How To Use The P.O.S.T Method To Create Your Social Media Plan

Social media is an essential part of your inbound marketing strategy and a vital distribution channel for your marketing message. Due to its reach and accessibility, social media can help you effectively reach new audiences and strengthen relationships with existing ones by providing a steady drumbeat of content they find engaging and useful.

But your best intentions will fall flat if you fail to plan. Creating a social media plan will help you focus on the people you want to reach, know why you want to reach them, and give you a road map on how to do it.

P.O.S.T Method: One Page Social Media Plan

There are many ways to create a social media plan. Regardless of which variation you use, always keep this principle in mind. Businesses are both senders and receivers of messages. As senders, we try to persuade, inform, and entertain our audience in hopes that they’ll give our services (or products) a try. As receivers, we listen to the market to help us shape our marketing message and spot new ways to communicate with our audiences.

Your social media plan should outline the marketing messages you want to convey, which platforms you will distribute them on, and how you’ll engage audiences in meaningful conversations. The P.O.S.T method – people, objectives, strategy, and technology/tactics –  introduced by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in the book Groundswell, is by far one of the simplest social media plans to create and maintain. And most importantly, it’s effective. Let’s take a closer look.

People: Who are you trying to attract with your social media content? Create personas (fictional representations of your target audience) that characterize your audience by identifiers like age, gender, income, geography, demeanor, pain points, and goals.

Objectives: What are you trying to achieve? How will you measure those goals? Perhaps you want to build awareness for your business and establish yourself as a thought leader. Success here could be seeing a bump in website traffic, especially to the blog page where you share your expertise through weekly blog posts.

Strategy: Now that you know who you are targeting and your objectives, the next step is to figure out how to get your audience to react. Consider the value exchange. What are you offering in exchange for their time and attention and how will you deliver it to them? Content is the engine that powers social media, and social media is a gateway to your audience. Always keep your customer at the center of the equation. Write content that solves their problems or makes their life better in some way. Your strategy provides guardrails.

Tactics: Which tools do you need to execute your strategy? Once you determine the social media platforms your audience is using, learn how to use them effectively. Understand the culture, tone, and nuances that make the platforms unique. Use support tools like Hootsuite and Buffer to manage your publishing schedule. Online tools like Google Sheets or Trello make good editorial calendars. If you’re struggling to get traction, sign up for free online courses or reach out to the pros for help.

Conclusion

Remember, social media is just one of the many tools you should have in your marketing toolkit to promote your business. But be patient. Seeing results on social media takes time, so don’t get discouraged. Stick to your strategy. Invest in social media advertising as your budget allows. Watch your metrics, practice social listening, and adjust your strategy as needed to reach your goals.