Having a social media marketing strategy is a must. If you are posting just to post, you are wasting your time and energy. Planning your content is the key to truly being effective. Let’s walk through how you can create your social media strategy plan for an entire month in just one day!
What Are You Trying to Accomplish?
This may sound obvious. The end goal for online business owners is obviously to gain more clients! But, how does your social media play into that bigger goal this month? Do you want more people to join your email list? Do you want to prime your audience for an upcoming launch?
Take a second to look ahead and decide what you want to accomplish with your social media marketing strategy this month! Write it down. Every post we plan moving forward has to tie back to this goal. Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time.
How Can You Accomplish Your Goal?
Now that you know what you want to achieve through your content this month, we can begin to make the social media strategy plan!
Choose broad ways you can support your strategy. For instance, if your goal this month is to prep your audience for a new product / service you’re announcing in a few weeks, you’d use these five content categories:
- Build trust – help them get to know you as a person! People love to support other people rather than a faceless business.
- Build the problem – educate your audience on the problem. Relate to them. Use their pain points regarding your product / service to pull them in.
- Show solution – help them understand how you’ve been impacted by your product or service. Show them how it can help them in their life!
- Social proof – get feedback from people who know you / your business. How were their lives impacted by your product / service? People buy more when the risk is low. If they know it works, they’ll be more likely to jump in!
- Show your expertise – what makes you qualified? Share your background and experience.
Create Your Content Calendar
Now that you have a few categories of content, you can begin to write the actual posts / copy that go along with each. Rotate the categories throughout the month as you see fit by telling stories, sharing before and afters, etc.
Pro tip? Show your face as much as possible… it builds subconscious trust! And try to create a cohesive, welcoming feed. I know exactly what my grid will look like before the month starts by using a planning app like Later!
If writing finished captions a month ahead seems too overwhelming to you, plan the general post idea for each day and perfect them at the beginning of each week.
Strong Captions
Fun fact… I was yearbook Editor in high school. I lived for it and even back then, I knew the value of a good caption. Here’s the anatomy for a good Instagram captions:
- Attention-getting sentence to get your audience to slow their scroll and read what you have to say. Think something like “Three ways you’ve been dropping the ball in your biz.”
- Content that either educates, entertains, or inspires them. Bonus point if you can do both in the same caption for maximum value – “edutain” them!
- A call to action is necessary if you want any of your social media marketing strategy to pay off. Make it crystal clear what you want them to do from your post. Do you want them to double tap? Or maybe you want them to grab the freebie you created… Tell them!
Over there like, “Cassie, sounds great, but I have no idea what to talk about?” Grab over 100 prompts designed to convert followers to clients in my IG Caption Infusion. You’ll also get more guidance on how to turn those prompts into a content calendar with solid copy!
Brand Appropriate Photos
I’m not going to give overly specific advice here. You need to assess your past posts to see what types of photos perform best. Look at your analytics to see which photos you get the most comments and likes on.
For some accounts, styled flat-lays rule supreme. For others, very organic photos of the business owner are what followers prefer. And on other accounts, a good old fashioned quote graphic brings the house down.
One common theme I’ve noticed is that overused stock photos (as beautiful as they may be) usually don’t perform as well!
But, here’s the thing… It doesn’t matter what works for other people. What works for you? Pay attention and post accordingly.
If you don’t feel confident taking your own photos, consider hiring a brand photographer. They can help you create a cohesive feel and aesthetic for your social / online presence.
Strategic Hashtags
Not using hashtags is the real life equivalent of sitting alone in your room and wondering why you have no friends. They’re key to helping people find your content.
The most important thing to think about when using hashtags is to use ones that your ideal client is searching – not your competitors. For instance, as a wedding photographer, you wouldn’t use #bokeh or #lightroomislife as your hashtags. Instead, you’d use something like #wisconsinbride or #midwestweddingvenue!
The next thing to consider is using hashtags of varying sizes. You can use up to 30 per Instagram post, so use them all! In general, I recommend you use:
- 2-5 hashtags that have been used more than 1 million times. This helps people see your post quickly. Quick engagement = better results. Ex. #weddingphotographer.
- 10-15 medium hashtags (over 80,000) to capture more of the general consumer you’re looking for! Ex. #michiganwedding.
- 10 small hashtags (under 80,000) to get super niche and find your people. Ex. #grandrapidsweddingphotographer.
Create 8 different groupings of different hashtags and rotate them frequently. If you use the same ones every post, they’ll become much less effective and you could be flagged as spammy.
Pro tip… don’t forget to use hashtags in your stories as well! You can use up to 10!
Geotag
Use geotags to increase visibility. It’ll help get your content in front of your ideal client’s eyes. If your ideal client loves yoga, geotag a local yoga studio. You get the point. Don’t overcomplicate it. If you’d find your ideal client there, feel free to geotag it!
Pepper in Supporting Content
Now that your posts are ready to go, create the supporting content strategy such as social media stories, lives, and blogs or podcasts! Your whole online presence should interweave and work together.
Don’t Post and Ghost
Now it’s time to step back from planning and just start engaging. Just posting is the equivalent to going to a party, not talking to anyone, and placing sticky notes with your thoughts all over the house.
Respond to comments, DM people from their stories, and be genuine. And to make life easier next month, keep a note in your phone. Each time you have a content idea, write it down. When it comes time to plan again, you’ll have plenty of options!
Sick of panicking when you realize you haven’t posted in a week… or month? Click here to download my FREE IG Content Planner and watch the followers (and clients) pour in!
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