Creating official planning documents is important to the structure of your business. More often than not Black-owned businesses blindly create startups with no plans. Kudos to the business owners who walk out on a leap of faith and “Just Do It!” However, in result, business owners can run into the issue of not knowing what’s most important to their business and its structure. These factors can end up hurting the business in the long run, especially when some skills are not taught but learned after failure. To prevent failures for Black business owners, I want to share the importance of creating a Social Media Plan for your business.
As a Black business owner myself, I too have operated with the “Just Do It” mentality. I started my company 5 STAH MEDIA LLC during the pandemic. Shortly after completing my business plan, operating agreement, and other official documents, I quickly realized the next steps were to build an online presence. If you are a Black business owner, you are aware of the many job titles you could take on such as marketer, supplier, accountant, human resource officer, etc. All of these titles can become very overwhelming without interns, third party agencies or hired professionals. After creating my accounts, I was stuck in a social media jam and it was hard to come out of that place. Questions like these began to clog my thought process: “What do I even post? How do I want my page to look? How can I manage all of these accounts and still provide a quality service to my clients? Who am I targeting online? Am I building the right accounts to reach them?” A light bulb went off and I realized I was missing a Social Media Plan, a service I currently provide to my clients! I use this plan as a reference and visit the document frequently because it serves as a working guide for communication with my target audience, scheduling content to post, and identifying if I am reaching my goals. One of the great benefits of operating on this plan’s guidelines is holding yourself accountable for each goal you defined in your plan. If you are a Black business owner who has yet to complete a Social Media Plan this is your sign to start now, or refine the one you have to contribute to your success!
To build an effective Social Media Plan, the following should be addressed:
Company Social Media Mission
- Why is your company on social media?
- What do you hope to accomplish?
Social Media and Business Goals
- What are your social media goals?
- Do these goals relate to your overall business goals?
Who Is Your Target Audience?
- Gender
- Age
- Location Interests
- Career or Industry
- Relationship Status
- Income Level
Content Categories
- What are your content categories or different types of content will you be sharing?
Social Media Key Performance Indicators (KPI) / KPI, Social Media Goals, Business Goals
- What will you use to monitor the effectiveness of your social media efforts?
- How do they tie to your social media and business goals that you set in the first steps?
Having this template as the working guide to your business plan will assist you as a business owner in carving out your ideas to build an effective social media presence. I see so many companies revamping their business structure because they started without a planning process. I realize now running a business of my own, most Black business owners find themselves with an inconsistent layout on their social media page. This can make the Brand seem tacky and unapproachable. Your new social media plan will help you build a professional on-brand aesthetic, while targeting the clients you need to reach! Also, if you find yourself having difficulty getting through each section, or you don’t have the time to implement this plan yourself, some businesses offer this service. At 5 STAH MEDIA LLC we provide an extensive social media plan to help business owners with the documents needed to flourish in their professional endeavors. Even for the business owners that know what type of content they want to post, sometimes it is difficult to create it, 5 STAH MEDIA LLC offers content creation as well. To every Black business owner reading this: believe in yourself, invest in your business and it will pay off in the long run!
