As of today, at least 3.5 billion people worldwide are on social networks. So imagine the brand awareness and the number of potential sales you’re missing out on if your business is not on any social media platform. But being on social media is one thing, and having an effective social media marketing checklist strategy and implementing it is another. 

Your business success on such social networks is greatly tied to your marketing techniques. However, not having a checklist for social media marketing could leave you disorganized and ruin your social media activities. How? 

First off, you can’t always remember everything that needs to be done, no matter how hard you try. That little but important step you missed could make a big difference in your brand awareness efforts. 

Secondly, things can even be worse for entry-level social media managers and business owners who are confused about where to start. For this reason, a checklist can be a lifesaver. 

Using our social media marketing checklist will ensure that you’re doing the right thing at the right time. Furthermore, it will ensure you never miss any important task as you promote your business on social media.

We will start with a general social media checklist. After that, we’ll look at daily, weekly, and monthly checklists and then the tasks on our social media audit checklist.

General Social Media Marketing Checklist

Choose the right platforms

Many business owners think that being on every social media network is the best way to reach more customers. That, however, is not always true. There are many social media sites on the internet, so it’s important to know the ones your audience uses more frequently. Or else, you will end up wasting time and useful resources. 

A good place to start is knowing the difference between each social media platform. It will give you an idea of which platform is suitable for your business. Some of the most popular and widely used social platforms for businesses include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Build a social media marketing strategy

For one thing, not having a social media marketing strategy is a recipe for disaster. An effective strategy should cover important elements like your social media goals, how to execute your plans, when and how to share content, and, most importantly, how to measure results. 

Some questions to ask yourself when creating your marketing plan for social media are: 

1. What problems do I hope to solve for my audience? 
2. Which social media platform can I find my audience?
3. What kind of content does my audience consume regularly? 
4. How frequently do I need to post content?
5. What do I hope to achieve on social media?
6. What will I use to measure results? 

Choose a social media management tool

One thing to remember about social media marketing is that you can’t do everything at the same time. So, you’d want to automate some of your tasks to save time. For instance, you can use a social media publishing tool to schedule your posts instead of manually sharing them every time. 

These tools also allow you to effectively monitor and manage content and multiple social media accounts from one place; thus, eliminating the need to move from one platform to another. Some popular social media management tools are Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sendible. 

Research popular keywords and trending hashtags on social

Hashtag is on our general social media marketing checklist because its usage and relevance differ across social media platforms. As a result, too much or too little hashtags could negatively impact the performance of your posts.

With that in mind, the right way to go about hashtagging on social media is researching the best practices of using hashtags on each platform. 

Additionally, you can boost your marketing efforts by using trendy hashtags. You can use tools like Hashtags.org and Hashtagify.me to analyze hashtags before using them in your posts

Images are powerful

It’s a disservice to your business if you’re not sharing high-quality images on social media. In fact, studies show that our brain processes image 60,000 faster than text. And as much as 90% of all information that is transmitted to the brain is visual.  

Fortunately, creating and using images has never been easier. You don’t need to be an expert graphics designer to create high-quality and compelling images. With Canva, for example, you can easily create professional graphics and visual content for your social media posting.  

However, keep in mind that each platform has a unique image size. So, you’ll need to research the image sizing for whatever platform you’re using to ensure that the images you share are rendered properly. 

Use multiple pages on one platform correctly 

It’s not uncommon to see a business having multiple accounts on one social platform. Although each of the accounts may belong to different divisions and share unique content, the audience might find it confusing to see one company with several accounts.  

But if you must have multiple branded accounts, then ensure that you do it properly to make it easy for your audience to identify your business and what it stands for. Also, ensure that your official website is linked to all the pages with detailed information. 

For LinkedIn pages, you can create and use “Showcase Page” to highlight your unique brands or business divisions under your parent company’s page. 

Daily Social Media Marketing Checklist

The next category in our social media marketing checklist contains important daily tasks to boost your marketing efforts on social platforms. 

Check and follow your calendar

Start your day by checking your calendar for a quick glimpse of how the day will be like. Because this will help you prioritize those tasks on your checklist while keeping everything organized as you go through the day. However, just looking at your calendar isn’t enough; you have to make efforts to ensure that you follow the plan and do what needs to be done.  

Check your inbox

Checking and replying to new messages should be one of the first things you do every day as a social media manager. Why? Because some users don’t like the idea of commenting publicly on posts, so they send a private message instead. If you don’t check your inbox and reply on time, you could miss potential customers who are genuinely interested in your service or product. 

Engage everyone

Engage with your audience. React and reply to their comments promptly. Doing this will make your customers happy and increase the trust they have in your business. But above all, it helps uplift your company’s reputation. 

What’s happening in your niche? What are people talking about? What hashtag is trending today? If you’re updated with what’s going on in your industry, then you can leverage that and participate in conversations that will drive more engagements to your profile.

Other important tasks that should be on your daily checklist include: 

• Monitor your mentions and retweets
• Follow back those who follow you
• Connect with one new follower
• Spy your competitor to see what they are up to

Weekly Social Media Checklist

Schedule posts correctly

Scheduling content is great, but are you doing it correctly? Some people are not consistent with their posting schedules. Therefore, they end up always having more posts during the start of the week and lesser posts toward weekends. 

The best way to go about your posting schedule is to have an equal number of posts on weekdays and weekends. However, it’s very normal to post less content on some days, as long as you don’t make it a habit. 

Engage with influencers 

Influencers are important people in every industry. And as such, they could significantly influence your social engagements if you engage with them. 

Organize a strategy session with your team

Schedule a weekly session for a detailed discussion with your team members on different strategies and job distribution for efficiency.

Check your stats 

Some people prefer to include this task in their daily social media checklist, and that’s okay. But instead of doing it every day, you could do it once a week and consequently save time for other important tasks. 

Some stats to monitor include: the average engagements with your posts, the best performing post of the week, your ads performance, etc. 

Monthly Social Media Checklist

Set new goals

Goals help us stay focused while sustaining our momentum as we push forward. If you achieve your social media goals for the month, you’ll need to set new ones for the next month. However, if you didn’t, then review the old goals and make them more realistic. 

Perform a social media audit

This is one of the most important tasks at the end of every month. Because it’s the best time to measure your performance throughout the month. Additionally, you’ll be able to find out what needs improvement for the coming month. 

Plan for the next month(s) with your team

Create strategies for the next months with your team members. Plan what campaigns to experiment with and how the work structure will look like in the new month. If you’ve learned any hacks during the old month, plan to put them into practice to improve results and productivity. 

Attend local social media events

Events are gateways to new connections and marketing opportunities. So, if there are any social media events you or any of your teammates can afford to attend, then don’t miss the chance to do so. 

Social Media Audit Checklist

As mentioned earlier in this social media marketing checklist, it’s important to perform an audit every month. Doing this will give you deeper insight into the performance of your marketing efforts on social networks. 

• Conduct channel performance review
• Conduct content performance review
• Check audience insight 
• Digital buzz check – use a social media listening tool
• Workflow health check
• Align company goals 

Your Turn

This social media marketing checklist was created to guide businesses who wish to increase their social presence and engagement. We encourage you to bookmark this page so you can easily access it whenever you need it.

For those who already have a social media checklist, what marketing strategy is the most effective for your business, be it daily, weekly, or monthly? Share your thoughts in the comment section; we’re eager to learn new tips!