one place rather than spreading yourself out too thinly across too many platforms.

Make sure your profiles are complete

This may seem obvious, but there are still dozens of business profiles across social media channels that are incomplete. A fully completed profile will make your business easier to find in search results and show off your brand identity. It also helps when customers turn to social media for customer service questions by reassuring them they’re mentioning the correct profile.

Follow other businesses, brands and prospects

Don’t be an island on social - you can show you’re an active participant and get plenty of inspiration on how to use social platform by following others. Choose hashtags that can broaden your reach so you’re not just targeting your followers who already know about you.

Keep an eye on your mentions

Timeliness is key when making the most out of your interactions with followers and fans. As younger generations increasingly turn to social media platforms over email, you can’t afford to let questions about your opening hours or even complaints languish unanswered. Make sure you have alerts in place so you don’t overlook mentions, or perhaps set defined blocks of time when you’ll check your social mentions every few hours to avoid it being too disruptive.

Define your content strategy

Consider your marketing goals to determine the best approach to content and hashtags. This is absolutely key for you to make the most of your social media presence. People follow people and brands because they have something interesting or relevant to share. You could focus on sharing behind the scenes content, opinion pieces or story telling depending on your message and your audience. This will also help you to define your tone of voice, pinpoint national hashtag days that are relevant to you and help you to plan campaign goal focused content, rather than simply baseline day-today activity.

Assemble your content calendar

Plan and schedule your content in advance will help to keep your audience engaged and save you time. You can download printable calendars from timeanddate.com which are great for scribbling our your content ideas before you schedule them in advance. Creating a content calendar has 2 main advantages; firstly you’re more likely to give your content structure rather than being done ‘on the fly’, and secondly, by making this one of your monthly tasks, it’s more likely to get done. It can also make it easier for a social media manager to create content, leaving the marketing lead or business owner the task of approving it, rather than writing everything up from scratch.

While you're thinking about your content, don't just focus on creating new content all the time. Content takes time to create and can be costly, so look to re-use or re-purpose your content wherever you can. Don't forget posts that might be several months old (or even older) if they're still relevant today.

Engage with others

Remember that social media is a conversation - take the time to reach out and connect with followers and potential new fans regularly. Don’t worry about being seen to follow your competition either - this could lead to collaboration opportunities as well as keeping an eye on what others are doing in your sector.

Find your brand voice

A distinct brand voice will reinforce your brand identity and help you stand out on social. Your brand voice can have a huge impact on how you’re perceived by your followers as fashionable and on-trend, or more serious and professional depending on your sector, and who you’re wanting to appeal to.

Promote your social channels

Don’t rely just on social channels to get followers - you can promote your profiles in many other marketing channels. You can add your social buttons to your website, email newsletters and even offline signage or stickers. You might even choose to promote your social channels ahead of your website, especially if you’re wanting people to leave reviews of your service or venue.

Monitor your social presence

After your profiles are up and running, keep an eye on your growth with analytics and reporting. Each platform offers some basic reporting, but with a digital partnership with A Digital, we can group your reports and make it easier for you to see how your channels are growing. Not only that, but software can go much further by showing more detailed information about your fanbase and even make suggestions for who to follow and curate relevant content for you to share.

Getting Help with your Social Media Marketing

A Digital are Sprout Social Agency Partners, so we can provide the tools and resource to support your social media strategy. If you're struggling to come up with new ideas for what to say, forget to post new content regularly, or struggle to stay on top of your @mentions, then get in touch for a chat, or try out our free scorecard tool to benchmark your digital activity.