Social Media has become a powerful tool over the years. Just having an online account and posting random content is not sufficient. Properly executed, it can create a huge impact for your brand by growing an audience and increasing engagement. So, what is a social media plan? A social media plan is a detailed plan of everything you intend to communicate with a specific audience and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or losing (Newberry, 2021). Let’s put the theory into practice by developing a social media plan for a niche Vancouver-based company.

The first step is to create the social media plan; after that, we will analyze engagement data on a social platform such as Instagram to demonstrate how data should drive future decision-making. After we analyze this data, we will then be able to make sound recommendations for the business to increase their social engagement and achieve their desired goals and objectives.

Overview

This approach to creating a social media plan can be applied to analyze any existing online entity or to a new online entity to increase their social engagement. In our example, we are going to examine how Vessi Footwear uses Instagram to achieve engagement with its online followers.

Part 1: Company Overview

What does the company do? 

Vessi is a Vancouver-based Canadian waterproof sneaker company that was launched in 2018 by three founders – Andy Wang, Mikaella Go and Tony Yu. It is entirely an online company and plans to open retail stores in future. Vessi produces 100% waterproof sneakers that are comfortable and well suited for Vancouver’s rainy weather.

What are its values?

Tip: Understanding Vessi’s core value will also help you understand and connect to their activities and community engagement which will be a part of your non-promotional content.

What are its products?

Example: Vessi Products

Vessi offers a wide variety of sneakers that are ultra-lightweight and waterproof. Their products are vegan, cruelty-free, sweat-free, comfortable and stylish. The sneakers are all in one package for someone looking for comfort and style at the same time.

Tip: It is very important for you to know the product attributes and functionality because you will analyze their Instagram posts based on this knowledge and categorize each post accordingly.

Who is their audience?

• Outdoor enthusiasts
• Runners
• Hikers
• Dog walkers

Tip: Knowing the audience of Vessi will help you to analyze and categorize Vessi’s Instagram content because Vessi will post content that will increase engagement from their followers. It is important for the company to post content that will target the interests of their followers or potential followers.

Part Two: Instagram Content Marketing Plan

Creating the Plan

Part two begins with content identification which will engage the audience with the company’s goals and objectives. You will require a good arrangement of content to communicate your brand with your audience. As seen in Table 1: Vessi Instagram Metrics, the first column lists the objectives of the company. The second column lists the type of content to be posted to achieve those objectives, either promotional or non-promotional. Promotional content focuses on revenue generation or increasing traffic/audience, whereas non-promotional content does not directly focus on sales or traffic but finds a more rooted connection with the audience and the brand. In our example, we categorized 90% content as promotional and 10% non-promotional, which will vary with the company. Further, you can identify the kind of content that can be posted and measure the number of likes, comments, and shares to further analyze and control the data.

Table 1: Vessi Instagram Metrics

Part Three: Instagram Data Collection

The Instagram analysis will help you identify what type of content creates more engagement and should be posted more often. To begin this analysis you need to collect the desired companies’ Instagram raw data. In our example, we collected Vessi’s Instagram raw data on 2nd August 2021. This raw data consists of the number of likes, comments, and views for their latest 30 posts.

To begin this analysis you need to collect the desired companies’ Instagram or Facebook raw data. In our example, we collected Vessi’s Instagram raw data on 2nd August 2021.

To begin this analysis you need to collect the desired companies’ Instagram raw data. In our example, we collected Vessi’s Instagram raw data on 2nd August 2021.

Three-step process:

1. Collect raw data that consists of quantitative variables such as the number of likes, comments, and views for their latest posts.
2. Try to comprehend meaning from the available data by further calculating % share of each category (posts, likes, comments, and views)
3. Make informed decisions after analyzing the percentages and other relevant data you collect.

Part Four: Instagram Data Analysis

At first glance, the category “people outdoor with the product” with 6120 likes, might seem to be the category we should be posting more content to: it is, after all, a clear “winner” above all the others!

But, when we take a deeper dive into the data, by examining the second table showing us the average likes per post for each category, we now see that “people outdoor with a product” received only 612 likes compared to the category, “products outdoor” which received 1141 likes per post! When we take the percentage share of 30 posts for both of these categories into consideration, we now see the following:

• People outdoor with the product:  33% of total posts were able to generate an average of just 7% of likes and 17% of comments. Hence, it takes 33% effort to generate so little engagement.
• Products outdoor:  3% of product outdoor category posts were able to generate an average of 40% of comments and 31% of likes.  Hence, it takes only 3% of the effort to generate a major engagement.

Table 2: Instagram Data Analysis

Part Five: Data-Driven Recommendations

Recommendation #1: post more content to the categories “just product outdoor” and “people with animals”

As you can see from the table above, only 3% of posts in the “Just product outdoor” category are able to generate 31% of average likes and 40% of average comments. Similarly, 10% of total posts in the category of “people with animals” is able to generate 19% of average likes and 17% of average comments.

Recommendation#2: reduce the content posted to the categories “promotional videos” and “people outdoor with the product”

The “promotional videos” category covers 17% of total posts i.e. 17% of the effort. Whereas, it is only able to generate 8% of the average likes and 7% of the average comments. Similarly, the “people outdoor with the product” category is able to generate only 7% likes and 17% comments with 33% of posts i.e. the highest share of the total posts.

This five-step approach will give a framework that will guide you in achieving your organization’s goals and objectives by building your brand image. It will work as a measuring tool to lead you in the right direction. As mentioned earlier, if this social media plan is executed mindfully in this digital era, it will not only increase engagement or revenue but also build the brand’s reputation.

This page is authored by Kwantlen Polytechnic University (“KPU”) students Luckmeesa Chabara and Yadpreet Kaur, edited by Andrea NIosi (2021, August ), and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.