Apart from the 10 steps for social media marketing plan listed below, there are two additional steps, the preparation and execution of the plan, which will lead to tangible results.

1. Believe in what you are doing

Instead of a half-hearted dig, it pays to believe in yourself and the actions you are proposing for setting up the social media marketing plan. In the corporate arena, it helps if you have a board of directors and an executive team that supports your efforts to bring social media on-board into the overall marketing program.

2. Selling yourself to the executive team

Along with believing in what you are doing, your executive team should also be convinced that what they are doing will bring results. Not all members of the team may know much about social media, but surely, they would have heard about it. It will be your responsibility to field their questions with convincing answers and explain to them in detail about the individual steps for social media marketing plan.

3. Guidelines for Social Media

When working as a team, there is a danger of straying away from the central theme of the plan. This is because each member will use his own judgment and understanding unless there is a guideline for all to follow. This is an essential step required to remain focused on the social media marketing plan.

4. Follow the PDCA formula

The PDCA refers to Plan, Do, Check and Act. The first three steps outlined above are part of the Planning process. For a workable social media marketing plan, the plan itself will require to be divided into several steps or smaller projects. This must be done to cover all the steps for social media marketing plan.

5. Define realistic goals

When you set a goal, you also set an expectation. With a goal like, “we want to get the maximum traffic,” you may be setting an expectation that will very likely never materialize. Therefore, it is better to start with some realistic goal for which the next steps are important.

6. Build up relationships with influencers

Influencers are people who know about your product and advocate them to others. They could be internal to your organization or external to it. Get them to engage on the social media site to build up a relationship with them.

7. Build relationships with knowledge experts

These could again be external experts or internal to your organization. They would have expert knowledge on the various phases your product undergoes. They could be from marketing, customer support, testing, engineering or design. They could be induced to participate in answering questions from your visitors and customers.

8. Discuss your plan

Discussing your social media marketing plan, its changes and strategies with your team is very important.

9. Measure your progress

You have two choices here. You could either use some of the free tools available on the net, or buy some analysis tools to keep track of how your social media marketing plan is progressing.

10. Know your business

This is perhaps most important among the steps for social media marketing plan. Knowledge of your customers and your business will be instrumental in building your marketing plan.