Target audience, including any segmented lists (e.g., by age, industry, location, job role, etc.)
There are different reasons you might segment your audience. For example, you can create lists to monitor various conversations or for ad targeting purposes.
Social platforms on which you have a presence, including any channel-specific goals
Your brand's social media voice or personality
Typically, you will define one brand voice for all marketing content with different tones or styles on social media. For example, some brands are more playful on Instagram and more professional on LinkedIn.
Primary messages that will help convey your brand's value
These will likely match or support core messages within your
Main themes and conversations you want to engage in on social channels
Types of posts you will create (e.g., text, links, images, videos, and reshares)
The posting mix depends on a number of factors — such as audience interests and internal resources.
How often you plan to post and at what times of day
The optimal frequency and timing depends on how your audience responds to your posts. Dig into engagement metrics and industry research to determine the best cadence.
Policies and processes to guide social media use — such as how to respond to a disgruntled customer
You have defined the "why," "what," and "when" of your social media plan. Now let's briefly look at the "how" — all of the activities involved in creating, scheduling, and measuring your posts. There are three main areas to consider:
Social media management tools give you the ability to publish posts, monitor performance, and manage social ads. Some of these tools can be integrated with other marketing platforms that you use. Others are stand-alone.
A roadmapping tool like Aha! Roadmaps has purpose-built workspaces for marketing teams so you can set strategy, build marketing calendars, and share plans across teams. Teams generally use Aha! software for building broader marketing plans and they use a purpose-built tool for publishing content and monitoring social media.
Well-defined workflows harness your team's focus and momentum. You may want to develop workflows for the following areas of focus:
Research (e.g., audience, competitors, content topics, hashtags)
Community management (e.g., listening, monitoring, and responding to mentions)
Content and creative (e.g., developing campaigns, writing posts, designing images and ads)
Approvals and outbound scheduling
Measurement and analysis
Identify any workflows that you can automate — this will save time and even boost engagement. For instance, if your audience clicks on content shared at 5 a.m., it is far simpler to schedule automated posts at that time rather than designate an early bird on your team who has to set their alarm every day.
Sophisticated social media management requires a dedicated team. For every workflow, map out roles and responsibilities so everyone understands what is expected. You will likely need to identify folks across the organization who can help in a pinch. For example, you may want to choose teammates on the support or IT team who can help if technical questions from customers come through social channels.
Finally, make a real effort to track and share results. Most of the major social media networks provide detailed engagement reports — pay attention to the metrics you identified when goal-setting. Set benchmarks and monitor your progress regularly. And use what you learn to recalibrate audience segments, content themes, and posting frequency.
The details may change but your overall strategy should remain constant. With a great plan in place, you will gain the confidence that comes with driving business results.
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30 is your new lucky number. 🌟
Whether you’re a social media manager in a new role or a solopreneur managing multiple accounts, creating a social media plan is a great way to realign your goals, stay organized, and grow your online community.
And while the task may seem daunting, we’ve got you covered.
We’re breaking down how to build a successful (30-day!) social media plan, so you can hit the ground running — plus, the best tool for managing your posts .
What is a social media marketing plan.
A social media plan is the blueprint you create to optimize your social media strategy.
From auditing your social media profiles to building your content calendar , a 30-day plan will keep you calm and collected — rather than doing everything all at once.
The best part? We’ve laid it all out for you, week by week (keep reading).
FYI: Later is trusted by over 7M social media managers, brands, & creators to organize, publish, and analyze their social media content — saving them tons of time. Create an account today.
Ready to tackle creating your very own 30-day social media plan? Social media success awaits, below.
Week 1 (Days 1-7): Set New Goals & Metrics
Week 2 (Days 8-14): Audit Your Social Media Profiles
Week 3 (Days 15-21): Create & Build a Content Calendar
Week 4 (Days 22-30): Revisit & Readjust Your Strategy
Social media goals are the foundation on which your social media plan (and strategy) are built.
They inform the type of content you create, the cadence , and define your "why."
So, it’s fitting that your first seven days will be to choose your success metrics and create long-term SMART goals:
M easurable
A chievable
Whether you want to improve engagement or build brand awareness, defining these goals and metrics with the SMART method will help you drive your strategy forward.
TIP: Learn how to set intentional, SMART goals in this Later blog: How to Set Social Media Goals (+ Free Course)
Now that you’ve laid the groundwork for your social media plan, it’s time to figure out what's working, and what's not.
How? With a social media audit.
This process involves a comprehensive evaluation of your social media platforms, content, and performance metrics — whether you have a few posts or hundreds.
Our advice? Spend the first couple of days sweeping the surface: Is your tone of voice consistent across platforms? Is it obvious who you are and what you have to offer?
TIP: Creating a consistent bio across platforms makes it easy for followers to find you and identify with your content.
For the second half of your week, dig into platform analytics to see how you’re tracking towards your goals.
Make note of high-performing social media posts, their captions, the visuals used, and any relevant hashtags (or keywords).
Then, start thinking about how you can replicate your success (more on that, later).
NOTE: If you’re starting from scratch , opt for auditing similar brands in your niche for inspiration!
Ultimately, content is the key to building (and sustaining) a community online — so it’s no surprise it’s the center of a solid social media plan.
Dedicate the first part of this week to drafting a social media calendar , choosing your content pillars , and defining how often you’ll post on every platform.
By getting a macro look at the upcoming week (or month), you’ll know what type of content needs to be created, identify any gaps, and leave room open to jump on a potential trend or meme .
PRO TIP: Download our free ready-to-use social media calendar to streamline your social media strategy.
Next, put on your brainstorming hat and then start creating content — whether it’s educational carousel posts, short-form videos for Reels, or longform LinkedIn captions.
Once your content is up to par, congrats — the hard part is officially over.
You’re now ready to populate your calendar and schedule your posts!
With a social media management platform like Later , you can drag and drop images from your Media Library onto your content calendar, insert your captions, schedule at your best time to post , and more.
TIP: Improve your social media workflow with Later's features and tools! Create an account in just two clicks.
And just like that, you’re nearing the finish line of your social media plan.
The final week is all about digging into the performance of the posts that have gone live and making light adjustments to better your results.
This is also the perfect time to set the cadence for reviewing your insights on a weekly and monthly basis.
With Later's in-depth analytics tool , you can track key metrics like comments, likes, and your engagement rate:
You can also dig into your top performing posts, audience demographics, your growth rate, hashtag analytics, and more.
Create a free account — or try one of our paid plans — and start diving into your data today.
Need more help?
Lucky for you, we have a long list of resources to keep you inspired, on trend, and dominating social media feeds everywhere:
The Top TikTok Trends to Try This Week
The Top Instagram Reels Trends to Try This Week
How to Create Shareable Content on Social Media
How to Go Viral on Social Media — With Original Content
The Ultimate Guide to Evergreen Content (+ 5 Ideas To Get You Started)
15 Easy Instagram Reels Ideas to Post Today (+ Free Planner)
10 TikTok Ideas for Your Next Post
7 of the Best Apps for Editing Your Instagram Reels
65 of the Best Instagram Captions for Brands
25 Instagram Stories Ideas to Level-up Your Social Strategy
And just like that, your social media strategy is revitalized and ready to shine.
Whether you’re looking to grow your existing social accounts or start from scratch, a social media plan is the first chapter of your brand’s social media success story.
ICYMI: Our free weekly newsletter shares the latest social media news and tips — right to your inbox. Subscribe now .
Alyssa is a Toronto-based creative writer and Content Marketer at Later. If you can’t reach her, she’s probably glueing gems to her face, rollerskating, or thrifting. Keep up with her nonsense on Instagram – @alygagliardi .
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Hot take: mastering social media is what sets businesses today apart.
Competition is fierce among brands and attention is scarce. Establishing an identity and sense of community via social is key to standing out.
Not to mention attracting valuable new customers.
Done right, a goal-driven social strategy means positive results for your business. Countless brands have been built from the ground up via Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Wrangling your social media strategy can be daunting with so many moving pieces. This is especially true if you’re totally new to the space. We get it.
That’s why we put together this post breaking down the basics of social media for business.
Table of contents
Setting social media goals for your business, follow these 5 social media tips for business.
Involve your c-suite and employees to amplify your business, work on a corporate communication plan.
“Okay, so why is social media important for business?”
Good question! A decade ago, the upsides of social media for business were tougher to quantify.
Thankfully, times have changed and ROI is no longer a question mark. Let’s be crystal clear:
Social media is valuable for businesses of any size or industry. Finding customers on social media has a direct impact on sales and your bottom line.
Building awareness. Nurturing leads and driving sales. Community-building.
The list goes on given that the benefits of social media aren’t one-size-fits-all. That said, here are five upsides that brands can see from a smart social presence.
Like it or not, social media has become a go-to research channel for consumers at large.
Think about your own experience looking up businesses.
Chances are you’ve visited a restaurant’s Facebook to confirm their hours. Maybe you’ve combed a company’s IG content and comments to see if their products live up to the hype. This highlights how social media builds awareness for brands in a way that your website can’t.
Your business’ social presence is a powerful touchpoint with new customers. That’s because social media serves as an authentic reflection of what a company is all about.
Comments and shout-outs from satisfied customers speak volumes about your business. If someone’s first impression of your business is a glowing social review, that’s a huge plus.
It’s no exaggeration to say that social media serves as a Swiss Army Knife for customer support .
For reference, many brands use their social presence to…
From testimonials to tutorials and beyond, social media is a prime place to show off products.
As noted in the Sprout Social Index™ , the most popular types of posts teach people how products work. For example, an IG Reel or TikTok can educate a potential customer in a matter of seconds. Contrast this with static photos and traditional product descriptions.
Formats such as short-form video empower brands to bring their products to life. Bonus points if you can feature real people and satisfied customers in your content.
Recent demographics show us that people are spending hours per day on social media, not just a few minutes here and there.
This highlights the value of businesses having an established social presence. Many potential customers will see your brand’s Facebook or IG before they see your website.
Look no further than the rise of social search as evidence of this. Trends and research say that young consumers treat social media like a search engine .
The more word of mouth your business earns, the easier it is for your audience to find you. This applies to social searchers and potential customers alike.
Social media marketing for business is about so much more than promotion.
Consider how you can use analytics to research the following in real-time:
And that only scratches the surface!
From your audience to competitors, there’s no better place to conduct market research . That’s because social media is a treasure trove of data points that are all out in the open.
The benefits of using social media for business speak for themselves.
That said, achieving them doesn’t happen by accident. That’s why goal-setting is so important.
Keep in mind that social media goals > are unique as they’re totally dependent on your business. Also, you can set multiple goals that actually overlap and influence each other. Goals affect everything from your content strategy to the social platforms you use.
There’s no “right” way to set goals but the process can be a lot. A few tips to get you started:
Let’s say you have your goals squared away.
Remember: effectively using social media for business means having a plan. Posting at random won’t do you any favors. Without a strategy, your social presence can quickly become a time-sink.
No pressure, right? Mapping your social media marketing strategy doesn’t have to be daunting. To keep your focus and avoid getting overwhelmed, here’s what we suggest you focus on:
If you focus on these points, you’ll already be way ahead of the curve.
There’s no shortage of social media tips out there to help you fine-tune your strategy.
Some best practices related to social media for business are relative. Below are five universal tips that are fair game for companies of all shapes and sizes.
This might seem like a no-brainer.
That said, busy businesses tend to get stuck in a “copy-and-paste” approach to social. Comments and social captions should feel like they were written by a real person, not a robot.
Injecting personality into your posts is a low-hanging way to relate to your audience. Beyond that, personalizing your replies to people shows that you’re there to help them. This is an example of how to use social media for business to build connections.
Don’t make the mistake of treating your social presence as a dumping ground for offers. Building an audience means being genuinely helpful, not salesy.
Many of the best practices across social media treat their accounts as resources. That means:
Imagine that your social accounts are your first touchpoint with a potential customer. Sharing resources makes a better first impression than screaming “BUY NOW!”
This applies to both publishing content and engaging with customers.
Conventional wisdom says that social media algorithms reward consistency. Sprout’s own research on the best times to post on social media confirms this. If nothing else, letting your social feeds gather cobwebs isn’t a good look.
Neither is leaving your followers hanging. Making a conscious effort to reply to questions and comments is crucial. This is why you need to keep a close eye on your @tags and social notifications.
Brands are spoiled for choice when it comes to the types of content they can post.
Below are two examples of brands with diverse social feeds in terms of content.
From short-form videos to Stories and slideshows, you have plenty of options. Different industries and types of brands thrive on different types of content.
That said, don’t make assumptions when it comes to what performs best.
Just because a competitor posts a bunch of memes doesn’t mean you should follow suit. Let your own analytics and engagement guide your content strategy.
Social media shouldn’t be a siloed channel separate from the rest of your marketing efforts.
From announcements to offers and company initiatives, social can be in the middle of it all. For example, a feature rollout isn’t something a SaaS brand should restrict to its email list. These sorts of updates should be front and center on social, too.
A more holistic approach to social media marketing for business is ideal. In turn, you maximize your marketing assets elsewhere and see a greater ROI for your efforts.
Good news: you’re not expected to do everything totally DIY when building your presence.
There’s no shortage of social media marketing tools out there to help with the heavy lifting. Depending on your needs, you might consider investing in a combo of the following:
Remember: the purpose of these tools should be to make you more productive. A big challenge in building any sort of marketing stack is redundancies. It’s easy to invest in tools that overlap. This results in brands burning through their budgets and needlessly bouncing between platforms.
The more opportunities to consolidate your tools, the better. Working with fewer tools means squeezing the most out of what you have. Also, you save a ton of time onboarding.
The less bouncing between tools, the better. This speaks to the value of an all-in-one social media management platform like Sprout.
With Sprout, brands access a comprehensive suite of social tools and analytics. For example, the platform makes it a cinch to map out your content calendar across platforms. This is a shining example of how to save time and avoid bouncing between tools.
Sprout’s analytics and dashboards encourage a goal-driven approach to social media for business. Advanced analytics means fewer question marks and a better understanding of your presence. This includes your top-performing content and social channels.
In short, you have a constant pulse on what’s working, what’s not and what you should do next.
As noted earlier, social media shouldn’t be treated as an island.
This applies to your own team as well. The sooner you’re able to get approval and buy-in from your C-Suite, the better. Brand-building through employee advocacy is another way to use social media for business.
Employee advocacy is the promotion of a brand by its employees on social media. Instead of solely promoting products, advocates promote a company at large. This means:
Chances are you’ve seen your fair share of employee advocacy in action on LinkedIn.
Again, the crowded nature of social media means anything you can do to stand out is a plus. Advocacy is an opportunity to boost your company’s profile and exposure via social.
One last pointer for anyone on the enterprise level.
The power of social media as a communication channel shouldn’t be taken lightly. Brands have the opportunity to reach massive audiences at a moment’s notice. This applies to customers, industry leaders and competitors alike.
The stakes are high for large companies with significant audiences and stakeholders. That’s why having a corporate communication plan is crucial. In short, you need to establish rules for:
Having all of the above squared away empowers brands to have consistent messaging. Likewise, you can avoid miscommunication and countless public headaches in the process.
An active social presence is an expectation, not an exception for companies today.
The tips and best practices above serve as a solid foundation. With the right goals and mentality, social media can have a positive impact on your business.
Building a results-driven social media presence is so much easier with a platform like Sprout. From content to trend analysis and beyond, Sprout empowers brands to build their presence with confidence. If you haven’t already, test-drive a free trial of Sprout Social to see the full suite in action for yourself!
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Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.
Learn about managing social media, its importance, and key activities to boost your brand’s online presence and engagement. This blog covers it all!
Social media isn’t just about connecting with friends and staying updated on current events—it’s a powerful tool businesses use to reach wider audiences, build stronger relationships, and achieve their goals.
But without a proper plan of action, the desire to reach the masses remains a dream.
This is where the management aspect comes into play!
It is the practice of creating, curating, and monitoring a brand’s presence on various social media platforms to help build brand awareness, increase engagement, generate leads, and amplify social media marketing efforts.
In this guide, we will explain how to manage your social media accounts, its perks, and how to do it properly to leave a lasting impression on your consumers.
Social media management is a process businesses, brands, and individuals use to maintain a strong online presence across multiple platforms to engage with their audience. It involves planning, creating, scheduling, analyzing, and interacting with content across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and more.
The process also streamlines tasks such as team management, execution of paid social media campaigns, crisis management, and more.
To effectively manage your social media, you require a deep understanding of different social media platforms, your target audience, business priorities, and what type of content resonates with them.
Social media is transforming at an unprecedented rate, revealing new opportunities and challenges for businesses. With a proper management process in place, you can navigate through all challenges and realize every opportunity social media presents for your businesses.
Let’s break down some of the key benefits that it offers:
Brand awareness refers to the level of familiarity your target audience has with you and how well they recognize your brand and products through a name, logo, or distinctive qualities.
It helps you build brand awareness and garner visibility. By regularly posting engaging content, you can reach a broader audience and ensure your brand remains top-of-mind.
Social media isn’t a one-way road where you just post about your offerings. When you provide value to your audience, they reciprocate by engaging with your brand. This two-way interaction helps you build genuine relationships that last longer.
This also empowers you to connect more deeply with your audience by responding to comments and messages. This shows how much you care about your consumers, builds trust, fosters relationships, and creates a sense of belonging.
Social media plays a crucial role in lead generation and growing sales by creating content, targeting ads, and engaging with the community.
By consistently creating and sharing valuable content and special offers tailored to the needs of your target audience with captivating call-to-action, you can attract potential customers and nurture them into paying customers.
Social media acts as a real-time communication channel between businesses and customers, making it easier and more convenient to resolve customer inquiries and issues, as well as provide support quickly.
The right management enables you to respond to messages and inquiries promptly within a few hours. This improved responsiveness enhances the overall customer experience, fosters loyalty, encourages positive word-of-mouth, and ultimately improves brand reputation and customer retention.
To thrive in social media, one must be adept in various areas. It’s like orchestrating a symphony, ensuring each section plays in harmony.
From choosing the right platform to analyzing feedback, every aspect is crucial. Here’s a deeper dive into seven essential strategies for effective social media management:
First thing first, you must have a plan of action for social media.
Establishing clear business objectives and planning your social media strategy based on those removes uncertainty and sets a well-defined aim for your team. It allows you to strategically allocate resources for upcoming tasks, ensuring timely completion and maximizing the effectiveness of your social media campaigns.
Here’s how you can get started with your social media strategy:
Now that you have created your strategy, the next step is to get started with the content strategy.
Creating high-quality content that informs, engages, and entertains your audience is essential to pique their interest and encourage interaction. This ultimately strengthens your brand presence. Here’s how you can create compelling content that resonates with your audience:
Whether you’re a small business or a large agency, managing social media is a team effort. The lack of alignment within the team impacts the outcome of a task or project.
From strategizing to analyzing outcomes, every step gains momentum with cohesive collaboration. But how do you ensure that every team member is in sync and the collaboration is seamless?
Here are some tips that you can follow:
Fostering a culture of responsibility is key to successful social media collaboration. Allocating roles to individual team members while creating the strategy keeps everyone posted about their upcoming tasks.
Never assume your team knows their roles; relying on memory isn’t enough. Instead, draft a precise strategy that delineates each person’s responsibilities.
To reduce interdependencies, allocate tasks to team members based on their strengths and expertise. By limiting these dependencies, you boost each member’s efficiency, which naturally leads to heightened team productivity.
The major components of your collaboration plan will broadly include:
The section above leads us to one essential observation: You can’t establish a clear process for everyone unless you have precise roles for all your team members.
Usually, a marketing team that deals with social media has the following people:
Working in a team can increase the chances of overlaps and missed opportunities. A shared social media calendar is the glue that binds a team, ensuring everyone’s on the same page, working in harmony towards a unified goal.
Your social media management process requires a calendar that you can use to :
If you’re new to using a social media calendar, start with a basic spreadsheet. As you become more accustomed, consider investing in specialized software that offers more features. Also, hold weekly or bi-weekly meetings to review the calendar. Discuss upcoming posts, assign tasks, and gather feedback.
Most importantly, ensure every team member understands the importance of the calendar and how to use it. Regular training sessions can be beneficial.
Running social media ads can significantly influence your marketing efforts and business outcomes. If you’re thinking about driving quick results, advertisements can be a good way to go. Start by:
Segmenting your audience: To tailor your ads, create audience segments based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer detailed targeting options.
Allocate budget: Use a tiered approach for budgeting. Start small with ads to test and scale up spending where you are getting good ROI.
A/B testing: Regularly perform A/B tests on your ads, comparing images, headlines, and CTAs to determine which campaigns are performing the best and optimizing accordingly.
Tip Use tools like Google Transparency Center to identify what ads your competitors are running and implement those changes in your ads.
Tracking the right social media metrics is essential for the success of your social media campaigns and making informed decisions to increase the impact. Here’s how to start:
Set KPIs: Start by establishing KPIs such as follower growth, engagement rate, CTR, conversion rate, and more. You can use tools like SocialPilot and native analytics to help get access to these metrics.
Monitor Monthly reports: Create detailed monthly reports to analyze the effectiveness of your organic content and ads. You can use SocialPilot to track the performance of each of your social media accounts and generate monthly reports to stay updated.
Use these insights to identify what type of content gets the most engagement and the best times to post, and implement these to fine-tune your social media strategy.
Using a tool to manage social media is not just a smart way, it’s the best way to manage your social media. It empowers you to be creative with your content, saves you time, enables team collaboration, and simplifies social media performance analysis.
The right social media management tool can solve all your social media woes and streamline your entire workflow. There are plenty of options in the market. However, the tool you should look for depends greatly on your business’s requirements, team size, and budget.
Tools | Suitable For | Standout Feature | Minimum Pricing |
---|---|---|---|
SocialPilot | SMBs, Agencies, Multi-Location Brands | Bulk scheduling, easy post-customization, and the AI assistant | $30/Month |
Agorapulse | Agency, Small Business, Enterprise | Social Media Inbox | $69/Month |
Hootsuite | Professional Teams, Small business, Enterprises | Hootsuite Streams for a better overview | $149/Month |
Buffer | Freelancer, Small Business, Agency | "Link in bio" feature to create landing Pages | $60/Month |
SproutSocial | Small Business, Enterprise, Agencies | Advanced Social Listening Tools | $249/Month |
eClincher | Small & Medium Businesses, Agencies, Enterprises, Franchises | Auto Post with Queues to recycle posts | $65/Month |
Sendible | Freelancers, Startup Agencies, Growing Agencies | Content curation and publishing | $29/Month |
Co-Schedule | Small & Medium Businesses, Agencies, Enterprises, Franchises | Comprehensive marketing calendar | $29/Month |
SocialPilot is one such tool that helps you schedule content, plan campaigns, effortlessly collaborate with teams, and measure performance.
With SocialPilot you can respond to your customer messages from inside the tool. Also, create and schedule reports to regularly track how your content activities are doing.
At last, you should always have a backup plan incase somethings go south.
Draft a crisis communication plan that includes steps for dealing with various types of crises, from product recalls to PR scandals. Identify which spokesperson will speak on behalf of the company and what channels will be used.
Also, track social mentions to see what’s being said about your brand in real-time. This can help you react quickly to mitigate any potential issues.
Growing big on social media requires significant effort, diverse skill sets, and the ability to navigate complex challenges. A social media manager has all of these responsibilities.
A social media manager is an essential pillar for successfully managing social media tasks due to their expertise in shaping a brand’s image and presence across various platforms.
Their responsibilities involve strategic planning, execution, and monitoring of all activities with the aim of increasing brand awareness, promoting products or services, and engaging with customers and potential clients.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of the responsibilities required for the role of a Social Media Manager:
The task of a social media manager starts with conducting thorough market research to understand the target audience and competitors, spotting the latest trends. With the newly added Notes feature in SocialPilot Content calendar, managers can now document key findings, campaign strategies, or competitor insights directly into the calendar. This helps ensure that all research and objectives are clearly laid out for future reference.
Based on these, they define clear objectives using the SMART framework, develop a comprehensive campaign strategy , and determine what type of content needs to be published. They also need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of campaigns.
Creating content is the key pillar of the entire structure. You have to brainstorm and generate creative content ideas that highlight your product’s value proposition, align with the content strategy, and resonate with the audience. You also have to oversee the production process to develop high-quality content, including copies and graphics, videos, and creating captivating posts.
SMM plans campaigns and activities and the path to execute them in a timely manner. They create a content calendar based on the team’s bandwidth, available resources, capabilities, and business goals.
Coordinating with other departments, they align social media activities with overall marketing efforts. Social media managers typically use SocialPilot to synchronize their team and activities, automating scheduling and posting .
Customers are at the center of every business. That’s why every social media manager’s responsibilities include tracking brand mentions and replying to comments, reviews, and messages. Managers improve their products, services, and overall customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) by gathering and analyzing customer feedback and promptly responding to the customers.
Social media managers regularly collaborate with team members across different departments, such as copywriters, designers, clients, and even influencers, to ensure alignment and on-time delivery of work. Collaboration also allows you to generate new ideas and execute them while on the go.
Sending out proposals is a big part of a social media manager’s role, especially when you’re aiming to onboard new clients, partnerships, or internal project approvals.
You identify the needs and objectives, do market analysis, craft a customized strategy, and send out the proposal document with clear objectives and solutions.
Now that you know what encompasses in managing social media, it’s time to embrace the process. Take the first step and start creating and reaching your social media goals.
We have mapped out the process for you, highlighting the nuts and bolts of creating a robust social media management strategy to build a strong online presence and drive your brand’s success.
Remember, the foundation of a strong social media management process lies in understanding your audience and defining clear goals. Get this right, and it will guide the other steps.
As you embark on this journey, keep up with the latest trends, refine your approach, and explore the free trial of SocialPilot, to stay ahead of the competition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Social media management refers to overseeing and handling a brand's presence across social media platforms. It encompasses content creation and scheduling, engagement with the audience, monitoring trends, and analysis of the performance of social media campaigns.
Effective management of social media involves strategic planning, consistent content creation, timely engagement with followers, trend monitoring, and regular analysis of campaign performance. Understanding the target audience and tailoring content and interactions to resonate with them is essential.
The costs depend on various factors, including the scope of work, the size and nature of the business, and the platforms covered. Pricing can be based on hourly rates, monthly retainers, or package deals tailored to specific needs.
The charges for social media management can vary based on multiple factors like the scope of services, the client's business size, the number of platforms managed, and geographic location. The most used pricing models include:
Your pricing model should reflect your experience, the value provided, and competitive rates in the market. Also, consider any additional costs, such as ad budgets or special software charges.
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Content planning is more than scheduling. Run your accounts like a well-oiled machine with a strategic social media content plan.
Ahoy, social media sailors. To navigate the choppy seas of social media, you need to do some solid content planning before you set sail.
The most seasoned social sailors know that you must carefully chart your course before stepping on the ship. Without a content plan, you’re blindly casting yourself into an ocean of content, with competitor sharks nipping at your bow.
If you want the tides to turn in your favor, you need to map out your content plan. Follow the eight steps outlined below, and you’ll make it through your journey safe and sound.
OwlyWriter AI instantly generates captions and content ideas for every social media network. It’s seriously easy.
In social media, content planning is the process of strategizing and scheduling content.
Content planning involves deciding what to post and when to post it. Social media content planning helps you to achieve goals like increased visibility, engagement, or brand awareness.
Well-planned social media content is:
We’ve answered, “What is a content plan?” Now we’ll answer, “Why have a content plan?” Lucky you—it’s because we care about the Future You. A little bit of planning upfront will make your life easier in the long run, we promise.
Here are a few benefits you can expect from creating your own content plan.
Batching your content is way more efficient than trying to come up with a post on the fly every day or for a specific campaign. Batching means you’re taking the time to specifically write a bunch of social media content at once.
Besides being a more efficient way to write content, you’ll get more out of it. As you write each piece of content, extract pieces of it to repurpose. One post can quickly become five or more without much extra time.
For example:
Content planning saves time and gets you the most mileage out of your work. Create a content calendar (like the one below) to keep yourself on track and on time.
Source: Hootsuite’s FREE Content Calendar Template
The best thing about a content plan is that it forces you to plan ahead. You’ll be prepared for any holidays relevant to your industry or audience (hello, posts for National Puppy Day ).
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More than the expected holiday observances, content planning ensures you do your best work. Planning ahead allows space for creative thinking and collaboration and avoids burnout. All are important for creating a positive workplace culture where employees become brand advocates .
Plus, when you’re prepared for the month ahead, you have more time to create posts on the fly for trending topics as they come up in the news cycle.
Planning social media content keeps your eyes on the prize. You’ve got a formal marketing strategy and, hopefully, a content strategy, too. (No? We’ve got a free social media strategy template for ya).
Source: Hootsuite’s FREE Social Media Strategy Template
Your content planning process is what connects those big-picture documents to the day-to-day marketing work your team does.
Despite what your content creator may tell you, individual social media posts aren’t that important on their own. But all of your posts, working toward the same goal together, will determine whether your social media strategy will sink or swim, fail or fly, crash out or cash in. You get it.
We’ve covered the what and the why of social content planning. Welcome to the how to make a content plan.
The following will guide you through how to plan content for social media in 8 easy steps.
The first step in content planning is knowing what you’re going to be posting about.
How many topics you have and what they are depends on your unique business, but as an example, Hootsuite posts about:
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These topics will be your content creation roadmap. If a post isn’t about one of the things on your list, you don’t post it. (Or, if it’s merited, you rethink your marketing strategy and add a new category for it.)
With your topic list in front of you, free-write a bunch of post ideas. Don’t think about whether they’re good or bad; set a timer for 15 minutes and jot down as many as you can.
Once you have a list of ideas, pare them down to meet the following criteria:
Need help with the above? We know it’s not that simple to just “think of ideas,” even for those of us who smash keyboards for a living. How you brainstorm is up to you, but here are a few ways I get inspired:
Source: ChatGPT
To know what’s worked before, you need top-notch analytics reports . Hootsuite Analytics gives you a full 360-degree view of your performance across all networks. Custom reports will show you what you need to do more of and what you can leave out of your content plan.
We’ve got our why and what. Now we need the when. This leads us to the daily best time to post on your social media platforms.
You’re also going to want to keep an eye on your overall posting frequency .
You’ll need to experiment with how often you’re posting every week and how many posts per day.
Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature analyzes your unique audience engagement patterns to determine the best times to post across all your accounts.
It also recommends different times for different goals. For example, when to post awareness or brand-building content and when to push hard for sales.
Source: Hootsuite
Need to get your social marketing started quickly and hit the ground running? Let Hootsuite pick the perfect time for you.
When you’re creating your post, just click Schedule for later and choose from one of the suggested times. That’s it!
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel daily. A successful social media and content marketing plan contains a mix of original and curated content . But what should you curate? Where from? How often?
Great curated content is:
How each piece and type of content fits in with your other social media content is more important than how much of it you share, but a standard content mix is 40% original and 60% curated .
With tools like Hootsuite Listening Basics, you can easily explore posts from around the web to build a library of quality content to share later. Try some of our robust social listening tools.
Plus, you can use Quick Search to analyze things like:
Setting clear expectations around who’s doing what is essential for content planning (and, so I hear, life). Social marketing teams with writers, designers, customer support peeps, and so on need a clear delineation of responsibilities.
A social media workflow will define who does what and how the content process will move from content planning to creation to publication. A well-done social media approval workflow will have your content planning process zipping along like a well-oiled machine.
Bonus : Within Hootsuite’s Business and Enterprise plans, you can assign permissions to different accounts. This way, only those who are responsible for publishing can actually publish a post, and so on. This avoids confusion and mistakes when it comes to content publication.
Everything you need to make engaging content. AI support for captions, an AI hashtag generator, and access to Canva in Hootsuite.
Whenever possible, it’s best to write your social media post content before the campaign goes off to the design team (the next step).
This has a few key benefits:
Hootsuite comes with OwlyWriter AI, a built-in creative AI tool that saves social media pros hours of work. You can use OwlyWriter to:
To get started with OwlyWriter, sign in to your Hootsuite account and head to the Inspiration section of the dashboard. Then, pick the type of AI magic you want to see in action.
For example, if you’re not sure what to post, click on Get inspired . Then, type in the general, high-level topic you want to address and click Get ideas .
OwlyWriter will generate a list of post ideas related to the topic:
Click on the one you like best to move to the next step — captions and hashtags.
Pick the caption you like and click Create post . The caption will open in Hootsuite Composer, where you can make edits, add media files and links, check the copy against your compliance guidelines — and schedule your post to go live later.
And that’s it! OwlyWriter never runs out of ideas, so you can repeat this process until your social media calendar is full — and sit back to watch your engagement grow.
This is often where content plans get bottlenecked. You can think up all these amazing campaigns, but without the creative assets that get them noticed, like graphics and videos, you can be stuck in your drafts forever.
This is why a social media workflow is important. Having a dedicated person and a specific timeline for each part of the content planning process keeps things moving along.
With Hootsuite Planner , you can collaborate with other team members on specific campaigns, view the overall calendar, and map out your content to identify opportunities and gaps to fill. Plus, approvals are a snap with the built-in approval process, so the only content that gets posted is the content that should be.
Source: Hootsuite Planner
Here’s how everyone can work together inside Hootsuite to bring a campaign from idea to finished:
Last but very not least, scheduling. Scheduling your content ahead of time is important for basic efficiency. Plus, it will help bring your social media marketing strategy to life.
Hootsuite, we’re not too humble to admit, can help save you tons of time with publication; you can schedule content to all of your favorite platforms in advance from the same dashboard. Plus, you’ll get:
You can create single posts in Composer or dial up your efficiency to 11 with the much-loved bulk upload tool, where you and 350 of your best posts can be scheduled in under 2 minutes flat.
Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance.
This content calendar template.
This free content calendar skeleton will show you how to organize and schedule your content in advance. Just fill it out with your content plan and let the organizational endorphins roll in.
Use this free campaign template as a structured framework to plan your campaign. Answer each of the sections to create a strategy for your next social campaign.
Running the numbers is never super fun. Luckily, this free engagement rate calculator makes it easy to measure the effectiveness of your content or social media efforts. You’ll be able to quantify how well your audience interacts with your posts. In turn, these insights can help you to optimize your social strategy.
Knowing what your return on investment (ROI) is can help you convince your superiors that your social plan is working! This free ROI guide can help you reallocate your social budget in a smart way.
A full-scale social media audit is great for onboarding new clients or getting a lay of the land with existing social media accounts. This free audit template is a systematic checklist for evaluating your current social strategy.
This free image size guide is a quick reference guide for the optimal image dimensions across different social platforms. It’ll help your content look polished and professional.
Want comprehensive insights and best practices for developing effective marketing strategies? Then this guide’s for you. Take these nine steps to achieve long-term success in your marketing efforts.
Hootsuite is your content planning partner in success with robust scheduling, collaboration, analytics, and smart insights like the Best Time to Publish feature to make your job easier. Sign up for free today.
Save time and grow faster with OwlyWriter AI, the tool that instantly generates social media captions and content ideas .
Get expert social media advice delivered straight to your inbox.
As an ex-agency strategist turned freelance WFH fashion icon, Michelle is passionate about putting the sass in SaaS content. She's known for quickly understanding and distilling complicated technical topics into conversational copy that gets results. She has written for Fortune 500 companies and startups, and her clients have earned features in Forbes, Strategy Magazine and Entrepreneur.
Colleen Christison is a freelance copywriter, copy editor, and brand communications specialist. She spent the first six years of her career in award-winning agencies like Major Tom, writing for social media and websites and developing branding campaigns. Following her agency career, Colleen built her own writing practice, working with brands like Mission Hill Winery, The Prevail Project, and AntiSocial Media.
Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.
Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize your content. Build one in 4 easy steps or use our free templates.
The data is in — people use social media to shop. We’ll help you make sure your social media promotion strategy is on point.
This list of engaging social media post ideas will help you out the next time you need to beat that dreaded writer’s block.
These content creation tools cover every stage of the digital marketing process, from inspiration to execution.
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Updated: Aug 4, 2024, 7:39pm
Today, a social media marketing campaign is a crucial component of any content marketing strategy. Posting to several accounts multiple times a day, however, can be time-consuming. Smart social media marketing managers use social media management software to schedule content and automate posting. Social media management tools can allow users to publish, monitor and manage all their social media networks from one dashboard.
Save time and improve the effectiveness of your social campaigns with the best social media management software in our comprehensive guide. Forbes Advisor has reviewed more than a dozen companies and ranked them by value, features and customer ratings to bring you the best options on the market.
Featured Partners
Sprout Social
Standard $199/seat/month; Professional $299/seat/month; Advanced $399/seat/month * annual subscriptions
30 days (all plans)
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Yelp!, Glassdoor, Trip Advisor, and more
On Sprout Social’s Website
Professional $99/month; Team $249/month *pricing based on annual subscriptions
30 day free trial (all plans)
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads (beta), Google Business Profile and more
On Hootsuite’s Website
TikTok for Business
Customizable – Auction Format; specify your bid and daily spend
1B+ users across 140+ countries
Range of ad formats to delight your target audience, achieve your ad objective and grow your business
On Tiktok’s Website
Zoho social, socialpilot, forbes advisor ratings, what is social media management software, how to choose the best social media management tools, what does social media management software cost, methodology, frequently asked questions (faqs).
per month, billed annually
Free Option
Supported Platforms
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile
Zoho Social is a complete social media management tool that helps businesses and agencies schedule posts, monitor mentions on social media, create customizable social media performance analytics reports and communicate with teammates about pending posts.
One feature that helps Zoho Social stand out among the rest is its pause post feature. During a local or national emergency or during a brand crisis when it might be inappropriate to post a brand’s marketing campaign, the feature allows the social media manager to pause all pending posts. After the unforeseen emergency is resolved, the resume button allows the social media campaign to continue with one click of a button.
In addition to social media management, Zoho offers a CRM tool that allows you to manage emails, track accounting, generate leads from social media and engage with prospects. It also allows you to set parameters for lead generation, engage with anyone who interacts with your brand on social media, add them to a list of contacts and track them as potential customers for targeted marketing campaigns. This is a separate product in the Zoho line of software but is built so they naturally integrate together.
Zoho Social is one of the most affordable management tools. The platform offers a free plan that allows one brand to post on seven outlets. The higher-tiered plans that offer analytics, engagement and organization are very reasonably priced at $10 to $40 per month.
Who should use it:
Zoho Social’s ease of use, affordable plans and analytical data reports make it best for individual content creators and small businesses.
per month per channel
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn
Buffer offers a free plan for those just getting started that allows users to schedule 10 posts on up to three social media channels. The free plan also offers a calendar view, buff.ly link shortener and Twitter hashtag suggestions. Plans start at just $6 per month per channel for those who want all that plus analytics reports, data storage, audience demographics and campaign analysis. You can try either plan for free for 14 days.
Buffer is perfect for those individuals or small businesses that want to schedule posts to multiple social media channels from one simple dashboard. It is an affordable way to keep engaged with your audience but is limited in its analytics and engagement features when compared to software tools, such as Zoho Social and Hootsuite.
Buffer is perfect for individual entrepreneurs or small businesses that want an affordable way to keep low-key engagement with their audience.
$99 to $249
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn
Hootsuite stands out as one of the most comprehensive social media management tools on the list. Along with its competitors, Hootsuite lets users schedule social media content in advance, select times when their audience is most likely to be engaged and use an interactive planner to review scheduled content. The higher-tiered plans offer robust analytics data, a number of integrations for productivity and efficiency applications and live Hootsuite training for the entire team.
Hootsuite has four price plans: Professional, Team, Business and Enterprise. As you move up in the tiers, Hootsuite features more comprehensive analytics and social media tracking reports. The Professional tier is great for individuals and small businesses as it allows one user to manage 10 social media accounts. The Team tier is built for small teams, allowing three users to post to 20 social media accounts. The Team, Business and Enterprise plans come with advanced customizable analytics reports.
While the upper-tiered plans are not cheap, the additional analytics tools are imperative for businesses that use social media as a bulk of their marketing efforts.
One of Hootsuite’s defining features is its ability to easily integrate with so many applications. All of Hootsuite’s application programming interfaces (APIs) are available as open source, meaning the platform can work in tandem with software solutions. Hootsuite boosts its compatibility with more than 250 apps including Microsoft business apps, Canva, Adobe, Spotify and more. This is invaluable to social media managers and content creators who work across numerous platforms and want to move across those platforms quickly and easily.
Learn more: Read our full Hootsuite review .
Small- to medium-sized businesses that use social media marketing as a driving force for sales.
$25.50 to $170
14-day trial
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok
SocialPilot is one of the most cost-effective social media marketing tools of the bunch. For social media managers who oversee a large number of social media accounts from one interface, SocialPilot is an affordable option. Its Small Team tier allows three users to post on 20 social media accounts for $42.50 per month (billed annually) as opposed to Hootsuite’s Team plan that allows three users to post to 20 accounts for $249 a month or Sprout Social’s Professional plan that allows a user to post to unlimited accounts for $399 per month.
In addition to integrating with all the classic social networks, SocialPilot is one of the few that integrates with TikTok. The popular video-sharing platform has more than 800 million active users. Tapping into that audience is a great way to market your brand to a new audience.
Other notable features of this platform include a drag-and-drop social media calendar that simplifies the process of reordering posts and a feature that curates a list of previous posts to repost.
SocialPilot was the first social media management software to enable users to link their TikTok accounts.
$249 to $499
30-day trial
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn
Sprout Social is one of the pricier plans on this list with its lowest tier starting at $249 per month. With the steeper price point comes unlimited posts and powerful data analytics tools, however, the Standard plan restricts the user to five social media sites.
Sprout Social’s most popular plan is the Professional at $399 a month (billed annually). The plan allows users to post to unlimited social media sites. It includes an all-in-one social box, analysis tools for Twitter hashtags and response rate analysis reports. With the Advanced plan at $499 a month (billed annually), users gain access to automated social chatbots, digital content libraries and link tracking capabilities.
Not only does Sprout Social have great scheduling abilities, but it is also a powerful tool for analyzing data. Users can set demographic and geographic measurements to measure how the content is working with their followers. Sprout can also monitor keywords across all social media to alert users when their business or brand is mentioned.
Learn more: Read our full Sprout Social review .
Businesses with a higher marketing budget to spend on software should consider Sprout Social because of its top-notch scheduling and analytics capabilities.
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Follow these simple yet effective steps to create a social media plan for your business. 1. Do a Social Media Audit. The first step in creating a social media plan is to do a social media audit of your existing channels. This will give you an idea about what's working, what isn't and how to improve the things that are falling flat.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy [Template]
Creating a 30-Day Social Media Plan
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If you are planning to start a new social media marketing or digital marketing company, the first thing you will need is a business plan. Use our sample social media marketing business plan created using Upmetrics business plan software to start writing your business plan in no time.. Before you start writing your business plan for your new social media marketing agency, spend as much time as ...
A business plan provides a snapshot of your social media marketing agency as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.
The Sprout Social Index™ shows 46% of marketers plan to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of advertising spend to connect the value of social to business goals in 2024. Simple enough. If you're laser-focused on generating leads or traffic to your website, social media can make it happen.
Creating a Business Plan. Starting a social media management business without a robust business plan is like navigating a dense forest without a map. You'll want to outline your mission, understand your financials, and have a clear strategy for acquiring clients. First off, define your mission statement. This should encapsulate why you're ...
Keep it. If not, get rid of it. 2. Understand your target audience. Before sitting down to map out your social media strategy, figure out who you want to see your content (and whether they want to see it). If your company already has a good understanding of your target consumer, boom—you're off to a great start.
Step 1: Determine which social media sites you will use. Social media is as homogenous from network to network as soda pop is from brand to brand. Sure, it's all social media, but Instagram and Twitter might as well be Mountain Dew and Pepsi. Each network is unique, with its own best practices, own style, and own audience.
1. Develop A Social Media Marketing Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed social media marketing business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial ...
6 Create A Social Media Strategic Plan. Now before you are up as running as a marketing company, you are in need of a business plan, a marketing plan and part of that marketing plan - even for your own social media management business - should include… wait for it… a social media strategic plan. You can't grow what you don't measure.
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Related: Noteworthy Social Media Trends for Business Growth in 2023. Step 5. Using social media management tools. As a part of a well-rounded social media plan, consider the following elements and workflows. 1. Feedback Handling. Negative Feedback: Have negative response templates ready to respond to unhappy customers. Keep feedback polite and ...
Social Media Marketing Plan Template. This social media campaign marketing plan template includes sections for defining goals, identifying a call to action, scheduling important dates, and planning marketing tools and content. The form is easy to read and edit, thanks to alternate row colors. Create a clear campaign plan that includes social ...
Actionable tips and best practices. A social media plan helps an organization determine their target audience, the social networks to join, and the type of content to develop and share. It is a vital part of your overall marketing strategy. Once you have a plan outlined, you can get to work refining your content and cadence, analyzing follower ...
Social Media Marketing In 2024: The Ultimate Guide
How to Create a Social Media Plan (That You Can Use Again and Again) Ready to tackle creating your very own 30-day social media plan? Social media success awaits, below. Week 1 (Days 1-7): Set New Goals & Metrics. Week 2 (Days 8-14): Audit Your Social Media Profiles. Week 3 (Days 15-21): Create & Build a Content Calendar.
Follow these 5 social media tips for business. Use social media marketing tools for business. Uncover social analytics and reporting for business. Involve your C-Suite and employees to amplify your business. Work on a corporate communication plan. Go beyond the basics of social media for business.
Social media management is a process businesses, brands, and individuals use to maintain a strong online presence across multiple platforms to engage with their audience. ... First thing first, you must have a plan of action for social media. Establishing clear business objectives and planning your social media strategy based on those removes ...
Step 1: Plan themes for your content. The first step in content planning is knowing what you're going to be posting about. How many topics you have and what they are depends on your unique business, but as an example, Hootsuite posts about: Social media marketing tips and industry trends.
5 Best Social Media Management Tools (2024)
Social Media Management. Social media management focuses on increasing reach, growing a follower base, and converting followers into customers. The main activities social media managers perform are creating and scheduling posts, analysing metrics, and optimising the strategy to drive key metrics. Community Management. Community management ...