Social marketing plans can be complex to create and implement. They range from the blindingly simple, to the outrageously enormous - depending on your resources and investment. But there are common features that all great social marketing plans must include. Today, I'm bringing you 10 great pieces of advice.
#1: A Social Media Writer
If you've been blogging yourself, or maintaining your own social networks, maybe it's time to hire someone to do it? When you hire a professional social writer, they can do so much more work, which means more traffic and sales!
#2: A Hashtag Campaign
If you have an event coming up, then create a hashtag and start promoting it. People who are interested in your event will follow your hashtag, and when that event happens - they'll be the ones chatting and sharing with you.
#3: Track-able Links
Link building is all about driving traffic to your blog, but how do you know it's working? Time to sign up to a link shortening and tracking service! You'll be able to track how many people clicked on your link, and where these links came from.
#4: An Image Tag Facebook Contest
If you have something nice to giveaway, add an image tag Facebook contest to your strategy. Get your fans to tag their names on your chosen image, and to leave a comment beneath it. Then choose the winner (while getting more fans!).
#5: Speak To a Strategist
You can only learn so much on the internet. Maybe what you need is to chat to an expert strategist on why parts of your campaign are working, and others aren't. Find a few groups on LinkedIn and start the discussion.
#6: Launch a Company Flickr Feed
Social media is all about people, so get your people involved in creating a company-based Flickr feed. Take photos of your staff out and about, and spread that brand message of yours! Use your staff to gain more likeability online.
#7: Make Friends With Your Competitors
Take some time to make friends with your competitors. Join their social networks and subscribe to their newsletter. Not only will this give you insight into what they're doing, but it can also end up in some great joint venture partnerships.
#8: A Social Management Tool
If you're still trying to manually submit to several social networks, you've reached a critical stage in your strategy. It's either upgrade to a social management tool, or begin to lose fans and followers from empty pages perhaps?
#9: Kill One of Your Social Pages
Strange thing to say, but if you kill a site that isn't performing or making you any money - you'll have more time to invest in the ones that do. This year, take a hard look at which sites you really need, and which you can eliminate.
#10: Redo Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn has become quite a nice social site, and you can add lots of apps and extras to your profile. Chances are, you haven't updated in a while. A must have for your strategy this year, is to make your LinkedIn account more interactive.
Which one of these 10 tips did you like the best? Tell us why, below this post.