Know-How Exchange : Social Media

Start with your audience.

Who are you posting material for?

In what niche?

With what short and long-term goals?

Next, look at where you will be posting and how frequently.

Then, look at the actions you want your users to carry out as a result of interacting with your social media content.

But primarily, don't ignore the website-based elements of social media. The two must underused platforms of social media marketing and the two most important are your blog and e-mail marketing. NOT Facebook, NOT Twitter, NOT Instagram, and not any of the other major platforms.

I have also looked for an outline or some sort of way to organize marketing information. The best I have found so far is Wikipedia. They have fairly comprehensive outlines on a number of marketing and sales topics. You will need to transform information into an actionable document, but at least you will have a starting place and some good information.

Another source of information is to search for social media glossaries. They will not only identify key terms, but they'll give you a bit of helpful information on each.

And if you end up with some wonderful magic document, feel free to come back here and share it with us.

When you say "a proven social media plan," it's not clear what needs to be "proven." What is your objective? For what industry? Where? How will you define and measure success? What are you hoping to do with the "proven social media plan," if such a thing exists?