The best ideas, products, and services in the world won’t sell themselves. Of course, you already knew that. In fact, you probably also know that social media marketing should be a major player in your promotional campaigns. But what, exactly, do you need to get started? Before you can post content and run ads, you have to gather your assets. Don’t skip the following must-haves when launching a social media marketing campaign.

DEVELOP YOUR BRAND IDENTITY

Your brand identity isn’t any one thing – it’s not just your business name or just your logo. Instead, it’s all of the elements that portray your brand to your customers. That includes so much, from the fonts and colors you use on your website to the voice and wording you use on social media and everything in between.

There’s a ton of help out there that will walk you through building a brand identity. However, these are the basic building blocks:

• Do a brand audit to figure out what you need, what you’re missing, and what your audience wants.

• Create the appropriate messaging statements, like a value proposition and a mission statement.

• Develop the creative elements you’ll use for your brand.

• Decide which channels you’re going to use to connect with your audience and regularly deliver your brand message.

If you don’t have a solid brand identity in place, your brand voice and on social media might come off as confused or inconsistent. Once you know what your brand is all about, you’ll know what type of content to post and in what tone of voice. Meaning, you’ll know what is or isn’t on brand for you.

You should always analyze and tweak your brand identity. Continually refine it to stay aligned with your business goals and your audience’s needs.

BUILD A STYLE GUIDE

Your brand’s style guide will be part of your branding kit, and it will be referenced by anyone who creates content – whether that’s a blog post for your website or a social media ad. The style guide will cover the specifics of how you write, from voice to formatting and mechanics. You’ll probably have a glossary with phrases and terms your brand uses a lot, and you may also have specific ways that you capitalize, punctuate and spell certain words or phrases. Your style guide will also include information about fonts, including sizes and colors, plus images and videos, like how they should be branded, the sizes they should be created in, the best way to choose a thumbnail, etc.

Having a style guide means having consistency. In fact, this will help you enforce your brand identity across your social media accounts. For example, if your brand is more on the fun and playful side, you might encourage copywriters to write in a casual and humorous tone. This specificity, you can include in your style guide. On the flip side, if your brand is more professional and corporate, you might include it in your style guide to avoid unprofessional words, jokes, or humor.

CREATE AND GATHER YOUR CONTENT

When it’s finally time to post to your social media accounts, it’s usually helpful to build a content calendar and schedule out content on a monthly or weekly basis. However, that would be difficult to do without already having content that’s ready to go. There are all sorts of content to consider when prepping your social media marketing campaign:

• Images and/or videos.

• Short-form content, like blog posts and guest blog posts.

• Long-form content, like cornerstone blog posts or white papers.

• Resource pages to point audience members to when they want more information.

• Social proof, like testimonials from customers.

Start pulling this together now. Once it’s all created, you can simply just pick from a pool of assets and schedule them out.

WRAPPING UP

Creating a social media marketing strategy can be overwhelming – there’s so much to brainstorm, gather, plan, produce and track that you can feel like you’re behind before you’ve even started. But with the right assets in your marketing toolkit, it’s easy to get started on your first campaign – and you’ll also have everything you need to make large and small changes along the way.

Brian Meert is the CEO of AdvertiseMint, a Hollywood based digital advertising agency that specializes in helping successful companies advertise on Facebook. Advertisement has managed millions of dollars in digital ad spends in the entertainment, fashion, finance, and software industries. Brian is also the author of the best selling, The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising. He is a 15-year digital advertising executive and a member of the Forbes Agency Council. Prior to founding Advertisement, Brian built and sold Gofobo.com, an online ticketing system that revolutionized the entertainment industry and is now utilized by Warner Bros. and Disney.