Week 15 Part A: Developing Your Marketing Strategy

Social Media Plans for Trident Pacific Consulting

It has become apparent that Trident Pacific Consulting needs a plan. It is not the type of company that can just post on a whim and expect to maintain a following.  I've had the last semester to think about how this plan might look.

As far as the social media platforms that are the most valuable for a small business consulting firm like ours, I would rate them as follows:

1. LinkedIn
2. Website Blog
   
3. Facebook
4. Twitter
5. Instagram
6. Email newsletter
   

Our ultimate goal is to post to Facebook and Instagram daily, LinkedIn and blog weekly, and Twitter daily. Twitter will probably need to stay on a back burner until the other mediums are developed more.

 

I hope to mine email addresses from the website. The traffic to the website is likely to come from social media marketing. With an email list, we can send out a monthly newsletter.

 

While ambitious (for me), I hope to spend at least an hour per day total on social media marketing. I will split my time between the dog business and TPC. My time will be on developing content, posting at appropriate times, and analyzing data from the mediums to see how the marketing efforts are working.

LinkedIn/Blog Post

The target market for TPC is executives in small to medium enterprises (SME). LinkedIn is the best business to business (B2B) lead generation social media source. The primary difference between LinkedIn and other social media platforms from a business stand-point is that LinkedIn is less of a advertising medium and more of a networking platform. The goal for TPC on LinkedIn is more passive marketing to create brand awareness and generate leads through blog posts and status updates, providing valuable information that will hopefully get potential clients curious to learn more and visit the website.

 

One of the biggest issues in marketing organization development consultants is that many managers do not know what help these consultants can provide or how they can help. The type of posts that focus on educate and inform decision makers thus creating interest in our brand. Our focus will be on blog posts that focus on an aspect of business management, employee development, and/or organization transformation, interspersed with SEAL stories that illustrate a point. The blog posts will be reposted to LinkedIn, and Facebook. 

Goals for LinkedIn

1. Educating decision makers on the value of OD consultants
   
2. Building brand awareness
3. Driving traffic to the website
   

Using the following data, I would like to plan LinkedIn posts (sharing of the weekly blog post from the website) for 7:00am on Tuesdays.
 

LinkedIn Timing Facts

• Most clicks and shares: Tuesdays, 11 AM-12 PM.
• The worst time for LinkedIn: Sleeping hours (10 PM-6 AM) immediately before Monday and after Friday night.
• Best Times to post: 7-8 AM; 5-6 PM.
• Peak time of use during an average day: 12 PM; 5-6 PM.

Facebook 

With Facebook we can get a bit more creative. I want to use this medium for people to get to know Forrest on a personal level in order to get them to relate, be inspired and to trust him for personal or executive coaching. While this may seen counter to the goals of a consultant who is focused on organizations, many organization consultants are able to transition an individual coaching client into an OD client. 

Canva is a wonderful way to make memes and they make scheduling to Facebook a breeze.

 

Goals for Facebook

1. Cultivating user engagement and social sharing to create a community
2. Build trust and confidence in Forrest as a consultant
   
3. Attracting new followers
4. Increasing organic traffic.

Taking the following data into account, I will plan to post at least Monday - Saturday, using the optimal times below and tweeking the timing as more Insight data comes in. 

Facebook Timing Facts

• According to Sprout Social, the best times to post are Wednesday at 11 am and 1 pm.
• According to Hootsuite, the best times to post are between noon and 3 pm on weekdays.
• According to Buffer, the best times to post are between 1pm – 3pm on during the week and Saturdays. 
• According to Buffer, engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays.
• The worst day is Sunday, which sees the least amount of engagement. 
  
• The most consistent engagement on weekdays from 9 am–3 pm.
• The lowest engagement is during early mornings before 7 am and evenings after 5 pm.

 I will have a specific plan for each day. 

Monday: Monday Motivation inspirational quote
Tuesday: Repost the blog post
Wednesday: Reposting an article from a journal such as Forbes or HBR
Thursday: Promotional post about personal coaching, webinar or upcoming book
Friday: Friday Funday. Something humorous to lighten up the last workday of the week.
Saturday or Sunday: Something personal, like a small video from mountain biking, coaching the kids' baseball, teaching the kids to shoot at a range, etc.

Lastly, I will try some paid ads and boosted posts at least once per week. I hope to try some AB testing to see what is the most effective.

Instagram

If we get a bit more creative with Facebook, my hope is to be more so with Instagram. I'd like it to focus more toward the individual coaching client with a combination of inspirational quotes, personal highlights, promotional posts, and videos. Old SEAL photos can show up here as well.

A starting place for finding the best times to post (source: HubSpot) is below, but as data comes in from business suite analytics, I will adjust the times to post.

• The best time to post on Instagram is between 10 AM and 3 PM CDT. 
• The level of engagement you get can change dramatically depending on what day of the week you post. 
• The best days to post on Instagram are Wednesday throughout the day, but particularly around 11 AM, and Friday from 10 AM to 11 AM
• Per day here are the best times 
  

1. Sunday: 8 AM – 2 PM (Though engagement is generally low on this day)
2. Monday: 11 AM – 2 PM
3. Tuesday: 10 AM – 3 PM, 7 PM
4. Wednesday: 7 AM - 4 PM (Engagement peaks at 11AM - 2PM)
5. Thursday: 10 AM - 2 PM, 6 - 7 PM
6. Friday: 9 AM - 2 PM
7. Saturday: 9 - 11 AM
8. Lastly, I will try some paid ads and boosted posts at least once per week. I hope to try some AB testing to see what is the most effective.

In the next post I will develop a calendar to organize this plan.