I remember a time when I slogged through developing a marketing plan that looked rather like a grid. It had sections, objectives, columns for deadlines. It was parsed out into separate pieces - PR, branding, internal communications, client services, business development. Each piece, if you will, plugged in to the larger whole, but they were pieces nonetheless.


Many businesses are still planning this way, dividing their marketing efforts into "channels" and treating each vertically or horizontally, but rarely as a multi-faceted and intertwined approach. And this is critical to success in today's marketing climate.
Consider Touchpoints
Social media, when done well, touches nearly every aspect of a business. In fact, I'd venture to say it's more about the underpinnings of customer service than it is marketing or communications. First and foremost, it has to be used to create better customer experiences. That in turn paves the way for more clear, authentic, and customer-focused communications. It's a cycle.
When planning: Go talk to the people that talk to your customers, directly, every day. Your sales team, your customer support team. Find out what issues and consistent messaging they're hearing from your customers, and build your communications plan to address them. Directly.
There Is No End Date.
There's some semantic debate and discussion around whether social media is an ongoing effort, or whether it can be part of a campaign. I think they can both exist (and see how the articulate Jason Baer explains that difference here). But in general, you have to consider social media as a tenet of business practice, not something you start and stop. It's a philosophy, if you will. A commitment to creating content, communication, and interactions that keep your customers top of mind and encourage them to reach out to you and each other.
When planning: For each part of your marketing plan, ask yourself how that piece of outbound communication will create more inbound dialogue from your customers, either once or ongoing. Is your email campaign opening the door to people joining your online community? Are your press releases telling a story about customer experience and encouraging people to find you online? Stop thinking in terms of start and end dates, and rather how to keep the cycle of communication feeding itself, outbound to inbound and back again.
Efficient, Yes. Band-Aid, No.
I wish it didn't happen, but I've heard several examples of companies saying "marketing is expensive, so we'll just do social media instead." Or worse, "We should really tack on some social media stuff to this campaign." No, no, no.
Social media isn't the same capital outlay as, say, direct mail. But the big surprise to most companies who learn to do it well is that it takes careful planning, dedication of significant time, and long term commitment. It's not something you can just slap on the tail end of a marketing plan when the budget gets cut. Yes, the tools themselves are less expensive, but overall, social media requires a deeper investment.
When planning: Budget your time as well as your dollars. Things like blogging and Twitter are increasingly powerful business tools, but they're time consuming too. Do an audit of all of your marketing efforts from the past year, and determine how much time you spent as well as how much money. Find the dogs, and get rid of them. Then plow those resources into expanding your horizons and integrating new social media endeavors into the plan. It's not about finding more resources, it's about better allocating the ones you have.
The best kind of marketing plans should be built on the backs of business goals, not pure communication goals. If you look at social media holistically instead of transactionally, your marketing planning will be more efficient, effective, and give you the flexibility to adapt along the way.