A media plan is a document that reflects the details of an advertising campaign. The difference between spontaneous advertising campaigns and well-thought-out media planning strategies is that the latter entails complex work with several advertising channels at once. This media plan is for brand advertising in social media. The optimal terms for such work can be six months or a year. The aspects being considered are the target audience, objectives, selected media mix, implementation of the plan, and reflective analysis of the choices.
Target Audience
For the best advertising result, it is essential to analyze the statistics of social media audiences and segments in networks. Category Development Index (CDI) is low, while Brand Development Index (BDI) is high, which signifies that low-cost and cost-effective methods and channels are used to increase the number of purchases of goods; priority is given to the prospect of long-term gradual growth. According to Raudeliūnienė et al. (2018), about 4 billion people are active users of the Internet and 2.7 billion use social media on a daily basis. Regarding media platforms, Facebook has more than 1.5 billion active users and Instagram – 600 million (Raudeliūnienė et al., 2018). The average user spends approximately 200 minutes per day on the Internet; the younger the social network audience, the more time it spends online (Raudeliūnienė et al., 2018). Older people are more likely to access social networks from a desktop, and the youngest in the vast majority of cases use smartphones.
These two networks have one crucial advantage for users – it is widely used in cities. Gender distribution is 50/50; the average age is 30 years (Raudeliūnienė et al., 2018). At this age, consumers are actively working, have a steady income, and want to buy. A distinctive feature of the target audience is the binding to mobile networks. It is easy to draw attention to a product through successfully photographing as the audience demands visual content (Gümüş, 2017). Therefore, it is recommended that the brand increase its visibility on social media channels that are more visible such as Instagram. Overall, the target audience for the social media plan is young, active people about 25-30 years old, working and spending free time with friends and colleagues.
Objectives
There are several reasons for launching a marketing campaign on social media. The first is to retain old customers by increasing their loyalty. The second is to enhance brand awareness and attract new clients. The third is to increase sales by presenting the new product. Customer retention has several different sub-goals; for example, it is considered to attract customers to a new loyalty program and immediately sell a subscription to the product to retain them. Measurable results should be estimated as 5,000 new customers. Another goal is an advertising campaign to increase reach and brand awareness. Raising website traffic can be defined as bringing 5,000 new users to the brand website. Increased sales are performed by attracting a hot audience, getting 1000 sales in a month.
Selected Media Mix
The selected media mix consists of Facebook and Instagram advertising. Each channel is divided regarding its purpose and type of promotion. Targeted ads in the sidebar and native advertising posts in themed Facebook pages would be different channels in this case. They will correspond to the customer traffic, budget and conversions (Belch, 2021). Contextual and targeted advertising are so-called performance marketing, that is, result-oriented (Belch, 2021). In the first case, the pursued goal is warm customers who have already searched for information about a product or service on the Internet. In the second, they are less inclined to buy, but very similar to the old buyers in their parameters, and, accordingly, convertible into them with a high probability.
The basic formulas for Facebook posts are an image or video that accompanies text and hashtags. A selling post should contain an image or video, text, a call to action, and keywords. 40 words are the optimal amount for informing users about a product, service, event (Sorensen et al., 2017). The specificity of Instagram is such that the presence of a high-quality description in the header will allow customers to solve some questions in advance (Gümüş, 2017). These include phone numbers, contacts, types of services, how to order, and frequently asked questions. As a result, it facilitates the work of the team (Gümüş, 2017). One of the most effective tools is Instagram stories, which must be taken into account, plan activities and systematic publications, include this in the overall marketing plan and use it as a sales tool. Maximum information in this format will further increase sales from the channel, in particular from Instagram.
Plan Implementation
A major indicator of reach is audience selectivity; it indicates the ability to bring information to the target group of consumers with a minimum coverage of the non-target audience. The method selected is pulsing; the advertising campaign is ongoing, but at certain times its intensity increases and then decreases (Sorensen et al., 2017). It is a less costly strategy than the continuity method and is used to gain market leader status (Belch, 2013). If a brand is planning to take a dominant position, it is worth starting with a pulsing strategy and eventually moving to a continuous approach. The geographic flexibility of the media coverage is also considered. This indicator reflects the ability of the advertising tool to cover specific regions in which potential buyers are located (Sorensen et al., 2017). As Instagram and Facebook are global social media but are popular in the United States, it is suggested to focus on middle-class and upper-class population.
Timing is a serious factor in attracting customers’ attention. The best period to show is during the day since Facebook shows high reach in the afternoon. This is predominantly a business audience that has the income to purchase goods. Evening and night are also seen as adequate advertising time, since after a working day, the Internet usage rises sharply, as people finish their business and rest (Gümüş, 2017). In the first hours of the night, young people and people with a free work schedule create broad coverage.
Reflective Analysis of Choices
The primary measure of media plan success will be financial and analytical indicators. It is suggested to track selected advertising activities through analytics services; for instance, Google Analytics is the standard tool for websites for monitoring social media activity and call tracking. Call touch call tracking allows the brand to evaluate the performance of advertising sources in terms of the keywords and reallocate the budget to more profitable advertising channels. Moreover, active interaction with the audience has been the trend since 2018. Likes and sharing are no longer crucial compared to personal communication (Sorensen et al., 2017). Such aspects as contact with the audience, comment under posts, prompt answers to questions, and incoming messages are crucial in advertising.
To sum up, the most effective indicators are publishing quality content targeted to the customers, expected brand content, and systematic publications in accordance with the media plan. As a result of these actions, like, share, comments will appear. A large number of them are a sign of gratitude to subscribers for the quality work done. With a media plan for Instagram and Facebook, the brand promotion will be much more systematic.
References
Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2021). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective (12th ed.). The McGraw Hill.
Gümüş, N. (2017). The effects of social media content marketing activities of firms on consumers’ brand following behavior. Academic Research International, 8(1), 1-8.
Raudeliūnienė, J., Davidavičienė, V., Tvaronavičienė, M., & Jonuška, L. (2018). Evaluation of advertising campaigns on social media networks. Sustainability, 10(4), 973-987. Web.
Sorensen, A., Andrews, L., & Drennan, J. (2017). Using social media posts as resources for engaging in value co-creation: the case for social media-based cause brand communities.Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 27(4), 898-922. Web.