1.
B Y : D E R R I C K W A L K E R
F O R : S O C I A L I N K !
Creating a Social Media Plan

2.
Overview
 Social Media Channels
 6 Steps to Creating a Social Media Plan
 Budgeting for Social Media
 Getting Started
 Questions

3.
What is Social Media
 Social media is media designed to be disseminated
through social interaction, created using highly
accessible and scalable publishing techniques.
- wikipedia.org

4.
What is Social Media?
 An ongoing conversation that’s happening RIGHT
NOW
 A promotional channel for content distribution
 A long-term return on investment
 A steady stream of information for:
 Research
 Feedback
 Building Relationships with customers, clients, contacts

5.
Current Statistics
 Over 50% of people in the US have at least 1 social
media account
 Social media makes up over 17% of all online usage
 Overtaken email as #1 activity on the web
 93% of Americans believe companies should have a
social media presence
 85% believe those companies should be interacting with
customers

6.
Social Media Facts- Facebook
 1.5 Billion active users worldwide
 819 Million on mobile devices
 Mobile users are twice as active as non-mobile users
 53% female, 46% male
 300 Million Photo uploads per day
 Thursdays and Fridays, engagement is 18% higher
 Average time spent on Facebook is 20 minutes
 4.75 Billion pieces of content shared daily
 Largest segment is 25-34 years old

7.
Social Media Facts- Twitter
 1 Billion registered users
 500 million tweets sent daily
 100 Million active users daily
 170 minute spent per user on Twitter Monthly
 Peak days to tweet are Tuesday & Wednesday
 Millennials and Teens are most active segment

8.
Social Media Facts- Instagram
 1oo million active users
 40 million photos posted daily
 8500 likes per second
 1000 comments are made per second
 98% of Instagram photos are shared to Facebook
 28% The most active ages are 30 and 49 use

9.
Social Media Facts- YouTube
 1 Billion unique visits each month
 Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each
month on YouTube
 Almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than
last year
 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every
minute
 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
 According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US
adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

10.
Social Media Facts- Pinterest
 70 Million users as of 2013
 47% of US online consumers have made a purchase
based on recommendation from Pinterest
 Pinterest generates 4x more revenue per click than
Twitter and 27% more than Facebook
 Pinterest buyers spend more money on items than
any of the other top 5 social media sites
 Conversion rates for Pinterest traffic are 50% higher
than conversions from other traffic
 80% of total pinterest pins are repins

11.
Social Media Facts– Google+
 Over 350M Users
 Google plus has great SEO benefits
 Google plus links are all “dofollow”, meaning they pass
valuable link juice
 Posts are crawled and indexed immediately
 Bots crawl 2,500 words on a + page, vs 275 on Facebook
 Google Plus for business offers more integrated
analytics on your business page

12.
How is Social Media Used?
 Customer Service
 Product/Service Feedback
 Networking and Job Searching
 Lead Generation/Sales
 Promotions
 News
 Internal communication

13.
Creating a Social Media Plan
Steps:
1. Preplanning
2. Listen to the Conversation
3. Create Your Target Profiles
4. Set Specific Goals
5. Join the Conversation
6. Measure ROI

14.
Step 1 - Preplanning
Questions to ask internally:
 Where do our customers get their information
 What influences our customers?
 How does information flow in our industry?
 What promotional channels are we currently using?
 What is currently working the best/worst?
 What is my sales funnel? How are leads qualified?
Asking questions indicates how social media can be
used to complement your business goals.

15.
Step 2 – Listen to the Conversation
 Secure your brand on social platforms
 Usernames are often unique
 Use consistent usernames across all platforms
 Set up monitoring channels
 Google Alerts
 Tweet Reach
 Tagboard
 Twitter Search/Twitter Lists
 Monitor: individual influencers, competitors,
blogs/comments, and industry news sources

16.
Step 3 – Create Your Target Profile
 Focusing on key target segments lowers marketing
costs
 Example:
 Target Audience is 25-35
 $350 Billion in spending power
 Spend 20 hours online weekly
 96% of them join social networks
 This information can be gathered through market
research, surveys, or previous studies
 What is the perfect prospect?

17.
Step 3 – Create Your Target Profile
 Find key attributes from monitoring channels
 Chart presence on social media
 Determine Market Segmentation
 Demographic
 Geographic
 Psychographic
 Behavioralistic
 Continue gathering customer data at each step of
your plan

18.
Step 4 – Set Specific Social Goals
 Increase brand awareness
 Generate Leads
 Increase traffic/Opt-ins
 Develop relationships with current customers
 Boost SEO/SEM results
 Reduce CRM costs
 Increase Revenue

19.
Step 5 – Join the Conversation
 3 Phases of Social Equity
 Awareness
 Qualify fans and followers as leads
 Engagement
 Increase long-term communication
 Exclusive promotions will help turn advocates into customers
 Social Commerce
 Determine small data set to introduce products to
 Gather product reviews

20.
Step 5 – Join the Conversation
 Establish an Editorial Calendar
 Choose specific days for posting content
 Be consistent – you’re a news source
 Helps stay on track and organize content
 Choosing specific topics each day helps find content ideas
 Share calendar with everyone involved
 Use video to build quality content
 Doesn’t have to be professional
 Include descriptions and tags for search engine optimization
 Post video with content on your blog/website

21.
Step 5 – Join the Conversation
 Be Transparent and Authentic
 Don’t be evasive
 Offer your name, title, experience
 Admit your interests in the topic
 Define your credibility (Use LinkedIn to build your credible
profile)
 Contribute quality input on topics of interest
 Strive to answer questions about your authenticity
 Don’t focus on selling, focus on engagement
 Earn a reputation, build trust, then sell to qualified
leads

22.
Step 5 – Join the Conversation
 Be the expert in your industry
 Write about what you know
 Offer insights to those who ask for it
 Share links to resources you think add to the conversation
 Use topics you monitor to start conversation
 Articles/blog posts
 Community Forum Threads
 Conversation from social media groups
 When customers trust your content, they’ll trust
what you’re selling

23.
Step 5 – Join the Conversation
 Have rules of engagement
 Know what to do with negative responses
 Determine who in your organization is involved in responding
 Admit to mistakes and thank those who bring it to attention
 Respond Kindly
 Share these rules with your team
 Turn brand “detractors” into “advocates”
 People remember bad experiences, but will buy again if it’s
corrected

24.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 What is a Return?
 Non-financial
 Visitors, word of mouth, page views, fans, followers, referrals
 Financial
 Sales, Transactions, Coupons
 ROI
 Not all returns have to be $$ to bring value

25.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 Qualitative
 Are we part of our industry’s conversation?
 How do our customers perceive us versus our competitors?
 Did we build key relationships?
 Are we moving from monologue to dialogue?
 Quantitative
 Website Analytics
 Social Mentions
 SEO Rankings
 Linkbacks
 Subscribers

26.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 Establish before/after baseline
 What did our online environment look like before social
media?
 What online channels were we using?
 What does it look like now?
 Determine hard numbers here
 5.5% conversion rate before
 8.5% conversion rate now
 This baseline should track at least 6 months

27.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 Develop Activity Timeline along same baseline
 Diagram exact dates in which key SM activities
occurred
 8/11 blog started
 8/13 Facebook page started
 9/15 FB ad campaign begins
 9/17 FB ad ended
 Note Milestones on diagram
 500/1000/10,000 fans
 100 clicks back to blog link

28.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 Look at Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
 Transactions
 New Customers
 Sales
 Revenue
 Average Order Size
 E-mail list size
 Use Google Analytics to determine exact numbers
 What are the transaction precursors?
 Brand mentions
 Loyalty metrics
 In-Store traffic (Online/Off-Line)
 Free sample offers

29.
Step 6 – Measure Your Returns
 Overlay all timelines and look
for patterns
 SM Activities
 Web Analytics
 Store Metrics
 Loyalty Metrics
 Circle areas where increases
occur
 How were specific numbers
achieved?
 Facebook promotion
 Product launch
 Press release
 Coupon offer

30.
Budgeting for Social Media
 Allocation vs. Addition
 Do you raise new funds or borrow from existing budgets?
 How to determine Allocation or Addition
 What are your goals?
 How much is your existing marketing budget?
 Which current tactics work? Which are most expensive?
 What internal resources are available?

31.
Budgeting for Social Media
 What to budget for:
 Time
 Design and Branding
 Analytics Tools
 Social Monitoring
 Automation Applications
 Social Media Advertising
 Outsources/Consulting

32.
How to Get Started
 Start with platforms you can actively maintain
 What outsourcing is needed?
 Design, development, content management, market research
 Plan your content flow
 Will you push content through all channels?
 Find tools to automate processes
 Tweetdeck (now by Twitter)
 Hootsuite
 Sprout Social
 Mailchimp
 Tweetreach

33.
Additional Resources
 Blogs
 Mashable.com
 Inc.
 Tools
 Tweetdeck
 Hootsuite

34.
Questions?
 Contact me at:
 Twitter.com/socialinkdfw
 Facebook.com/socialinkdfw
 Instagram.com/socialinkdfw