Social Networks in SMEs must follow defined objectives in a strategic plan that allows them to manage their presence professionally.

The work in the Social Networks of the companies must be a strategic activity, not a fashion or a? We should be ? Here are the first problems they have: do not get results.

A Social Networking Plan should be drawn up before entering them, clearly defining their objectives in each one of them, the strategies to be followed, as well as the optimization of their profiles. For SMEs that are not aware of this , I always suggest that you look for a specialist, if you can not afford it you have to study? and much to achieve results.

What should a Social Networking Plan consist of?

We insist that your strategy in social networks must be integrated with your entire marketing strategy. Its development should undoubtedly be based on the deep knowledge of its online market, ie who its market is, what social networks it interacts with, how it does it and with what brands. We must also have a good sense of who their competition is and what their presence is on social networks, how they interact with their audience and what impact it generates.

Having this information, we now need to have an idea of ​​what is being talked about our brand in Social Networks, whether we are in them or not, is likely to be talked about us. If not, for being a new or very small company, we can monitor what is spoken of the product or service that we are going or are offering. This we achieved through some monitoring platforms, such as: socialmention, google Alerts, among many others.

With this information, the process of elaborating the Social Networking Plan that will contain:

• Selection of Social Networks . The first thing is to define the social networks that your company must manage, not because they are fashionable, but because they are where your market is, and in which your brand has more opportunities to position itself by the type of product or service that you offer.
• Objectives by Social Network . Although you must define a general objective of why you are in social networks, each of them will have a different function, perhaps Twitter you have to answer doubts and Facebook you have to promote products and create a brand reputation.
• Personality of your social networking accounts . Each one must represent your brand and speak for it, so it is essential that you define the personality of your brand, think that your brand is a person? How is it? Serious, cheerful, formal? Intellectual, technological, romantic? Ingenious, humorous, accessible? Does it speak about you or about you? Etc. We must define it as detailed as possible, since this role must be represented by the person who is responsible for the management of your company’s Social Networks.
• Strategy of action in each social network . Here we define the strategy to be followed in each social network, among the most popular are: Brand Image, Online Sale, Market Studies, Customer Loyalty or Capture of Leads.
• Line of conversation . You must define the type of conversation you want to have with your community in social networks, this part includes the communication policies that the responsible of the RS should follow when representing the brand, what should or should not say and in what form. How the value content & promotional content will be included and regulated, as well as a Crisis Response Manual.
• Themes of publications . Here you define the topics to be published in each of your Social Networks: what you will talk about, each when, what sources you will use, how you will share it, etc. It is important that you define a theme to identify yourself by it, companies that publish without ton or are the truth is that they lose many chances of positioning a solid image.
• Strategy of interaction with your community . You must define how, when and how you are going to interact with your community in each of the Social Networks. The interaction is VITAL in the management of RS, without this the reality is that you will not reach concrete objectives. So, you must set times of interaction, in which you should read, comment and share what your followers say. You must also define what type of information you can share according to your brand’s philosophy and strategy. You must be clear how you are going to interact, with questions, talking, etc.
• How to generate followers . Quality is more important than quantity, however, the reality is RS is that the more people follow you have more opportunity to take your message further. So you must have strategies to get fans or fans constantly and that cover the market profile you are looking for.
• Definition of indicators . Do not forget that you must measure all your effort in Social Networks, to be able to adapt your strategy or tune it in the way. There are many tools, but the most important thing is to define the indicators (ROI / KPI) from the beginning: traffic, traffic sources, conversations, followers, conversions, etc.
• Applications and Tools . Finally define all the applications and tools that you will use for managing your social networks, monitoring, optimization, measurement, etc. There are many, so it is better to be clear what you will occupy from the beginning.

For all these 10 reasons is why you are an entrepreneur, an SME or a large company, you must develop a Social Networking Plan, these are not a fashion, they are a channel of communication that brings the brand closer to its market, are the the way in which the market is communicated today and is based on them for making purchasing decisions. You must be there, but professionally !!