Many businesses are unsure of how to effectively leverage social media as part of their marketing efforts. Some merely post messages once a year on their Facebook fan page or on Twitter only to say that social media ‘didn’t work’ for them.  For a small business with limited resources, it might be difficult to hire in-house or even outside social media help, so they continue to blindly navigate the waters.  It pains me to see this, so I’ve decided to share a formula we use for our clients when determining their social media strategy.  My hope is that small business owners can use this as a template for getting started with an effective social media plan.

1. Determine marketing goals.  Get clear about the specific objectives you want to achieve. We all want more clients and more money, but consider the steps it takes to get the business leads that result in more business. Reasonable online marketing goals could include: increase in website traffic or foot traffic to your location, increased customer feedback on social sites, and generating more email opt-ins.  
2. List your current marketing outlets.  Review this list and consider what can be integrated to maximize the use of social media. For example, if you use direct mail, could you add the links to your Facebook fan page or Twitter handle? If time or money is a concern, also consider what marketing activities can be shifted or replaced with social media. If you’re running costly print ads in a local newspaper, but find you’re not getting the results you want, would it be reasonable to start to shift some of those funds to hiring part-time staff to manage your social media?
3. Determine your target audience or ideal client. It’s important to identify exactly who you want to reach in order to develop a solid plan of action. Be as specific as possible. Consider industry, gender, age, purchase habits, income level, education level, etc.  For the purpose of this blog, let’s say that your plan is to target brides.
4. Decide on the message. Now that you’ve established your goals and decided on your audience, it’s time to determine how you plan to reach them.  What do you have to say? What value can you offer?  Using brides as an example, you may want to inform them of ways they can save money and still have the wedding of their dreams.
5. Determine channels for reaching your audience. Where is your audience?  If you are targeting brides, you might find that more brides are using Pinterest or watching YouTube videos.  You could display DIY boards on Pinterest. You might create short video clips with money saving tips. You could even feature video testimonials of brides who have used your service and saved money. For small businesses doing it themselves, I recommend starting out with no more than two social media channels.
6. Set a 90-day plan.  It’s tempting to try to do it all, but in order to remain consistent, you must start small.  If you’ve decided to use Pinterest and YouTube, a reasonable 90-day plan could include building your social media community on these channels (remember to use your traditional or offline marketing avenues to help you get started) and engaging that audience with consistent, compelling content.  
7. Develop an editorial calendar. Now it’s time to get specific on what you’ll do in that 90-day plan.  Develop a theme or focus-area for each month. Determine the type of content you’ll post and frequency of the content.
8. Build a maintenance schedule. This is where we get to the nitty-gritty.  Create a maintenance calendar of daily, weekly, monthly, and as-needed tasks. Consider things like monitoring the accounts and responding to the audience, continuing to build the audience, and writing the content for the day, week or month.
9. Assign responsibilities. If you’re like many business owners, you might intend to do it all yourself. But I find that’s not always realistic. Be sure to assign a specific person to each task – even if it is you. Also consider the time involved in completing each task so you can schedule your time appropriately.
10. Evaluate.  After 90 days, review your progress. Were your goals met? Did you reach your intended audience?  What worked and what didn’t work?  Should you shift your focus or maintain what you’ve done? Are there other forms of media you want to consider?  Be honest with yourself about these results and adjust your social media plan accordingly.

If you have a website or a blog, you engage in content marketing every time you publish a page or post – whether you realize it or not.

As the business world continues to evolve with the Internet age, content blogging has become a booming market. However, many small businesses are making a lot of avoidable mistakes or simply missing out on an opportunity to get the most out of their expensive content.

If you own a site or blog, you know how expensive and time-intensive getting quality content published can be.

So get the most out of your content and avoid these costly mistakes.

 #1. No Plan

The first and most obvious content marketing problem is the complete lack of a plan. Most firms have a short term plan at best – they might know what the next few blog posts will be or what pages on their site need to be added.

But what about the big picture? How is your content adding value? Does your content coach a potential customer into and through the sales funnel? Are you tracking responses to your content so you can improve as you go?

These are just a few questions to get you started. The point is to get a plan on paper that goes beyond the next few weeks’ worth of content.

#2. Wrong Purpose

Content writers can fall into many traps that steal them away from the actual goal of content. Content writing is not about the writer, a random topic, or a selling point. All of these types of writing will frustrate and alienate your readers. The goal of content writing is to spread valid professional advice about a topic that relates to your business. Think about your audience. Who do you want to read your content? Then ask this audience what topics they wish to read about. Your readers might then become customers if you establish yourself as an expert in your business field.

The purpose is not to make a quick sell. Content comes in many forms, but the goal is to create value. This can look like a FAQ section on your site, how-to guides for troubleshooting, or general industry information. Avoid salesy content at all cost.

#3. Unprofessional

Businesses sometimes forget to make sure their content writing is professional. Content writing does need to be grammatically correct, clear, and valid. Your content should be interesting, engaging, and meaningful to your readers. Hiring an ad agency or PR firm is not always a good way to solve this problem unless they have specific training in content writing. Invest in a service or writer who will be worth your time and money.

 #4. Social Media

Publishers will have one of two problems with social media. Either they will never use it and lose all the potential marketing benefits or they will rely too heavily on it to do all the marketing for them. Content needs to be consistently spread through social media outlets, but it must be valuable to your readers and be professionally written.

Encourage readers to share your content using social media buttons on your site by using Twitter and other social media techniques to share your news. But you must understand, they will only share high-value content.

#5. Search Engine Optimization

One of the many reasons to engage in content marketing is to improve your search engine rankings – a process called search engine optimization (SEO). But a common problem with a content marketing campaign is that it does not properly incorporate the latest SEO techniques.

This is an industry in and of itself. Very few inexperienced staff will be able to fully take advantage of up-to-date SEO information. At a minimum, you’ll want to engage an SEO professional to get you some policy in place regarding how to publish your content and best-practices for any social media content you publish. Ideally, you can have an SEO expert involved from start to finish so they can monitor progress and adapt your campaign on the fly.

#6. Untapped Resources

Another common content marketing mistake is failing to use your company’s resources. Get creative with your content and find ways to incorporate your business’s specific strengths and expertise. Have your employees come up with ideas and even write articles for you. The more you set your company apart, the more likely your customers and readers will get behind your content and eventually your company.