Planning Your Social Media Strategy for 2015 – Reade Milner

 

2015 promises to be bigger and better for businesses as it welcomes new twists and turns for social media strategists. Interesting predictions have been surfacing left and right, and seeing how accurate a lot of these predictions could be, planning for next year could prove to be interestingly challenging.

Building a Strong Social Media Strategy for 2015

How do the 2015 forecasts look? This should be the first thing in mind as you build the kind of strategy that is most likely to succeed this coming year. As expected, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are going to continue dominating their respective fields. New social media platforms like Ello, which claims to be ‘anti-Facebook’ has caused quite a buzz and is expected to make waves for 2015. Facebook ads are predicted to show a considerable increase in pricing, although this is not really surprising considering their past trends. Based on these facts, it is time to start creating strategies that are specific to each platform, while also finding ways to integrate content distribution throughout all the social media tools you utilize.

Assessing Your Assets

Where do you start with your strategy? A logical starting point would be assessing the assets and resources that you now have and figuring out what your weaknesses and areas for improvement are. Do you have the right people on the job? Are your skills polished enough to pull this off? How much time are you willing to give to social media marketing?

• Dealing with people. Looking at the people you now dealing with, have they proven to be capable of boosting your social media presence and turning potentials into actual sales? If the answer is an easy no, then you also have an easy solution. Get people who can do magic in converting random social media users into followers, and eventually, into paying customers.
• Dealing with skills. Do you think your team’s social media skills need some updating? Considering the continuous flow of trends in the industry, it is very important for social media marketers to go with the flow and move along with trends. In social media, the biggest mistake you can make is remaining stagnant. Learn more about emerging trends and stay on top of your game.
• Dealing with time. How much of the work are you willing to do? If you believe that your time is better spent on another aspect of the business, hiring a virtual assistant will be the most logical next step. It saves you time at a low cost and leaves you to focus on core business responsibilities that you’d rather do yourself.

Moving with the Times

Of course, just because you create a strategy now does not mean that it will remain to be your blueprint for the entire 2015. Things happen and circumstances change. Especially when it comes to social media, you have to be ready for surprises. Make sure that you are willing to move with the times and tweak your strategies on a quarterly, monthly, or even weekly basis.

So, looking at what you have strategized so far, do you think you’re ready for 2015?