The 6 essential steps to writing a social media plan

Once you have decided that you need a social media strategy, you need to write one or get someone else to write it for you. If you decide you want to write your own, here are a few steps you should follow:

Step 1: What social media do you currently use? How frequently and why?

Step 2: Who are you trying to target with your social media contribution? This could be current or prospective customers; you may wish to influence stakeholders in industry or government; or end-consumers. You need to therefore clearly define who your target audience is.

Step 3: What are you trying to achieve?

Depending on your objectives and target audience you will choose the most appropriate social media channels. There are three main objectives for using social media:

·        - To increase your reach into potential markets (brand awareness)

·        - To create closer relationships with your community and increase brand loyalty, e.g. existing and/ or potential customers

·         -To better communicate/ inform your target audience about your product/ service and associated issues.

- Ultimately your social media objectives should contribute to your overall corporate objectives, e.g. increased orders, growing brand loyalty, etc.

Step 4: Write a social media plan based on what your target audience is looking for/ interested in and your objectives.

·          - Define the objectives (corporate and social media)

·          - Clearly identify your target audience

·          - Set success criteria

·          - Clearly outline how you will achieve your objectives through the use of social media channels

Step 5: Use analytics to measure your progress and whether you are meeting your set objectives and schedule a regular review of your plan and the analytics report.

Step 6: Adjust your plan according to the analytics reports.


At Scirum, we have a dedicated team who take care of our clients' social media planning and digital presence. If you are thinking about increasing your social media activity, why not give us a call (01264 860060) or email us?

Susanne Hasselmann, Director, Scirum Ltd.


For more useful tips and answers to common questions from SMEs, visit www.scirum.biz or follow us on Twitter and Google+, like us on Facebook or join our LinkedIn group.

Why does your business need a social media plan?

There are two main reasons why you would want to use social media channels for your business: your current and potential customers/stakeholders use it and/or your competitors exploit it. If either of these two are the case, you have your justification for having a social media strategy.

Social media allows you to increase the reach of your audience and easily tap into new market sectors. Social media is also a great tool with which you can start building much closer relationships with your customers by involving them in your business, for example, by asking them to share their experience and product applications. Often you are able to pick up invaluable information that will lead you to develop improved or new products and services. Social media also allows you a relatively cheap way of circulating information about your business to current and potential customers and stakeholders, improving your ability to inform them more quickly and thoroughly.

At Scirum, we have a dedicated team who take care of our clients' social media planning and digital presence. If you are thinking about increasing your activity on social media, why not call (01264 860060) or contact us?

Susanne Hasselmann, Director, Scirum Ltd

For more useful tips and answers to common questions from SMEs, visit www.scirum.biz or follow us on Twitter and Google+, like us on Facebook or join our LinkedIn group.