Looking to get started with social media and wondering where to begin? Here is your guide.

Social media is no longer an ancillary marketing channel for brands to explore. In a world where content continues to reign king, an effective social media marketing plan is critical to your brand’s success.

The right social media marketing plan serves as a guide to achieving your desired marketing goals. By incorporating key audiences and personas, core tactics, assigned roles and responsibilities, and critical social media KPIs, you can identify and track your brand’s success.

The first step? Getting started. 

That’s why ListenFirst created a simple guide to kickstart your social media marketing strategy. Let’s dive in.

1. What is social media marketing?
2. What are your goals?
3. Who is your audience?
4. What social media content will you share?
5. What times will you post?
6. How will you measure success? 
7. How will you measure your progress?
8. How will you optimize your strategy?
9. How to get the entire company sharing?
10. Are you ready for prime time?

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing focuses on creating relevant content for social media platforms that connects with your audiences, drives engagement, and increases brand awareness. 

While there are infinite variations of this definition, the bottom line is social media marketing is about engaging customers in a relevant, authentic way to help them understand your business, connect with your brand, and ultimately drive leads and increase sales.

Today’s brands understand the increasingly indispensable role of social media marketing. According to our 2022 Social Media Trends Survey Report, more than 55% of brands surveyed increased their social media spend during the first two years of the pandemic. And just over half of brands planned to increase spending further during 2022.

What Are Your Goals?

Setting tangible, measurable social media goals is key to success. 

Only 14% of marketers can always tie social media efforts to ROI. Being able to set clear goals around what signifies social media success and accurately measure performance is essential for an effective social media campaign. 

Think big. Ensure your plan aligns with overall business goals. 

• Do you want to grow awareness? Consider goals related to audience growth. 
• Are you set on increasing brand affinity and loyalty? 
• Set a target for engagement rates. Is brand love your focus? Aim for a positive social sentiment. 

Incorporate short-term and long-term social media goals into the mix and plan to benchmark progress along the way.  

As the infamous business strategist Tony Robbins put it, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

Who is your audience?

Identifying your audience and persona research.

While it may seem obvious, audience and persona research is a step that is often overlooked when developing a social media marketing plan. To create impact, know your target audience so you can customize content to fit their specific needs and interests. 

Here are some key elements to consider: 

• What platforms do they use? 
• When do they use these platforms? Why? 
• What content do they engage with? 
• What other brands and/or influencers are they following? 
• What inspires emotions? 

The right social media analytics solution can provide the full picture of these insights for your brand – quickly and easily. This video explains how. 

Creating Personas 

Go one step deeper and develop research-based personas to bring your target audience to life. Classify your customers into specific groups based on their desires — and plan to tailor your content accordingly.

A persona can include your ideal customer’s role, their goal, and their segment: 

Role

A customer’s job description, responsibilities, tasks, and external factors related to their interaction with your service. These factors typically relate to business, work and productivity.

Goal

What the customer is trying to achieve. Goals have a timelessness that roles do not, and should be differentiated from “tasks.” For example, for an online shoe shopper an easy registration process is not their goal, it is a task on the way to buying shoes.

Segment 

Characteristics the customer shares with many other customers such as demographics, psychographics, attitudes, and/or behaviors. 

Research-based persona categories may revolve on a single main descriptor, for example, a Gen Zer who regularly watches reality TV on Netflix. Or a main descriptor with multiple sub-elements, for example, a Gen Zer who regularly watches reality TV on Netflix, spends time gaming, and gets their news from Instagram. 

There are many tools that can help you glean insight from your target audiences and create buyer personas. 

It pays to use an in-depth social media analytics solution to easily view audience insights for each social media platform. A comprehensive dashboard, like the one shown below, can help you establish a baseline of competitive audience demographics, languages, geography, and brand affinities to craft the most high-impact, tailored social media marketing plan. Additionally, it can provide in-depth knowledge of current campaigns and what your audience is responding to and why. 

The right social media analytics solution can also help you reach new audiences by identifying new trends in your industry to maximize the number of people you reach.

Discover which brands, people, events, and influencers your audience finds interesting, and use that to inform your messaging and creative. By doing so, you can form more targeted, successful partnerships. Plus, you’ll learn how to create engaging content to keep your customers interested. 

What Social Media Content Will You Share?

Knowledge is power. Once you have a deeper understanding of your audience and buyer personas, you can develop shareable content that resonates. 

But with social media trends ever-changing, what kind of content is the question? Here is some inspiration to help. 

Humanize your brand 

By now, you should have a specific “voice” for your brand. Be consistent in tone, and don’t be afraid to show the behind-the-scenes processes, the day-to-day work culture, and other aspects of your brand that make it truly unique.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s is a brand who sees politics and social justice as very central to their culture, with them donating 7.5% of their earnings to social causes. These values are also front and center in some of their most popular social media posts. Their top performing post in April 2022 was an Instagram Gallery about cannabis justice that got 191,916 engagements, while their top performing post in June 2022 with 105,541 engagements was an Instagram post outlining their disagreement with their parent company selling their ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.   

User-generated content

We’ll talk later about how to get the entire company involved in sharing, but when it comes to user-generated content, think about some of your biggest brand advocates — your customers. Can they provide reviews, or use a specific hashtag to share experiences with your brand? 

One of the most successful examples of brands using user generated content is the TikTok user Nathan Apodaca, who went viral on TikTok, for a video where he’s drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and singing along to a Fleetwood Mac song while on a skateboard. Ocean Spray shared his video on their Instagram account where it got 102,013 engagements. Additionally, the top performing social media post of 2020 for Ocean Spray with 163,096 engagements was a follow up Instagram video where they gave Apodaca a new car. 

As new forms of content continue to surface, it’s important to keep your finger on the industry’s pulse to uncover the latest trends. Right now, here are some forms of content your brand should consider.

Short-form video

With the advent of TikTok and Instagram Reels, it’s no secret that video should be top of mind. According to research, the average person will spend 100 minutes a day watching online video. 

Short-form video content, in particular, is what social media consumers most resonate with — and research shows time and again that they get the highest conversion rates.

How dominant is short form video for brands at this point? Between January – July, 2022, 58% of the top 100 social media posts by episodic TV brands with the most engagement were published on TikTok. That includes the top performing post, a 12 second Tonight Show TikTok video featuring Noah Schnapp and Maya Hawke from Stranger Things that got 8,367,300 engagements.  

It’s not just brands that are inherently video focused benefiting from sharing short form video through TikTok. The 5 social media posts that generated the most engagements for fashion brands between January and July 2022 were all TikTok videos. 

Paid partnerships with influencers

According to Forbes, “influencer marketing is stronger than ever; brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing during 2022.” 

As social networks like Instagram and TikTok make the in-app shopping experience more seamless, this creates a wealth of opportunity for brand partnerships to thrive with shoppable products at their fingertips. 

Images and Galleries 

While video is here to stay, images are still an important and essential part of the social ecosystem. In fact, as Instagram continues to push video content, they are seeing a backlash from many users with a desire to bring back more images. 

When thinking about your content flow, aim for galleries over a single static image. In a recent webinar, Top 5 Social Media Trends Driving Brand Engagement, we found that during August 2021, 33.5% of engagement on brand content was coming from gallery posts compared to only 18.9% of engagement happening on single image posts. 

What Times Will You Post?

As the saying goes, “timing is everything.” Yet on the flip side, there is no one size fits all solution for the perfect time to post content on social media. 

 A social media analytics feature like our Instant Insights can help you determine the right times for your brand. It will give you the core elements, like the best time of day, day of the week, words, emojis, and hashtags that make up the best performing social media content. 

For example, in a recent report focused on hospital brands, data showed that 56% of all industry Reels are posted between 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., resulting in some of the lowest average engagement on videos. As a result, we recommend hospital brands post their Reels between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.

By benchmarking performance against your brand’s historical performance and competitors’ performance, brands can get a clearer picture on what posting windows makes the most sense for them specifically.

How Will You Measure Success?

As management guru, Peter Drucker, said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Yet many brands still struggle with proving the value of their social media marketing campaigns. The key to successful measurement hinges on leveraging social media analytics.

Set social media marketing KPIs that align with your business goals

When it comes to setting social media marketing KPIs that will have an impact, less is more. Start with your business goals. Ask yourself, how do those translate into social metrics or outcomes? 

Identify metrics that matter

It’s critical to do industry research prior to determining the most logical social media marketing KPIs for your brand. 

Of course, you want to look at historical trends for your brand as well as for your competitors. But there’s also a lot to gain from reviewing other aspirational brands who’ve accomplished what you’re after. Even if the brand is not a player in your industry, understanding benchmarks across industries will give even more context on performance goals and best practices. 

Then ask yourself, what’s a reasonable expectation for your brand based on the historical data and performance across other brands? Focus on metrics that speak to non-paid audience activity around your brand such as Interest Score, and look at metrics that normalize audience size, such as Response Rate, which shows engagement relative to the number of followers your brand has.    

The ListenFirst report How to Maximize Social Media Analytics provides more details on how to identify the metrics that matter. 

How Will You Measure Your Progress? 

Social media KPIs are crucial to your brand’s success. A data-driven approach will help in measuring social media engagement as well as your goals, and continuously improving upon them.

Reporting is key to tracking your progress. 

Reporting that allows you to see all of your cross-channel data in one view is essential. You’ll also want to set up reporting that will allow you to see the most important metrics, including your benchmarks and historical trends, at a glance.

Dashboards are a great way to communicate the story the data is telling to your key stakeholders. Configurable dashboards are an invaluable tool that allows users to build a series of dashboards to best match their team’s goals.

How Will You Optimize Your Strategy?

The social media landscape is ever-evolving. The TikTok “revolution” serves as a prime example of this. Brands that want to stay relevant to today’s consumer must constantly work to optimize their social media marketing strategy.

Tap into audience sentiment

A sentiment data analysis can help identify opportunities or trends impacting your brand. Once you understand how your audience is feeling and why, you can gain a better sense of what you need to do to change the course of your plan or campaign.

Refine your creative content 

Once you’ve nailed down your audience, it is crucial to ensure you are continuously engaging them. Make changes if needed as you discover what inspires action. 

By focusing on elements such as color, product, talent or layout that perform best, you can create more impactful campaigns. 

Instant Insights from ListenFirst helps you optimize your visuals and messaging, so your content always delivers against your goals. 

How To Get The Entire Company Sharing?

Employees should always be seen as a valuable asset. But when it comes to your social media marketing plan, did you know employees are one of your most powerful tools to achieving success?

According to The State of B2B Social Media Marketing Report, nearly 50% of CMOs said that employee advocacy was their best-performing social initiative. Their second highest-performing social initiative was social selling, coming in at 32% — another form of employee advocacy.

So how do you get your employees to walk the walk? Here are a few simple tricks.

Create a social culture

Ensure that your employees can access the appropriate and relevant social media channels at work – and that they feel comfortable doing so. This creates a more social media-friendly culture, where employees will be more apt to share your company content. 

Share third-party content 

Relevant and credible third-party content is a great way to build thought leadership and bring more attention to your social media feeds. Think about content related to your industry or community. Make sure you tag the appropriate organizations and/or thought leaders to extend your content to a larger network.

Connect employees to the vision

Your vision isn’t for management and management alone. Share your social media marketing goals more broadly, and explain how they tie into your brand’s overarching strategy. Employees will buy into these goals and be more motivated to work toward them as a team.

Notify your team

Many social media networks, like LinkedIn, now have features to notify your employees when you make a post. Take advantage of this feature to cast your message – and encourage more reach and engagement.

Recognize employee contributions 

Are you employees making strides in social media sharing? Whether it’s a virtual high five or a company shout-out, be sure to let them know their efforts are seen and appreciated. Positive reinforcement will encourage your employees to continue to engage and spread your brand’s message.

In 2021 for example, the top performing Tyson Food content on social media was a Facebook post that got 67,493 engagements about Jeannie, a team member who secured 1.4 million meals for military families. Overall in 2021, the 43 posts Tyson Foods shared using the #TysonTogether hashtag promoting their employees averaged 2,501 compared to their 195 posts not using that hashtag averaging only 98 engagements. 

Are You Ready for Prime Time? 

Is your social media marketing plan ready for prime time? 

Our premier social media analytics solution can help you unlock social insights, optimize social media marketing, and maximize social media ROI. To learn more about ListenFirst, you can request a free demo.

While getting consensus on anything involving abortion might seem impossible, people on both sides of the issue probably can agree the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will likely end up being the most impactful Supreme Court ruling in decades. So what do brands need to know about the social media reaction to this court decision?  

Here’s how the social media audience is responding to Roe v. Wade being overturned, both in general and around brand messaging specifically. 

The Official Ruling Was Far More Impactful Than The Leak 

It was widely assumed Roe V. Wade was about to be overturned, as a month earlier a draft of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was leaked to the press. However, the leak didn’t mute the social media reaction to the decision becoming finalized. In fact, there were 7,235,816 Tweets mentioning either Abortion or Roe V. Wade on June 24, 2022, the day the case was overturned. That is 4.8X as many Tweets mentioning those terms as there were on May 2, 2022, the day Politico published a leaked draft of the decision.

Brands Coming Out On Social As Pro-Choice Aren’t Seeing Significant Negative Impact  

Dozens of major companies have pledged to cover their employees expenses if they need healthcare out of state, including abortion services.  However, brands have been hesitant to post about this on social media (and in some cases, publicly discuss those policies in general). 

pic.twitter.com/TvOX7rNkkr

— DICK'S Sporting Goods (@DICKS) June 24, 2022

For the brands discussing their new healthcare policies on social media, there didn’t appear to be any significant blowback. For example, DICK’S Sporting Goods got 170,259 engagements on Instagram (a 27.78% response rate) and 199,133 engagements on Twitter  (a 54.53% response rate) for a post announcing they would reimburse their employees up to $4,000 if they, their spouse, or dependant need to travel out of state to have an abortion. DICK’S had a net gain of 6,330 social media followers on the day. 

Similarly, GoPro shared an Instagram post saying “We support women.” and they’re enhancing family benefits for their employees to include abortion, adoption, and IVF treatment. That post got 28,965 engagements and had a 0.15% response rate, with GoPro adding 5,190 followers to their social media accounts on the day it was posted. Meanwhile, Live Nation Entertainment got 20,080 engagements and a 4.03% response rate for an Instagram post saying they stand with women, will pay for employees’ out of state healthcare expenses and are matching Lizzo’s donation to Planned Parenthood and Abortion Rights. Live Nation Entertainment gained 130 social media followers on the day. 

Also notewothy, Ben & Jerry shared 7 posts across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about fighting for abortion rights between June 24-25, 2020. Those posts got a total of 115,660 engagements and an average response rate of 0.53%. Most engaged of those posts was an Instagram gallery focusing on all the other existing rights Ben & Jerry felt the Supreme Court could potentially take away because they’re not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. The brand gained 3,003 new followers over the two days. 

The Reaction Was More Mixed For Video Game Brands Being Pro-Choice 

Electronic Arts (EA) committed to expanding the benefits to their U.S. employees around their healthcare in a post that got a combined 13,865 engagements on Instagram and Twitter.  However, EA had a net loss of -7 followers on the day, and many of those engagements were negative. For example, the post on Instagram got a comment saying “”EA caring about politics more than of they games [ sic ]” that got 289 Likes and a comment that said “we dont care drop skate 4 [ sic ]” that got 239 Likes. It’s worth noting EA’s post didn’t directly mention either Abortion or Roe V. Wade. 

Ubisoft did gain 3,088 social media followers on the day they posted on Facebook that “reproductive rights are human rights” with the post getting 943 engagements. However, the top performing comment on the post with 81 thumbs up and 12 hearts read “Brand out of touch again? Imagine thinking it would be popular to publicly support the killing of babies.“

Brands With A Primarily Female Audience Were Most Likely To Speak Out On Social 

By far the most brands posting about Roe v. Wade being overturned were brands with a primarily female audience, especially around Fashion, Beauty, and Home Furnishing brands. The most popular of these was a Lululemon Instagram post that got 137,281 engagements and a 3.30% response rate  saying “reproductive rights are human rights” while announcing they’d be making a $500,000 contribution to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Other brands focusing on saying women’s rights are human rights or reproductive rights are human rights include PacSun, Francesca’s, and Parachute Home.  

Gucci got 81,348 engagements and a 0.17% response rate for a “My body, my choice” post on Instagram that also talked about their CHIME FOR CHANGE campaign which since 2013 has been fighting for gender equality. A number of other brands shared “Your Body, Your Choice” or “My Body, My Choice” focused messages, such as Rituel de Fille, Chloé, Tatcha, Madewell, and The Body Shop. 

Another slogan repeatedly used in brand posts was “Don’t Ban Equality” including in posts shared by J.Crew,  Glossier, Paula’s Choice, Versed Skincare, and ModCloth. 

Athleta got 36,292 engagements and a response rate of 4.50% on an Instagram post saying employees on GAP Inc. healthcare can travel to other states to get healthcare. Dove, Benefit Cosmetics, and Hanna Andersson were other brands talking about giving their employees out of state health care options. 

A number of other brands talked about who they were donating money to, or who they wanted you to donate money to. Companies that said they were donating to pro-choice organazations or other organazations focusing on women’s rights included Peach & Lily, Prose Hair and Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare. 

Brands sharing resources of where to get involved or donate money to included Trixie Mattel Cosmetics, Glow Recipe, EM Cosmetics, Youth To The People, and Tower 28 Beauty. 

In some cases, brands got more in the weeds discussing what the Supreme Court actually wrote. For example, Pacifica Beauty, shared a quote from Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer’s dissent while Boy Smells analyzed Clarence Thomas’s additional opinion to see what other protections might be at risk.

In other cases, CEOs just used brand channels to share personal feelings of frustration. Tory Burch wrote a note to her employees on Instagram expressing her outrage at Roe v. Wade being overturned which got 13,201 engagements, while Jeffree Star Cosmetics got 6,013 engagements on a Tweet where Jeffree said he’s in utter shock. 

Pro-Life Brands Were Silent On Social Media 

ListenFirst looked extensively for examples of brands commenting on social media about Roe v. Wade being overturned with Pro-Life messaging, and almost without exception those posts just didn’t existed (excluding politicians and news brands). That includes brands that had publicly discussed their religious rights in the context of the First Amendment in the past. The one place where Pro-Life brands did speak up on social was around very specific films. 

BREAKING: Supreme Court OVERTURNS Roe v Wade

VICTORY!

We’re thankful for the bravery of SCOTUS to render this decision in a volatile political climate. We pray for their safety, and for our nation in the aftermath this decision will bring.https://t.co/Rtsr2kEpzg

— UnplannedMovie (@UnplannedMovie) June 24, 2022

Unplanned, a drama about a Planned Parenthood employee who becomes an anti-abortion activist had 584 engagmeents on a Tweet thanking the Supreme Court of their bravery and praying for their safety in a volatile political climate. Meanwhile, the movie Persecuted, a 2014 Christian drama got 25 engagements on a Facebook post saying  “Glory to God!!” and “The lord cares for the unborn!!” linking to a news story about Roe v. Wade getting overturned.  

Given that polling shows 60% of US adults disapprove of overturning Roe v. Wade, combined with the verdict having already gone their way, brands with pro-life leadership likely didn’t see much to gain by posting about the decision on social media. 

‘We Will Adopt Your Baby’ Goes Viral 

Between June 26 – June 28, there were 285,797 Tweets using the exact phrase “We will adopt your baby”. The trend started because a Twitter user took a picture of an anti-abortion couple outside the Supreme Court, holding up a sign with the message. It turns out the couple aren’t U.S. citizens and can’t legally adopt children in America, but regardless, the image went viral in a cyberbullying context. 

from the director of Get Out and Us comes his most audacious horror yet… pic.twitter.com/kHM7nzef0g

— Matt Oswalt (@MattOswaltVA) June 26, 2022

People shared the “We will adopt your baby” text with various pictures of sinister looking couples. A second strain of the meme, focused on a picture of a different couple holding up a sign saying “Please don’t abort, we will adopt your baby!”. That photo it turns out was actually from a 2019 Facebook post, and not directly related to the current Supreme Court decision. 

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Conclusion

For a subject touching on people’s religious beliefs, their sense of autonomy about their own bodies, and existential questions on when life begins, it’s unlikely brands would or should have their messaging shaped by what others are saying on social media. That said, given most people in America get their healthcare through their employer, it is an issue companies are thinking about which has potentially long-term consequences. 

Brands have to factor in the personal beliefs of their leadership, the divided preferences of their own employees, and how transparent they are about their policies with consumers. In weighing all those factors, it’s important to review social media analytics from a brand marketing point of view. Understand how your audience is responding to these hot-topic conversations, before you post about the issue. A principled stand is a principled stand, but brands should not fly blind when joining the conversation in the very public arena of social media. 

Consumer behaviors are evolving on social media. Especially since the start of the pandemic, as in person interaction has become less frequent. Many people are no longer “lurking” on social media, but are actually engaging.

How does this impact your method of measurement?

Surface-level metrics like followers and engagements are not as telling as they once were. To measure the effectiveness of your social media strategy today, you must take a more sophisticated approach.

Download our report to learn how to measure social media’s impact on consumer buzz, brand awareness, competitive rankings, and customer conversions.

For brands, knowing video is important for your social media strategy is not enough. Certain social media platforms are becoming more central to brand marketing as video becomes more popular, while other social platforms become less of a focus for brands.  

Additionally, as the audience embraces video, the social media metrics that marketers should be focusing on needs to change as well.

This report takes a look at several key industries on social media including Fashion, Publishing, Food & Beverage, Top Advertisers, and Home Furnishings, to determine the behavioral shift of media consumption by the public on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

In this report we outline exactly how video has changed audience behavior, why that’s impacting which social media metrics you need to focus on, and what brand priorities should be going forward.

Starting in September 2021, ListenFirst users will have access to a new platform experience. Notable features now available in the new ListenFirst experience include the ability to:

• quickly find the data you need
• build configurable dashboards
• uncover key takeaways automatically
• create brand roll-ups on the fly
• dive into the analytics and share meaningful visuals quickly

We breakdown our most exciting enhancements below.

Configurable Dashboards

When you first log in to your ListenFirst account, you’ll get a quick glimpse at the performance metrics most important to you. Configurable Dashboards make this all possible. Our new dashboard feature allows customers to create specific combinations of ListenFirst data to match their team’s unique use cases and workflows. 

It’s easy to add an analysis tile to your favorite dashboard, or to multiple dashboards. It’s your choice. From there you have easy-to-understand, beautiful reports to share with other ListenFirst users.

You’re in Control with Instant Insights

Tired of burning precious hours attempting the work of a trained data analyst? Instant Insights, is a new analytics feature that quickly shows how brands perform across social media. It’s all in a single view! 

Leveraging years of intelligence gathered from working with the largest brands in the world, Instant Insights utilizes machine learning to deliver analysis like no other. Users can benchmark performance and uncover valuable takeaways in natural language. Even configure multiple brands and content filters on the fly. 

A Modern and User-Friendly Design

We worked hand-in-hand with ListenFirst customers to ensure the new interface would provide easy access to the data needed most. This resulted in a more streamlined workflow paired with modern design. Save time with more intuitive navigation, clean data visuals and more ways to share key metrics and insightful takeaways with others.

Experience the Enhancements for Yourself

Throughout the month of September, users will be given the opportunity to switch between the new and legacy UI. So, the next time you log into your ListenFirst account, look for the toggle button at the top right.

Don’t be shy. Dive into the upgraded experience for more flexibility, faster insights and access to powerful dashboards. New feature walk-thrus will be available as you explore the platform, but for a deeper understanding of the new workflows, check out the knowledge base dedicated to the Platform Redesign found in the Help Center. 

How can my brand see the most social media success around our Big Game related campaign?

For marketers the many ways to share content on social media is exciting, but for many brands the Super Bowl is the centerpiece of their marketing efforts for the year, and it’s not the time you want to experiment with endless possibilities. Companies want to know exactly what social media strategies work on which social networks, to make sure they get the big increase in awareness around their messaging.