A well-run social media campaign can do wonders for your business, but it’s important to get it right. The mechanics of social media make it an excellent platform for business promotion, but, unfortunately, also can magnify missteps and spread them quickly. You can avoid this by planning your social media campaign carefully and following these five first steps to success that are often overlooked.

Get Your Company Website Right

Your social media accounts should provide your telephone number and email address, but also a link to your website. Many users are going to visit your website before contacting you directly. This makes it important that you get your website right, from content to design, so that it is helpful and easy to use.

The point of your social media campaign is to drive more traffic to your site, so check out the technical specifications of your current hosting service, too. Make sure that you have enough data available to handle your expected increase in traffic so customers don’t experience long waits and crashes.

Work Ahead

Social media marketing requires loads of content. Videos, photographs, jokes, helpful articles, infographics and other media are all welcome and expected on social media platforms. If you don’t gather and create some of this content before launching your social media campaign, you may find yourself scrambling to fill the void.

Bank some content before you open your account so you know you can post regularly for a few weeks while the search for and creation of even more content continues.

Create Value

If you want customers to follow you on social media, you need to give them a reason to do so. Provide brand appropriate postings combined with a personal touch while giving followers things they need and want.

Be sure to offer giveaways, post shareable content, offer helpful advice and provide a laugh now and then so potential customers have a reason to visit your page and interact with you. Social media is the place to introduce yourself to potential customers and let them get to know you. You’re there to make friends that could turn into sales, not to close the deal.

Create a Calendar

You need to post content often on social media, but it’s possible to post too much. How much is too much? It depends on which social media outlet you utilize. The general rule is that once or twice a week is enough for long blog posts and articles.

On sites like Facebook where posts are shorter, aim for three to five posts a week. Twitter is all about volume, so there you can do a few posts a day, so long as each post provides value and aligns with your brand image. Draft a schedule to make sure posting doesn’t get forgotten and keep everyone on the same page.

Start Small

With so many social media platforms available, it’s tempting to hop onto all of them. Resist this urge, however, and start slow. Determine which social media site your customers are most likely to use. Open an account on that site first and learn to manage it well before expanding.

This Google+ page for ACN Inc., for instance, is a good example of understanding the types of posts that work well on a particular social media outlet and posting content based on how the page as a whole will look when filled with posts. When it is time to expand, keep your message consistent across all of your social media platforms while using each one in the most appropriate way.

You absolutely can master social media marketing and use this medium to create successful campaigns for your business. The key is to plan ahead and map out where you want to go before beginning the journey. Stick to your plan when it makes sense to do so, but be flexible enough to eliminate strategies that aren’t working and embrace those that are. With some planning, patience and a series of the right small steps, you’ll be a social marketing guru in no time.