We’ve been planning for our 2022 marketing efforts for quite a while now, and our social media plan is central to it all.
That might seem slightly early, but marketing moves fast. By the end of September, there are no more slow periods in the industry: it’s go, go, go until January, when the next crop of marketing plans and strategies come into play.
Waiting until 2022 to start planning what you’re going to do means starting late, and starting late means missing out. Missing out means fewer opportunities to achieve your goals.
If you’ve read our other articles about planning your marketing for 2022, you know this already.
But it bears repeating.
You need to know what you’re going to do from now. You need to know where you’re going with your brand communication. You need to know what comes next.
A solid plan will also help you greatly with reacting to the unpredictable, and we all know what that looks like by now. If you have a solid base to fall back on you can rely on that to keep your channels alive while you pivot your communications.
Here are our top 5 tips for making sure your 2022 social media plan benefits you.
1. Plan
- Outline your goals and objectives for your brand’s Social Media for the upcoming year (base them on your business goals and your wider marketing plan for 2022).
- Create a social media communication strategy for each goal.
- Ensure that your social media plan covers all objectives.
- Create a high-level social media calendar that covers the entire the year – identify the key dates/periods for your business, plan your seasonal campaigns
- Create a more detailed plan for the first quarter (e.g. monthly calendars for the next 3 months) for each platform you want to cover.
- Plan content production and ad spend budgets
There are plenty of opportunities to plan content ahead of time – besides thinking about your key brand messages (which aren’t seasonal or reactive), there are calendar dates that are always there, every single month (doesn’t the Christmas countdown officially start in September?) – so think about those key dates and key messages that are evergreen. They can help you build a solid content calendar for your social media communication.
2. Produce in Bulk
After creating a detailed monthly social media plan, you’ll know exactly what you’ll need to produce:
- Bulk production saves a lot of time, and time is money
- It gives you time for casting and sourcing of props
- You will save on equipment and location costs (if you’re renting) and when planned properly, on model fees too.
- You will likely save on overall costs as well, as you’ll be paying less for administrative fees if you’re outsourcing your production.
- Producing in advance ensures that you have enough time to deal with any changes as they happen without completely compromising the rest of your strategy.
3. Schedule content when possible
There are many platforms to help with this for each of the social media platforms (including Instagram Stories!), so make the most of them to save time. Posting each post on-the-day adds up to many more hours than you would spend scheduling in bulk once a month.
However, you should always be aware of what’s happening in your market and the world, and make sure to adjust your automatic schedule accordingly.
4. Follow results
When planning a brand’s social media, it is easy to fixate on particular ideas and ways of how we want things to go. However, not all ideas that sound good in the beginning are ideas that actually work out. This is where we have to follow the results.
Measuring the results of your social media efforts links directly to your strategy and goals. If the results you’re getting don’t help you achieve your goals – changes need to happen.
Follow your campaigns to see what is working or not, what can be improved, or what needs to change completely. Don’t get stuck with things that don’t work just because you’re in love with an idea.
5. Be ready for changes
The world of social media is in constant flux and it is essential to have some flexibility in your plans. It helps make sure that what you’re doing is always relevant and is bringing in the results you’re looking for.
At any time, some disruption might shake up the entire world(e.g. COVID in 2019/2020) or just your business (e.g. your campaigns are not performing as expected). Meaning that you might need to change some of your initial social media plans, change the way you run your campaigns, and put some content on hold or completely replace it, etc.
Benefits of planning your social media in advance
- It ensures that your business’ social media strategy is in-line with your overall business strategy
- With a good Social media plan you won’t need to worry about doing everything last minute
- Planning in advance allows you to produce in advance – saves time and money
- If something unexpected happens you’ll still have your bases covered
- Tracking the results helps tailoring your strategy for the maximum results
On the receiving end, social media communications might come across as very effortless and ‘right-this-minute’ but they do take much more planning than one might think. Give your business a leg-up in the new year by building a clear, yet flexible social media strategy for 2022. Still not sure where to start? Get in touch with us and we’ll be glad to help you tell your story.
