Web Marketing all-in-one for Dummies®

Chapter 3. Creating Your Social Media Plan

In This Chapter

• Researching your audience

• Reviewing your site for social skills

• Preparing for social media greatness

• Finding your message

• Setting your routine

In this chapter, you find out how to research your audience and pick the message and style that work for you. I also show you how to select target sites accordingly as well as prepare a profile that you can use repeatedly. After you make those decisions, it's time to set your social media schedule.

Researching Your Audience

Social media is unique enough that you'll want to analyze your audience there separately from other vehicles, such as search engines. For example, you might expect instant sales from a paid search ad or an e-mail marketing campaign. But when it comes to social media, you're looking for evidence of steady inroads with your audience, such as increased blog mentions about your company, which won't lead to sales for weeks or months. When you research your audience, you need to answer five basic questions:

• What kinds of people are in your audience? You need to know whom you're speaking to.

• Why are they participating in the community? What do they want from it? If they're participating so they can trade pictures of their pet bunny rabbit with friends and you suddenly show up selling hunting rifles, they won't appreciate it.

• What communities and sites do they most often use? Best to focus your efforts where your audience goes.

• How big is this audience? If a social media campaign ...