Your social media checklist

1. Research and know your audience. What topics and interests are they most social about? Does the audience on different social media platforms vary?

2. Only use those networks and platforms that best speak to your audience. Do not waste resources, time and effort developing content and strategy for a platform if it is not applicable to the consumers you are targeting.

3. Establish your set of key performance indicators (KPIs). What exactly do you want your efforts on social media to achieve? What does this success look like in quantifiable terms?

4. Write your very own social media marketing playbook. Here you should detail your KPIs, audience profiles, brand personas, campaign concepts, promotional events, contests, content themes, crisis management steps, etc. Note that the strategy should be unique to each platform.

5. Align the members of your company around the plan. Assign responsibilities as to who is posting, who is responding, and who is reporting metrics.

6. Take about an hour at the start of the week or the month to schedule tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts, pins, or other social media content. These can be anything from your own ideas and work, to links to outside content that may be interesting or useful to your audience.

7. Create a bank of your social media content using a spreadsheet and plan out the material, topics, headlines, related links, desired scheduling, and an area for approval or comments from management. Cut some slack for yourself and keep a folder to store your social media content, so that is readily available and easily accessible when the rush sets in. Share away!

8. Post relevant content relating to newsworthy topics and events in a timely manner. It's important to share opinions as soon as breaking news happens. It's also the best way to generate discussions, which is a sign effective marketing.

9. Treat all social channels separately. You shouldn't be posting the same message across all channels – remember who the audience is behind each platform.

10. Assign someone to act as a customer service rep to be responsive to your user generated content and negativity. Don't ignore comments and feedback. It's the best way to connect to your audience and to make your users feel special.

11. Schedule reporting for your performance. Depending on your goals, reporting metrics can occur weekly, monthly, or bimonthly. So establish when and how you will evaluate social media performance.

12. Reanalyze your plan on a regular basis. If something in your plan isn't working, switch it up or test varied content to determine what your audience responds to better. Always have a strategy to fall back on.