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Five steps to creating a social media plan to reach and grow your audience

Learn how to improve your social media engagement when connecting with new and existing customers.

3 minute read

Social media is a key component of most major marketing strategies – whether you’re B2B or B2C, it’s likely your customers are using social media channels to connect with brands so having a presence will help you interact with existing customers, reach out to prospective new customers, build business leads, and develop your brand identity.

It’s important to plan your social media strategy so you’re spending your time effectively and getting the results you expect. To help make the best use of your social media efforts, follow our five steps.

1. Work out where your customers are and show up there

It makes sense to be active on the social media platforms your customers are on (rather than the ones you use). Each platform also has a distinct content style which can help you decide if it’s a channel that your brand should be present on. Remember it’s quality over quantity - you don’t need to be on all channels so just pick two or three that best suit your brand.

The key channels and their uses:

Facebook

• New Zealand’s leading social media platform with 84% of internet users aged 16 to 64 using Facebook each month.
• Use Facebook as a customer service channel, to run paid ads, and share brand updates.

Instagram

• More popular amongst a younger demographic – if your audience is mostly under 35, you should be using Instagram.
• If you have a brand with a visual product, Instagram is perfect – but it can also be used by services for sharing information, micro-blogging, etc.
• Instagram Stories are another content stream – perfect for sharing behind the scenes or narrative content.

LinkedIn

• A professional network - useful for targeting businesses, offering business insights, and building your brand

Twitter

• Effective as a customer service channel and for news and updates

YouTube

• New Zealand’s second largest search engine. For video content such as product demonstrations

TikTok

• This is more of a niche channel and very targeted to younger age groups. Do some research and if your competitors (either in NZ or overseas) are using TikTok then it’s worth considering.

Every industry will have its own characteristics, so identify which social media platforms tend to be used by your customers and competitors and work out what they are doing (looking, listening, posting, participating, inventing, leading, following), then join in.

2. Create a style guide and social media strategy

Consistency is key when it comes to social media – this will help you build a clear brand presence that your audience will become familiar with and know what to expect. Having both a visual style guide and a social media strategy will help you plan your activity and measure its value.

Your style guide should include:

• tone of voice and keywords to describe your brand/products/services
• a mood board of images for inspiration
• posts from competitors/key brands you admire for inspiration
• sales-driven posts mixed with content-driven – people don’t want to be sold to all the time so ensure there is balance.

Your social media strategy should include:

• the reason why you’re online and objectives for each channel
• your key audience (you can create personas here)
• a posting schedule for each channel
• competitor analysis
• your customer journey and where social media fits in the funnel
• customer service strategy
• how to deal with trolls, complaints, negativity.

Providing a great, informative, and useful experience helps preserve your online integrity, so it’s worth spending time to set the foundations properly.

3. Build an engaged community through authentic content

An online community is a group of people that are choosing to engage with your brand online. Having a strong online community builds trust and creates powerful brand advocates that can in turn lead to more sales, leads, and followers.

The most effective way to build a community is by interacting with people – whether they follow your brand or not.

You can build a community by trying some of the following:

• creating a Facebook Group to create authentic conversations with engaged followers
• following hashtags on Instagram and commenting on relevant posts
• engaging with competitor or complementary brands to create brand awareness
• profiling and sharing relevant content
• reposting content from industry experts
• partnering and collaborating with other businesses
• running competitions, webinars, or events
• collaborating with key influencers to expose your brand to their audience.

4. Use paid advertising

Most social media platforms operate on a pay-to-play model, so you will need to invest some budget in order to get results. Helpfully, social media advertising can be incredibly effective thanks to the high level of targeting you can do.

Once you have decided on your budget and objectives, try setting up some Facebook ad campaigns around the following:

• If your business is location-specific, create an ad that targets the local area.
• Segment your ads based on demographics, interests, marital status, gender – the options are endless.
• Create a lookalike audience based off an existing customer email list.

5. Track results and make changes

It’s important to track your social media engagement to identify which tactics are working and which aren’t.

Some metrics for social media engagement include:

• followers or subscribers
• likes, dislikes, reactions
• website visits
• downloads or shares
• lead generation.

Use the native social media platforms to track these results month-to-month to ensure you are meeting your targets.

Following these steps should help increase the effectiveness of the time and money you and staff spend each week on social media. Whether you’re using social media as a core component of your digital marketing or it complements your other marketing efforts, it’s an amazing tool if used well and can deliver the results you’re looking for.

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This material is for general information purposes only and does not constitute, and is not intended as, personalised financial advice or as a replacement for legal advice. BNZ strongly recommends you seek advice specific to your personal financial or legal situation from a qualified adviser. Neither BNZ nor any person involved in the material accepts any liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage arising out of the use of, or reliance on, all or any part of the content.