Happy New Year! We’re already one month in. By this time, you should already have a list of your company’s goals and how you plan to achieve them.

Marketing is always tricky to plan, especially if you’re new to it and doing it by yourself. That’s okay, we all had to start somewhere, but here’s a checklist of how to prepare a social marketing plan for your small business.

1. Define your goals:

What would you like to achieve on social media this year? Do you want to increase brand awareness, do you want to increase sales, or do you have anything you’d like to launch? Be clear on this because this is what will help you create your content strategy.

When you define your goals, be as specific as possible. Some people recommend your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely (SMART). However, I like to take a different approach.

Set your goals, be as specific as possible. But when you’re writing them, below them write three things you need to do in the current month to get closer to your goals and do it. Repeat this every month and you’ll find that your goals no longer seem daunting, but doable. 

2. Revisit Your Target Audience:

You can try to sell to everyone, but everyone won’t want to purchase your product.  Knowing who you’re trying to target saves you a lot of time. Because you then create content for their needs and their pain points. It’s okay if your target audience has changed this year, business is all about evolving.

Research the platforms you are on; your research may show you that the platform you spend most of your time isn’t where your target audience is.

3. Take Note of all Important Dates:

It’s time to create your social media calendar. Some people would recommend planning it months in advance, but that’s not for everyone. Do what makes you comfortable. I plan my social media one month in advance and that works for me. 

Important dates are holidays, but also national days that correspond with your business. For example, if you’re a wine business, an important day might be National Merlot Day. If you’re a clothing store, an important day might be National Denim Day. You can find national days by searching on Google.

When you have these days marked out, start thinking of ideas that you may want to do for them. Whether that means partnering with an influencer or launching a product, start planning so that when the time comes, you’ve already prepared you can launch seamlessly.

Outside of these dates began planning your content and scheduling them with your social media tools. Some of my personal favourites are Later, Plann and Buffer.

4. Repurpose Old Social Media Assets:

Social Media isn’t as difficult as most people think. We have all the tools to make it work, but most times we aren’t using the tools properly.

Remember that post you made last year that went viral? You gained hundreds of follows from that post, you can repurpose that. Repurposing simply means recycling your existing content, but not in the original form.

For example, if you wrote a blog post on Valentine’s Day of last year, repurpose that to a newsletter to your customers with a link back to your website. Drive traffic back to your website, while gaining some sales.

5. Plan to Stand Out:

It’s not enough to just show up on social media. You need to stand out and be impactful. Depending on which platform you’re the most active, you can take advantage of the features on the apps.

There are so many things you can do with social media such as Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, Twitter Fleets and even Tik-Tok depending on your target audience. Knowing which one would be most impactful for your business depends on how well you know your target market.

These are just some suggestions to get your 2021 Social Media Marketing plan up and running. The most important for your business is setting goals and knowing who your target audience is. Once these are set, everything else becomes easier. 

If you need a refresher on building a home on social media, check out this article.