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Developing a Social Media Strategy for Business

Developing a social media strategy for your business can do several things for your company. It can help you gauge how consumers perceive your business, give you a direct line of communication with your customers and even help people view your company in a more positive light.

Set Goals for Your Social Media Strategy

When you’re using social media to market a business, it isn’t enough to just have an online presence. For your efforts to be successful, set goals that are measurable, such as a specific number of interactions per week or a certain number of potential customers driven to your website per month. Having specific, measurable goals gives you a way to quantify the success or failure of your efforts on social media. This also helps you focus in on which tactics are working. It may be easier for you to determine which types of content are the most effective with your customers.

Assess Your Current Presence on Social Media

It’s helpful to make a list of places you currently have a social media presence and check the current numbers on things like shares and comments before proceeding. When you have this information compiled, you can compare your social media presence to that of your competitors. If you see your closest competition is on a social media platform that you aren’t on and that company is getting a lot of interaction with people who use the same merchandise or service you provide, you should ideally try to establish a strong presence on that platform, too. It may be the way your target market prefers to communicate.

Explore Your Target Market

Hootsuite recommends creating personas of your desired customers as a way to help you understand who they are and what can get them to engage with your content. A persona is a term that basically describes your target market in a more personal way. It goes beyond basic demographic information and helps you visualize what types of content you should share to get your customer base’s attention. Having a clear idea of what drives your target market can help you find the social media outlet where they hang out, and it can also help you create content that relieves their pain points. If there are social media sites you aren’t on and feel you should be because your target market is there, this is a good time to set up some new accounts.

Curate and Create Content to Share on Social Media

With a good understanding of your target market’s pain points, it’s easier to curate and create content that’s interesting to your customers. Whether you write your own content or simply share relevant content is up to you, but it’s ideal to have a mix of content types. Sharing some curated content saves you time over creating everything yourself, but creating your own content gives you complete control over the message you’re sharing.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

Be ready to engage with people who interact with your content. Schedule time into your day to reply to comments and thank people for sharing. Always keep your tone respectful and professional when interacting with customers, even if they happen to say something negative. Replying politely to negative comments and showing you understand and want to help are two of the more powerful opportunities you can have to convert an unhappy customer to repeat one.

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Clubhouse 101: The All-Social-No-Media Audio Chat App

Clubhouse came on the market in 2020 and showed some tremendous promise after launch. An app dedicated entirely to real-time conversations felt like a breath of fresh air in a world of endless scrolling. An invite only period generated some buzz and a very real air of exclusivity. And in many ways, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as the pandemic simultaneously left us desiring connection and burnt out by doomscrolling.

Still, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the app, that has experienced some real peaks and valleys in terms of growth and user engagement. What’s more, other social sites like Facebook and Twitter, seeing the appeal of the social space Clubhouse has curated, have been quick to launch their own versions of talk-based social experiences. So what exactly is Clubhouse, and will it become the next social app to capture your time and attention?

What Is Clubhouse?

While other social media apps rely on text and images, Clubhouse is all about audio. In the app’s “chat rooms,” one person, or a small group of people, speak at a time, while other members listen in. In a way, it’s like a conference call, but with the conversational quality of old-school three-way calling. Users navigate to chat rooms or “clubs”, that are built around different topics and niche interests. Want to talk with other enthusiasts about bitcoin, solo travel, or art? There are clubs for those.

How Does Clubhouse Work?

If you’re into sending voice messages to friends, turning off the video feature on Discord or Zoom, or, you know, calling someone up on your cell, Clubhouse will likely appeal to you. Unlike other social media and messaging apps, the whole point is to listen and engage in conversation, free from any “likes” or photos. In some ways, this might sound like reinventing the wheel (or phone), but Clubhouse does offer a somewhat unique experience.

For one, Clubhouse users are afforded some level of conversation curation. When signing up, you’ll be asked to select which topics (and people) interest you, and, much like Instagram or Twitter, the app will then recommend people and clubs that align with those interests. By joining clubs and following fellow members, users lend a hand to the curation of their homepage, which provides insight into activity. There’s also an explore page, which, like TikTok’s for you page, provides follow and club suggestions. Interestingly, conversations are live, so if you’re not listening in at the right time, you might miss something exciting. However, the app has recently rolled out features that allow users to record and share particularly interesting conversations.

Why Join Clubhouse?

Unlike the stilted chatter happening on video-conferencing platforms, conversations on Clubhouse flow pretty organically. Sometimes, however, you’ll stumble across a room that feels more like a TedTalk. Last year, Elon Musk discussed his thoughts on the GameStop stock frenzy . Even if you aren’t a well-known celebrity, you can start a room.

In fact, most clubs start as chat rooms, which lend themselves to roundtable-style discussions where moderators can pass the virtual microphone to anyone who wants it. So long as a room is public, anyone can listen in, even if they don’t join the particular club or follow its speakers. Just earlier this year, Clubhouse rolled out web-listening , meaning that folks can listen from their computers, without having downloaded the app or created an account. It’s a good way to decide if the app is right for you. If you lurk in a random room, that’s known as “dropping in,” and, if you’re speaking, that’s referred to as being “on the stage”, though web-users can only listen for now.

On the professional side of things, Clubhouse presents a great networking avenue . If you are one of the many people who have experienced a career shift in the last few years, Clubhouse might help you make connections — or stumble into an interest that might develop into a professional move. Additionally, the relief one feels of not being on video while chatting — of chatting without worrying about your appearance or mannerisms — might encourage you to schedule more phone calls, and less Zoom meetings, at work.

On the personal level, Clubhouse does what many forms of social networking do: it (safely) unites disparate folks around common interests. “The informal nature of the platform means there is really something for everyone,” The Cut points out. “Conversations range from debating the latest Real Housewives drama alongside the Housewives themselves to informed political commentary by highly regarded reporters.”

How Do You Join Clubhouse?

In the early days Clubhouse was invite-only, and some have speculated that the app stayed exclusive for too long to capitalize on its growing success. But now the app is publicly accessible, and just like any other social app, all you need to do is visit your iOS or Android app store to download and get started. For the time being, it is an app-based platform and not fully accessible from your computer.

Setbacks and Competition

The rise and fall…and rise and fall of Clubhouse has been quite the ride. In its first few months the app’s venture capital went from $10M to $100M – an impressive jump given that the app had 5,000 beta testers and almost no media at the time. A year after launch and thanks to another round of funding, the app was valued at 1 billion dollars.

App downloads had a major peak in February of 2021 when Musk and Zuckerberg joined the app and drew some major attention to it. And then again in June of 2021, downloads flooded in with the release of an Android app. After summer of 2021 downloads dropped again, though in an end-of-year post, the app reported that 700,000 rooms were being created every day , mostly for things like family hangouts and as spaces for friends to watch TV together while apart.

And other social giants have taken notice. Most notably, Twitter has rolled out Spaces , which mimics Clubhouse in some ways, allowing users with over 600 followers to host audio chat rooms. Both Clubhouse and Twitter have recently allowed for hosts to charge admission and monetize their followings. Spotify is keeping up with the times and has recently released a new Spotify Live app. And Facebook was testing a new service they called Hotline in 2021, though there has been little news of any developments on that app.

In December of 2020, for example, Twitter user Rhian Beutler ( @rhiankatie ), who once moderated a popular trivia room on Clubhouse, tweeted, “I come as the bringer of bad news bears — I think trivia is over for the foreseeable future. I can’t continue to bring positive things in wake of the continued lack of action by [Clubhouse] in the face of anti-semitism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, [etc.].” While Clubhouse stated that it “unequivocally condemns” hate speech and bigotry, what a 2020 Vanity Fair deep-dive pointed out is hard to get around: because Clubhouse is so ephemeral, it has “become a haven for the powerful to flirt with misogyny and racism.”

All of this to say, Clubhouse isn’t a cure-all, nor is it free from the toxicity that plagues most social media and networking platforms. However, it’s clear that the app has tapped into something — and time will tell if the app has staying power. And now it’s easier than ever to give it a listen and decide for yourself.

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How to Write a Social Networking Business Plan [Sample Template]

Are you about starting a social networking website? If YES, here is a complete sample social networking business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE . Okay, so we have considered all the requirements for starting a social networking business.

We also took it further by analyzing and drafting a sample social networking website marketing plan template backed up by actionable guerrilla marketing ideas for social networking businesses. So let’s proceed to the business planning section.

Table of Content

Why Start a Social Networking Business?

1. industry overview, 3. our products and services, 4. our mission and vision statement, 5. job roles and responsibilities, 6. swot analysis, 8. our target market, 9. sales and marketing strategy, 10. sales forecast, 11. publicity and advertising strategy, 12. our pricing strategy, 14. sustainability and expansion strategy.

In recent time, there is hardly any upwardly mobile 21 st century adult and organizations that are not into online social networking; as a matter of fact, it is the major platforms through which relationships are created and nurtured.

Social networking has proven overtime to be the most suitable and convenient platform for making new friends, dating and also relating with old friends and acquaintance so a lot of information changes hand via the various social networking platform available in the world wide web.

Although there are several social networking websites that are open to all and sundry, but that does not mean that if you start yours, you won’t get people to patronize your social networking website.

So if you are a website designer or a programmer or someone who have interest in internet technology, then you should consider starting your own social networking website. It is important to categorically state that starting a social networking website can be tasking and at the same time profitable especially if your site is user – friendly and loads of people register to be member of your social networking site.

Aside from technical skills, business sense, tenacity, finance, good marketing skills and time, you would need a good business plan to be able to successfully launch your own social networking website. A good and workable business plan is a roadmap that will guide you towards achieving your business goal, aim and objectives. Below is a workable social networking website business plan template that will help you craft your own without much stress;

A Sample Social Networking Website Business Plan Template

A social networking website is a forum where people from all works of life meet to network and make new friends and date; it is also a forum where entrepreneurs market their products and services. Players in this industry are involved in building and managing social networking website and also marketing advertising slots to individuals and corporate organizations.

It is a known fact that the Social Networking Websites industry is dominated by Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Twitter et al. Social networking websites companies operate in a swiftly innovating, emerging field that is subject to significant investment and technological change.

Some factors that gives edge in this industry is your ability to grow the users – members that register and make use of your social networking website, innovative product features and easy integration with other websites. Leaders in this industry also face competition from newly funded startups and new products from existing internet giants like, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft

The Social Networking Websites Industry is indeed a very large industry and pretty much thriving in all parts of the world especially in countries such as United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, India, Nigeria and China et al.

Statistics has it that in the united states of America alone, there are about 5,607 licensed and registered social networking website companies responsible for employing about 66,623 employees and the industry rakes in a whooping sum of $11billion annually with an annual growth rate projected at 25.4 percent. It is important to state that the establishments with lion shares of the available market in this industry are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+.

Report published by IBISWORLD shows that casual social networking sites (SNS) are expected to account for 54.2 percent of social network users. The report also pointed that popular SNS include Facebook, MySpace, Microsoft So.cl, Yahoo Pulse and Google Plus enable their users to post personal information, including pictures, videos and text.

In addition, users are able to link up with their friends and family to send and receive messages in several formats that allow for different levels of privacy. The report also stated that while casual SNS only account for a little over half of users, they generate the majority of revenue for the industry. Facebook has paved the way for all casual SNS to maximize profits in the industry.

Over and above, social networking websites has become an important tool for networking, dating, making friends, keeping touch with old friends and promoting ones businesses as it relates to products and services all over the world, not only to sell to customers, but also to engage them. So if you have all it takes to launch your own social networking website, then by all means go ahead because it is indeed a profitable venture if you are able to grow your user – base (membership base).

2. Executive Summary

Singles Connect™, LLC (www.singlesconnect.com) is a U.S based and world class social networking website that will be open to singles from all over the globe. We have been able to secure a standard and well – positioned office facility in a central business district in Cape May – New Jersey.

We are a social networking website company that is set to compete in the highly competitive social networking websites industry not only in the United States market, but also in the global market because our clientele base will not be restricted to just singles in the United States but throughout the world.

Singles Connect™, LLC will offer robust social networking platform for singles to connect and interact. In the bid to generate revenue for the business, we will offer services such as search engine optimization (SEO), banner advertising, video advertising, rich media advertising, sponsorship advertising, classifieds/directories, lead generation, mobile messaging/email, digital display advertising, mobile advertising, social media management and other related consulting and advisory services.

Our business goal is to become one of the leading social networking websites in the United States of America. We want to grow the business to favorably compete with leaders in the industry such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn.

Our workers are going to be selected from a pool of talented and highly creative website designers and developers experts in and around New Jersey and also from any part of the world as the business grows. We will make sure that we take all the members of our workforce through the required trainings that will position them to meet the expectation of the company and to compete with leading social networking website companies in the United States and throughout the globe.

At Singles Connect™, LLC, our client’s (registered members) best interest will always come first, and everything we do will be guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely. We will cultivate a working environment that provides a human, sustainable approach to earning a living, and living in our world, for our partners, employees and for our clients.

Singles Connect™, LLC is founded by Chan Mahogany and his friend and business partner for many years Solomon McKenzie. They both graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology with BSc in Computer Science and Programming and they have a combine experience that revolves around social networking, software developing, web programming, web designing, graphic designing, corporate branding and advertising and business management et al.

Singles Connect™, LLC is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the Social Networking Websites industry. We want to compete favorably with the leading social networking websites in the United States of America and the world which is why we have but in place a competent team that will ensure that we meet and even surpass our users’ expectations.

As regards generating revenue for the business, we will work hard to ensure that Singles Connect™, LLC do not just work for clients in the United States of America, but also for clients in other parts of the world. Our products and services are listed below;

• Casual social networks
• Dating site for singles
• Blogging social networks
• Specialty services
• Entertainment services
• Search engine optimization (SEO), banner advertising, video advertising, rich media advertising, sponsorship advertising, lead generation, mobile messaging/email, digital display advertising, mobile advertising, social media management and other related consulting and advisory services
• Our vision is to establish a standard and world class social networking website whose platform and brand will not only be accepted in the United States of America, but also in other parts of the world.
• Our mission is to create social networking website for singles; a website that will give eligible singles the platform to network, connect and date. We want to build a social network website that can favorably compete with other leading brands in the social networking websites industry.

Our Business Structure

Singles Connect™, LLC, is a social networking website that intends to grow big in order to compete favorably with leading social networking websites in the industry both in the United States and on a global stage. We are aware of the importance of building a solid business structure that can support the picture of the kind of world class business we want to own. This is why we are committed to only hire the best hands within our area of operations.

At Singles Connect™, LLC, we will ensure that we hire people that are qualified, hardworking, creative, result driven, customer centric and are ready to work to help us build a prosperous business that will benefit all the stake holders (the owners, workforce, and customers).

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our senior management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of five years or more as agreed by the board of trustees of the company. In view of the above, we have decided to hire qualified and competent hands to occupy the following positions;

• Chief Executive Officer
• Creative Director
• Human Resources and Admin Manager
• Sales and Marketing Executive
• Web Designer cum Graphic Artist
• Content Creator/Online Traffic Generator

Client Service Executive

Chief Executive Officer – CEO:

• Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results; developing incentives; developing a climate for offering information and opinions; providing educational opportunities.
• Responsible for providing direction for the business
• Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization

Creative Director:

• Serves as project manager of the organization; works directly with employees
• Responsible for designing concepts and winning business proposals for the organization
• In charge of copy writing and laying out chronological advertisement plans
• Develops strategic plan by studying technological and financial opportunities; presenting assumptions; recommending objectives.
• Accomplishes subsidiary objectives by establishing plans, budgets, and results measurements; allocating resources; reviewing progress; making mid-course corrections.
• Coordinates efforts by establishing procurement, production, marketing, field, and technical services policies and practices; coordinating actions with corporate staff.
• Builds company image by collaborating with customers, government, community organizations, and employees; enforcing ethical business practices.
• Maintains quality service by establishing and enforcing organization standards.
• Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; benchmarking state-of-the-art practices; participating in professional societies.
• Makes certain that operations and marketing department perform efficiently, coordinate employee efforts, and facilitate communications between management and employees
• Ensures that the organization work in line with international best practices.

Admin and HR Manager

• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Designs job descriptions with KPI to drive performance management for clients
• Regularly hold meetings with key stakeholders to review the effectiveness of HR Policies, Procedures and Processes
• Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
• Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
• Defining job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carries out staff induction for new team members
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
• Updates job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities; reading professional publications; maintaining personal networks; participating in professional organizations.
• Oversee the smooth running of the daily office activities.

Sales and Marketing Manager

• Manages external research and coordinate all the internal sources of information to retain the organizations’ best customers and attract new ones
• Models demographic information and analyze the volumes of transactional data generated by customer
• Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts; participates in the structuring and financing of projects; assures the completion of development projects.
• Writes winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with organizations’ policy
• Responsible for handling business research, market surveys and feasibility studies for clients
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
• Develops, executes and evaluates new plans for expanding increase sales
• Creates new markets cum businesses for the organization
• Empower and motivates the sales team to meet and surpass agreed targets

Accountant/Cashier:

• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports; analyzes financial feasibility for the most complex proposed projects; conducts market research to forecast trends and business conditions.
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for Singles Connect™, LLC
• Serves as internal auditor for Singles Connect™, LLC.

Web Designer/Developer cum Graphic Designers

• Responsible for building and managing the website
• Responsible for Optimizing Website Functionality for owners of existing websites
• Responsible for Search Engine Optimization Services and Code Writing Services
• Responsible for developing concepts, graphics and layouts for product illustrations, company logos, and websites
• Handles blogging social networks
• Handles specialty services
• Researches and advices the organization on style, genre and other trendy info as it relates to social media marketing.

Content Creator/Traffic Generator

• Responsible for creating content/buzz words that will help attract traffics
• Responsible for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Responsible for engaging internet users to get help statistics and leads
• Liaises and works effectively with other staff members to generate sales for our clients
• Welcomes clients and visitors by greeting them in person or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries.
• Ensures that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In center, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
• Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
• Manages administrative duties assigned by the HR manager in an effective and timely manner
• Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the organizations’ products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to potential clients when they make enquiries
• Receives parcels/documents for the company
• Distributes mails in the organization
• Handles any other duties as assigned by the human resources and admin manager.

Singles Connect™, LLC engaged the services of a core professional in the area of business consulting and structuring to assist our organization in building a well – structured social networking website business that can favorably compete in the highly competitive social networking websites industry in the United States and the world at large.

Part of what the team of business consultant did was to work with the management of our organization in conducting a SWOT analysis for Singles Connect™, LLC. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Singles Connect™, LLC

Our core strength lies in the power of our team; our workforce. We have a team of creative, result driven and highly proficient social media expert, a team with excellent qualifications and experience various niche areas in the social networking websites industry and other internet related industry. Aside from the synergy that exists in our carefully selected social media experts and back office staff, our services will be measurable, result driven and guided by best practices in the industry.

As a new social media networking website, it might take some time for our site to attract the numbers of users / members we hope to attract, break into the market and gain acceptance especially from top profile clients in the already saturated and highly competitive social networking websites industry; that is perhaps our major weakness. Another weakness is that we may not have the required cash to pump into promoting our business especially via main stream media (TV, Radio and Newspapers et al) the way we would want to.

• Opportunities:

No doubt, the opportunities available in the social networking websites industry is massive considering the number of individuals and corporate organizations with active presence on the internet and of course the pretty large numbers of people who visit the internet / social media platforms on a daily basis and own mobile phones / smart phones and other related gadgets. As a standard and world class social networking website, we are ready to take advantage of any opportunity that is available in the industry.

Just like any other business, one of the major threats that we are likely going to face is economic downturn. It is a fact that economic downturn affects purchasing / spending power – people might find it difficult spend time on the internet, advertise their products or pay for our membership premium services. Another threat that may likely confront us is the ever increasing social networking websites that are springing up on a daily basis.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

Social networking websites has been experience surge of users all over the world, as matter if fact, Facebook is said to have about 1 billion users / members from all over the world. This goes to show that social media networking websites is really trending all over the world.

The growing trend which makes it easier for people to spend more time on the internet especially on social media networking sites is a major boost in the revenue generated amongst players on the World Wide Web. It is not common to find players in this industry generating an increasing amount of advertising revenue per user by developing targeted advertising platforms and tools to measure the effectiveness of advertising and marketing.

This has indeed changed the ways that organizations approach to interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of consumer interactions and profiling are now being carried out over online and social media platforms with much higher visibility.

In as much as social media networking websites is dependent on technology which is ever-evolving and fast-changing; the same features should be expected from them for developments and strategies. This portion is an attempt to qualify or segregate the notable highlights existing and being used as of press time.

Another important factor worthy of mentioning in this industry is that the target market keep expanding, people and organizations are now seeing the need for them to become members of leading social networking sites and also to engage the services of social networking sites either in branding or packaging their products and services or in helping them directly sell their products and services to their targeted market.

Lastly, social networking websites companies operate in a swiftly innovating, emerging field that is subject to significant investment and technological change. Some factors that gives edge in this industry is your ability to grow the users – members that register and make use of your social networking website, innovative product features (language interpreter) and easy integration with other websites. Leaders in this industry also face competition from newly funded startups and new products from existing internet giants like, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft.

Before launching our social networking site, we are certain that there is a wide range of both corporate and individual clients who cannot successfully run their businesses without the services and support of a standard and functional website with loads of visitors, followers and members; a website that can help them reach out to their target market.

In view of that, we have created strategies that will enable us reach out to various corporate organizations, non – profits, government agencies and individual who we know can’t afford to do without our services. We have conducted our market research and survey and we will ensure that we meet and surpass the expectations of our clients.

Aside from singles who are our major target, below is a list of the people and organizations that we have specifically market our services (advertise their products and services on our platforms) to;

• (Singles for dating et al)
• Banks, Insurance Companies and other related Financial Institutions
• Blue Chips Companies
• Corporate Organizations
• Manufacturers and Distributors
• Real Estate Owners, Developers, and Contractors
• Research and Development Companies
• The Government (Public Sector)
• Schools (High Schools, Colleges and Universities)
• Celebrities, Politicians, Public Figures and Public Speakers
• Sport Organizations
• Religious Organizations
• Political Parties
• Television Stations
• Printing Press (Publishing Houses) and Authors
• Branding and Advertising agencies
• Aspiring celebrities
• Entrepreneurs and Start – Ups

Our Competitive Advantage

Surviving in the business world as a social networking site requires more than, ability to get people to register in your forum, your expertise, knowing how to conduct your business but also how to network with key people that matters; decision makers that can decide who will get a contract or a business deal.

We are quite aware that to be highly competitive in the social networking websites industry means that you are not only expected to be able to create a platform for singles to connect, deliver consistent and excellent services, but you must be result driven and able to meet set targets. No one would want to continue to hire your services (advertise on your platform).If you don’t always meet up with the target sales the organization intends to generate when they hired you.

Our competitive advantage lies in the power of our team; our workforce. We have a team of creative, result driven and highly proficient social media expert, a team with excellent qualifications and experience various niche areas in the social networking websites industry and other internet related industry. Aside from the synergy that exists in our carefully selected social media experts and back office staff, our services will be measurable, result driven and guided by best practices in the industry.

Lastly, all our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category (startups social networking websites in the United States) in the industry. It will enable them to be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our business aims and objectives.

• Sources of Income

Singles Connect™, LLC is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the social networking websites industry and we are going to go all the way to ensure that we do all it takes to meet and surpass the expectations of all our clients. Singles Connect™, LLC will generate income by offering the following services;

• Casual social networks (Payment for premium services)
• Dating site for singles (Payment for premium services)

One thing is certain, there would always be corporate organizations, government agencies, non – profits and individuals who would want to advertise their products and services on social networking sites with massive members and their individuals who would want to pay for premium services in a social networking sites.

We are well positioned to take on the available market in social networking websites industry and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first six month of operations and grow our social networking website to enviable heights.

We have been able to critically examine the social networking space and we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. The sales projection are based on information gathered on the field and some assumptions that are peculiar to similar startups in Cape May – New Jersey.

Below is the sales projection for Singles Connect™, LLC, it is based on the location of our business and of course the wide range of our services and target market;

• First Fiscal Year-: $200,000
• Second Fiscal Year-: $500,000
• Third Fiscal Year-: $750,000

N.B : This projection is done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and there won’t be any major competitor offering same premium services as we do within same location. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

We are mindful of the fact that there are stiffer competitions in the social media networking websites industry; hence we have been able to hire some of the best marketing experts to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited based on their vast experience in the social media networking websites industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall business goal of Singles Connect™, LLC.

Our corporate goal is to grow Singles Connect™, LLC to become one of the leading social media networking sites for singles/dating in the United States of America which is why we have mapped out strategy that will help us take advantage of the available market and grow to become a major force to reckon with not only in the United States of America but also in other parts of the world.

Singles Connect™, LLC is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

• Introduce our social networking websites by sending introductory e – mails to as much email addresses we can get and also send sms to as much people we can reach
• Advertise our website (singlesconnect.com) in relevant business magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and radio station.
• List our website (singlesconnect.com) on yellow pages ads (local directories)
• Attend relevant singles conference, events, international and local expos, seminars, and business fairs et al to market our website
• Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets and still deliver excellent publicity services (business)
• Leverage on the internet to promote our business
• Engage direct marketing approach
• Encourage word of mouth marketing from loyal and satisfied clients (users / members) of our website.

We have been able to work with our in house brand and publicity consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market (singles and corporate organizations).

We are set to become the number one choice for both corporate clients and individual clients in the whole of the United States and beyond which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our social networking website. Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Singles Connect™, LLC;

• Place adverts on both print (newspapers and magazines) and electronic media platforms
• Sponsor relevant community based events/programs
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook , twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our website
• Install our Bill Boards on strategic locations all around Cape May – New Jersey.
• Engage in road show from time to time in targeted neighborhoods
• Distribute our fliers and handbills in target areas
• Contact corporate organizations, non – profits and government agencies by calling them up and informing them of Singles Connect™, LLC and the services we offer
• List our website in local directories / yellow pages
• Advertise our services in our website and employ strategies that will help us pull traffic to the site.
• Ensure that all our staff members wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our company logo et al.

At Singles Connect™, LLC we will keep the prices of our services below the average market rate for all of our customers by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance from corporate organizations who would want to advertise and promote their products and services on our website. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to all our customers at regular intervals.

We are aware that there are some one – off jobs or government publicity and campaign contracts which are always lucrative, we will ensure that we abide by the pricing model that is expected from contractors or organizations that bid for such contracts.

• Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Singles Connect™, LLC is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Singles Connect™, LLC will make available to her clients;

• Payment via bank transfer
• Payment with cash
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via mobile money
• Payment via Point of Sales Machines (POS Machines)
• Payment via check
• Payment via bank draft

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment for farm produces purchase without any stress on their part. Our bank account numbers will be made available on our website and promotional materials to clients who may want to deposit cash or make online transfer for our services.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

In setting up any business, the amount or cost will depend on the approach and scale you want to undertake. If you intend to go big by renting a place, then you would need a good amount of capital as you would need to ensure that your employees are well taken care of, and that your facility is conducive enough for workers to be creative and productive.

This means that the start-up can either be low or high depending on your goals, vision and aspirations for your business.

The materials and equipment that will be used are nearly the same cost everywhere, and any difference in prices would be minimal and can be overlooked. As for the detailed cost analysis for starting a social media networking website; it might differ in other countries due to the value of their money.

However, this is what it would cost us to setup Singles Connect™, LLC in the United of America;

• Business incorporating fees in the United States of America will cost – $750.
• The budget for Liability insurance, permits and license will cost – $3,500
• Acquiring an office space that will accommodate the number of employees for at least 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) will cost – $150,000.
• Equipping the office (computers, printers, projectors, markers, servers / internet facility, furniture, telephones, filing cabinets, and electronics) will cost – $30,000
• Amount required to purchase the needed software applications – $3,500
• Launching an official Website will cost – $500
• Amount need to pay bills and staff members for at least 2 to 3 months – $70,000
• Additional Expenditure such as Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions will cost – $5,000
• Miscellaneous – $5000

Going by the report from the market research and feasibility studies conducted, we will need about two hundred and fifty thousand ( 250,000 ) U.S. dollars to successfully set – up a medium scale but standard social media networking website in the United States of America.

Generating Funds / Startup Capital for Singles Connect™, LLC

Singles Connect™, LLC is a business that will be owned, financed and managed by Chan Mahogany and his friend and business partner for many years Solomon McKenzie. They are the sole financial of the business which is why they decided to restrict the sourcing of the start – up capital for the business to just three major sources.

These are the areas we intend generating our start – up capital;

• Generate part of the start – up capital from personal savings and sale of his stocks
• Generate part of the start – up capital from friends and other extended family members
• Generate a larger chunk of the startup capital from the bank (loan facility).

N.B: We have been able to generate about $100,000 (Personal savings $85,000 and soft loan from family members $15,000) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $150,000 from our bank. All the papers and document has been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

The future of a business lies in the numbers of loyal customers that they have the capacity and competence of the employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business (company), then it won’t be too long before the business close shop.

One of our major goals of starting Singles Connect™, LLC is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without the need for injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running. We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to offer our premium services and other related adverting and promotion services a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and we are well prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.

Singles Connect™, LLC will make sure that the right foundation, structures and processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and re – training of our workforce is at the top burner of our business strategy.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of ten years or more as determined by the board of the organization. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List / Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check: Completed
• Business Incorporation: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts various banks in the United States: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Securing a standard office facility in a good location: Completed
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of All form of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Generating part of the start – up capital from the founders: Completed
• writing of business plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
• Design of Logo for the business: Completed
• Secure trademark for our products: In Progress
• Graphic Designs and Printing of Packaging Marketing / Promotional Materials: Completed
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the needed server, furniture, office equipment, software applications, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
• Creating standard and user friendly social networking website: In Progress
• Creating awareness for the business: In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
• Establishing business relationship with vendors and key players (web host) in various industries: In Progress

More on Online Startups

5 Business Models for Social Media Startups

Are you looking at social media startup opportunities? How are you going to make money?

There’s a good practical list of Five Common Business Models for Social Media Startups by Jun Loayza on Mashable . A good reminder that business models–how you get paid–are part of the game. All five will seem familiar: There’s freemium (give a standard version free, charge for more users or more features), affiliate, subscription, virtual goods (add-ons to free games, like swords and shields and such), and the old standard, advertising.

Facebook, for example, uses advertising to get revenue, and gets relatively little per user. There are a lot of freemium sites, and fewer examples of affiliates and subscriptions.

One of the business plans I reviewed recently had an interesting explanation of why freemium wouldn’t work, and it went subscription only. I worry about that, because there are so many freemium sites.

There’s another common model that this list doesn’t include: Raise investment money, get traffic but no money, raise more money, increasing valuation, get more traffic, raise more money . . . all in the hope that there’s money at the end, when some bigger venture acquires all the stock. Actually, I think we need a tricky word for that business model . . . kite-up? Musical shares? I like that one, because, so often, whoever gets caught with the shares at the end loses.

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry .

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How to Write a Business Plan for a Mobile App Startup?

Anton Baryshevskiy

Head of Business Development, Co-Founder

Head of Business Development

Get your project estimation!

If you’re on the threshold of launching your mobile app startup, there are numerous things you need to be concerned with: workload, core concept, budget, product implementation area, employees… You need to rightly put all key elements of this puzzle together to provide a clear roadmap for your project — that is, to compile an app business plan.

We at Mind Studios know how to make a business plan for an app. Here, you'll find a complete guide to creating a business plan. Also, we’ve added our template to help all stakeholders and investors have a clear and most importantly, equal understanding of your startup idea. So if you don't know how to plan an app yet and where to start, let's find out more about it.

A business plan is a guide that turns your ideas into action

As a rule, you should start with visualizing the project and formulating its key ideas. They will later become the basis of your business plan.

Another vital component of developing your project is writing a product requirements document (PRD) for your app. It consists of three sections: business requirements, user requirements, and software system requirements . The business plan is, actually, a component of the PRD, namely the business requirements part.

All the preceding processes, such as developing a project vision, core ideas, and concepts, creating an app development plan, and drafting a PRD, allow all stakeholders to be on the same page as the startup's founder.

In this post, we’ll go through how to write a business plan for an app startup.

Some statistics

Still not sure if your startup needs a business plan? Numerous studies back up the value of having a well-thought-out business plan for companies on different stages of their business journeys.

According to one study that involved 3,000 company owners from diverse fields, those with business plans were almost twice as likely to succeed as those who didn’t. Furthermore, such strategic-planning companies were more effective in attracting investment or securing loans.

You can find more detailed information in the diagram below:

If your way is developing a mobile application

As of 2021, people have made 230 billion downloads of mobile applications, up by 63% than in 2016. Everyone appears to require mobile solutions these days, so your startup has a lot of room for imagination. You can choose from a wide range of mobile app types. To name a few, it could be a travel, event planner (here's an event app development guide), money management, social networking, or fitness app.

No matter which one you decide to create, a pre-written business plan can help you seamlessly go through the mobile app development process with its four fundamental stages : discovery, idea validation , design, and actually, development.

A goal without a plan is just a wish

There is a plethora of mobile applications these days. It means, though, that there are hundreds of almost identical apps in each category. Attracting users becomes a task of utmost importance.

Chad Mureta, an app tycoon, says that a developer’s profit directly depends on their knowledge of what’s interesting to the user; that is, to create a successful and profitable application, a developer should think like a user .

Creating a business plan based on thorough user analysis will help you explain your business idea to stakeholders. Also, you’ll see a path to a product-market fit. To make that happen, you should determine what your target audience wants, needs, likes/dislikes in competitors’ apps, and tends to expect from using your app.

Therefore, identifying your target audience preferences should be your priority, as it is one of the main drivers of your startup.

Understanding the market is the key to success

The author of the bestseller 4 Steps to Enlightenment. Strategies for creating successful startups , Steve Blank, suggests that very few people understand where their market is. The writer believes it is almost impossible to launch a thriving startup without analyzing the market it’s going to enter.

Before you start writing a business plan, it’s crucial to figure out not only the degree of public interest in your product but also the level of competition in the market you’re going to enter.

Thanks to the preparatory analysis of your rivals and potential app users, you’ll be able to flawlessly identify your product’s objectives, advantages, and unique value proposition (UVP). This will also help you form the basis of a proper business plan.

Review your business plan annually

Steve Blank claims that a business plan is static in contrast to a business model, which is dynamic. A business plan appears to be stable by definition: that’s a document created once and rarely revised after adoption.

But in our quick-to-change world, do you believe there’s anything that could remain static? Especially in terms of business? Investopedia , for example, shares an opposite to Steve Blank’s statement: A business plan should evolve in tandem with a company’s growth.

We at Mind Studios adhere to the last approach and recommend you go through your business plan for an app at least once every year . It will allow you to respond to changes in your users’ demands and assess what goals you have achieved and which ones you still need to accomplish.

Moreover, refreshing a business plan will enable you to keep your finger on the pulse of your startup’s current and upcoming financial needs and, therefore, help you develop efficient strategies to attract investments. Consider it a dynamic document that adapts to your startup’s development path.

Why should you make a business plan for apps?

In addition to helping you get your startup off the ground, a viable business plan acts as an indicator for investors to consider it as a potential asset.

Let’s summarize the main reasons why your mobile app startup needs a business plan:

Both startups and established businesses need business plans, the content of which will depend on the company’s primary goal.

To attract partners, startup owners tend to use a business model canvas — a more flexible model of the traditional business plan. It can seamlessly adapt to the iterative nature of tech startup development, yet providing core information about a project.

However, the business model canvas for an app does not guarantee 100% success; it can only be one of the components that will help your project attract investment. A comprehensive business plan with a detailed description of your company and mobile app, justification of funds use, and coverage of all legal concerns is what can instill trust in all stakeholders of your project.

Is there a difference between a business plan for a mobile app and other software?

There are obvious distinctions between mobile applications, websites, and other software solutions. They significantly contrast in marketing approach, monetization strategy, and feature sets. As a result, business plans for these solutions will differ as well.

A traditional software development business plan might be structured similarly to a business strategy for a mobile app company. However, any document that presents the firm and its product will be distinctive in content. It is reasonable since each project is unique, with its own goals and target audience.

What does a business plan for a mobile app look like?

Your mission is to create a reliable and stable mobile application for either enterprises, individuals, or non-profit organizations. In this case, a business plan will help you pave the road to make your project profitable.

Therefore, when writing a mobile app business plan for startups, you’ll need to estimate the cost of development and commissioning as well as the timing of the return on investment in your project. Only by doing this, will you get a clear picture of your app’s viability.

One of the essential factors in writing a good startup business plan for a mobile app is delivering maximum transparency at each part. Let’s highlight what you should include in your mobile app business plan to make it serve your business in the most effective way possible.

Executive summary

Let’s start with the executive summary . It is the first and most significant part of your mobile app business plan because it’s the first thing an investor will read. The executive summary should be clear and concise, with no detailed information about how your product works. Address the situation in the market, who your target customer is, and what unique problem your application can solve.

Make your proposal unique to distinguish your company from others. In other words, create a unique value proposition (UVP). Use your imagination: consider your executive summary as a movie teaser and your investor as a spectator. Would they like to see your movie?

Specify your goals . These objectives should rely on your business analysis. Investors will examine your aims to see if they satisfy their needs. You also have to determine the ultimate goal of your exit plan . Furthermore, you should establish a list of funding requirements and the proceeds that will be used to boost the attractiveness of your company. One of the essential factors in the startup business plan for your mobile app success is ensuring maximum transparency at each stage.

Make your document convincing . To do this, ensure your product’s concept and goals are crystal clear and do not vary throughout the paper. Provide the reader with accurate data and realistic expectations about your project. Of course, don’t forget to make sure that the name of the person who created the business plan and executive summary and the names of your team members are consistent throughout the documentation.

Business description

Introduce your company in this part, beginning with corporate information and ending with your mobile app concept. This part of your startup business plan will show investors the corporate values of your company, your mission, product vision, and the fundamental factors for your startup success.

This information is vitally important for investors. For example, a technology startup accelerator Y Combinator considers getting money as by far the easiest part whereas working on ideas — the most significant part for any startup in achieving success. In most cases, Y-Combinator-like organizations make compiling a thorough business plan a prerequisite before introducing newly-formed projects to investors.

Company overview

Here you should describe your company’s:

This section should give the reader of your business plan detailed information about your startup: the official name of your company, the location of the headquarters, and its structure, namely the business entity type (LLC, corporation, etc.). Make sure to provide further details about your team, such as the number of workers, their names, job titles, and so forth.

Describe the purpose of your company and the fundamental principles that guide your business in the mission statement. After establishing your mission, outline the primary challenges and solutions your startup can offer.

Company history

Before making any business proposal, describe the history of your company, how your team formed, and how you came up with your idea. In addition, you can talk about the main stages of your company’s development and the experience that precedes the product launch.

Whether you are outsourcing app development process or you have an in-house team, it is often the most significant part of the executive summary because your app development team is the main engine of your project implementation. You should specify each person’s name, position, work experience, and responsibilities in the company. In addition, you can involve an advisory group that will help you make essential decisions. Consultants on your advisory team should have experience in the industry.

Market analysis

Information about the state of the market should be the main factor in your app idea realization. You should be aware of the present situation in your industry, have up-to-date information, and be able to generate a short-term forecast.

To conduct market analysis , you should take several steps:

• Examining existing business environment
• Defining your market research criteria
• Determining your total available market (TAM), service available market (SAM), and service obtainable market (SOM)
• Identifying your direct competitors
• Analyzing your target audience and figuring out the cost per acquisition (CPA) for your niche

No market research in the mobile app industry can be conducted without analyzing Google Play Store and Apple App Store with their ranks for top paid, top free, and top-grossing apps as well as user reviews.

Market forecasts

Forecasting is an integral component of writing a business plan for an app development startup realization.

Forecasts from reputable research firms such as Nielsen and Forrester are of interest when creating any business plan, be it a business plan for an app development, a website, or a traditional software startup business plan. To provide reliable market forecasts, you can:

• Include data on the growth of companies with solutions similar to your mobile app
• Add information on the amount of money poured into similar startups (platforms like Crunchbase or Y Combinator can help with this)
• Enrich your business plan with some forecasts on your target customer behavior

Your goal is to assess whether there’s a real market for your product, whether there are enough customers in the market, and, accordingly, whether those customers are willing to pay money for using your product.

SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method that allows you to present a structured description of your business situation. It can be a great way to evaluate your app startup concept from four perspectives. Namely, its:

• W eaknesses
• O pportunities

It’s natural when a business has weaknesses: knowing about them will serve as a powerful driver for finding solutions and will reduce any risks your company may need to face.

Marketing strategy

An app marketing strategy is a bridge that allows your product to fall into the hands of your customers. You have to convince investors that you have such a bridge. This is an important part of the mobile app strategy.

When drawing up a business plan, you have to define the marketing strategies you intend to use in application promotion. Here are a few examples, along with descriptions of how they work:

Create a landing page

Creating a landing page for your mobile app will help you reach a wider audience by informing users about new features and updates. Make sure your page contains the name of the application, a description of its functionality, promotional videos, and so on.

Launch a website and blog

Launching a website is a great way to promote your application. There, you may, for example, provide more information about your company, its goals and values, and an overview of your future mobile solution.

A website blog is also a helpful thing with your app advertising. You can share news on your upcoming product and publish SEO-optimized articles for better promotion.

Social media marketing

Consider social media marketing while developing a business strategy to promote your app. Describe how you intend to use this form of advertising at various phases of your mobile solution development: before launch while attracting your audience and retaining users.

Estimate your marketing budget

You may estimate the cost of marketing services based on the market analysis you outlined in the preceding section of your business plan. Understanding the marketing budget is essential to all parties: you, the app owner, investors, and other stakeholders.

Product growth

Depending on the type of app startup, growing the user base approach differs, as does the business plan for entering different markets. For example, a massive advertising attack tends to make sense in markets where consumers understand your product or service and its usefulness.

Take, for instance, Uber , which has successfully launched extensive marketing campaigns. The company’s ads have spread globally with Uber localizing advertising for each region.

So, if you’re still working on a business strategy, think about how you’ll expand your user base in advance. This will tremendously assist you in future product growth.

Choose your product launch type

Be sure to indicate the product launch type in your business plan. There are two such types: hard and soft launch . The first one means delivering a finished product to your entire target audience. A soft launch is when you release an MVP or full version of your app, but for a limited audience.

To rightly set out this part of your business plan, you should clearly understand what kind of financing you need to move forward. Moreover, you need to express it as clearly as possible to be sure a potential investor will also understand what funding you need.

The financial model includes, as a rule, a three- to five-year forecast of all the main forecasted indicators, including profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheets, start tables, unit economics calculation as well as your app’s projected revenues and costs. Your financial document has to contain the following components to determine the actual cost and distribution of investments in the best way, with a clear explanation of each.

Startup costs/funding required

Inform your investors about estimated costs. We recommend placing reasonable estimates and leaving room for extra expenses since these numbers might fluctuate.

Designate all types of costs :

• One-time costs (e.g. relocation costs, costs for buying an office space, equipment, servers, software, licenses)
• Fixed costs: they remain unchanged regardless of whether you produce something or not (e.g. rent, insurance, lease payments, fixed salaries)
• Variable costs: costs that change according to the production volume (e.g. wages)

Monetization strategy

It is another section you need to add to your business plan. By illustrating your monetization model, you’ll demonstrate to your investors and other stakeholders that your project will be profitable and provide a return on investment with positive unit economics. It will also help you be sure that your startup will reach its break-even point.

The most common ways to monetize an application are :

• Advertising
• Charging for the application (if your business model describes a paid application, you need to convince the consumer why they have to pay and what they’re paying for)
• In-app purchases (this is a widespread mobile app business model in iOS and Android applications)
• Subscriptions (this model of monetization is quite popular and works until the user decides to cancel the subscription; in most cases, subscription apps have a free trial period)

One of our prominent projects in which we’ve helped set up a monetization strategy is Fitr. Training , a remote fitness coaching application. Our team analyzed the platform’s performance and discovered we could enhance the conversion rate.

We established a monetization model based on the collected data and customer feedback. Namely, our team launched an efficient subscription option. The results were remarkable: one out of every four coaches now uses the paid membership.

Mind Studios can also assist you in elaborating a potent monetization strategy.

Business plan example for a mobile app startup

We’d like to offer you a business plan template for a startup updated to 2023. Keep in mind that, although this mobile app business plan itself is structured according to all the rules, the calculations are entirely fictional.

Download the free PDF business plan template for a mobile app here .

Writing a business plan for a mobile app startup isn’t easy. As a rule, the most challenging part of developing a business plan for a mobile app idea is writing the first page. Many people in this situation rush to find and download a free copy of another company’s business plan. They mistakenly believe that someone else’s business strategy will help them achieve their goals. But it absolutely won’t!

A business plan cannot be a cloned document. It must be one-of-a-kind reflecting your passion and enthusiasm in bringing your idea into life . A successful business plan should demonstrate that your company is viable and financially attractive. The higher the viability, the higher the investment opportunity.

If you need to compile a well-thought-out business plan to attract investments and successfully launch your app, our expert team at Mind Studios is here to help .

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Social Network Business Plan Template

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This social network business plan template has 33 pages and is a MS Word file type listed under our business plan kit documents.

Sample of our social network business plan template:

[YOUR COMPANY NAME] Business Plan [YOUR NAME] [YOUR ADDRESS] [YOUR PHONE NUMBER] [[email protected]] 2012

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Social Media Marketing Business Plan

If you are planning to start a new social media marketing or digital marketing company, the first thing you will need is a business plan. Use our sample social media marketing business plan created using upmetrics business plan software to start writing your business plan in no time.

Before you start writing your business plan for your new social media marketing agency, spend as much time as you can reading through some examples of  advertising and marketing-related business plans.

Reading sample business plans will give you a good idea of what you’re aiming for and also it will show you the different sections that different entrepreneurs include and the language they use to write about themselves and their business plans.

We have created this sample Social Media Marketing Business Plan for you to get a good idea about what a perfect social media marketing business plan should look like and what details you will need to include in your stunning business plan.

Social Media Marketing Business Plan Outline

This is the standard social media marketing business plan outline which will cover all important sections that you should include in your business plan.

• The Business
• 3 Year profit forecast
• Company Owner
• Why the business is being started?
• Startup cost
• Startup Requirements
• Products and services
• Market Trends
• Marketing Share
• Institutions & Organizations
• Media & Celebrities
• Business Target
• Product Pricing
• Competitive Analysis
• Sales Monthly
• Sales Yearly
• Sales Forecast
• Company Staff
• Average Salary of Employees
• Important Assumptions
• Brake-even Analysis
• Profit Yearly
• Gross Margin Yearly
• Projected Cash Flow
• Projected Balance Sheet
• Business Ratios

After getting started with Upmetrics , you can copy this sample business plan into your business plan and modify the required information and download your social media marketing business plan pdf or doc file. It’s the fastest and easiest way to start writing your business plan.

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We have plenty of  free business planning resources  available to help you with your planning. You can download our resources to learn all about business planning.

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How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy in 9 Easy Steps (Free Template)

Creating your social media marketing strategy doesn’t need to be painful. Create an effective plan for your business in 9 simple steps.

A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.

The more specific your plan is, the more effective it will be. Keep it concise. Don’t make it so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable or impossible to measure.

In this post, we’ll walk you through a nine-step plan to create a winning social media strategy of your own. We’ve even got expert insights from Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template   to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the practice of using social media channels to sell or promote a brand, product or service.

Social media marketing helps businesses:

• Increase brand awareness
• Build engaged communities
• Sell products and services
• Measure brand sentiment
• Provide social customer service
• Advertise products and services to target audiences
• Track performance and adjust larger marketing strategies accordingly

Create. Schedule. Publish. Engage. Measure. Win.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.

Your social media marketing strategy should also list all of your existing and planned social media accounts along with goals specific to each platform you’re active on. These goals should align with your business’s larger digital marketing strategy.

Finally, a good social media plan should define the roles and responsibilities within your team and outline your reporting cadence.

Creating your own social media marketing strategy (video guide)

No time to read the whole article? Let Amanda, Hootsuite’s own Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing, guide you through our free social media marketing strategy template in less than 10 minutes:

How to create a social media marketing strategy in 9 steps

Step 1. choose goals that align to business objectives, set s.m.a.r.t. goals.

The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI) .

Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART : s pecific, m easurable, a ttainable, r elevant and t ime-bound.

Psst: If you need examples of smart social media goals , we’ve got you covered.

Track meaningful metrics

Vanity metrics like number of followers and likes are easy to track, but it’s hard to prove their real value. Instead, focus on things like engagement, click-through, and conversion rates.

For inspiration, take a look at these 19 essential social media metrics .

You may want to track different goals for different social media networks, or even different uses for each network.

For example, if you use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website, you would measure click-throughs. If Instagram is for brand awareness, you might track the number of Instagram Story views. And if you advertise on Facebook, cost-per-click (CPC) is a common success metric.

Social media goals should align with your overall marketing objectives. This makes it easier to show the value of your work and secure buy-in from your boss.

Start developing a successful social media marketing plan by writing down at least three goals for social media.

“ It’s easy to get overwhelmed by deciding what to post and which metrics to track, but you need to focus on what you want to get out of social media to begin with,” says Amanda Wood, Hootsuite’s Senior Manager of Social Marketing. “Don’t just start posting and tracking everything: match your goals to your business, and your metrics to your goals.”

Step 2. Learn everything you can about your audience

Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.

When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:

• Average income
• Typical job title or industry

Here’s a simple guide and template for creating audience/buyer personas .

Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your audience.

Jugnoo, an Uber-like service for auto-rickshaws in India, used Facebook Analytics to learn that 90% of their users who referred other customers were between 18- and 34-years-old, and 65% of that group was using Android. They used that information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% lower cost per referral.

Check out our guide to using social media analytics and the tools you need to track them .

Step 3. Get to know your competition

Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they’re doing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

It will also help you spot opportunities.

Maybe one of your competitors is dominant on Facebook, for example, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the social media platforms where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

Use social media listening

Social listening is another way to keep an eye on your competitors.

Do searches of the competition’s company name, account handles, and other relevant keywords on social media. Find out what they’re sharing and what other people are saying about them. If they’re using influencer marketing, how much engagement do those campaigns earn them?

Pro tip : Use Hootsuite Streams to monitor relevant keywords, hashtags and accounts in real-time.

Try Hootsuite for free. You can cancel anytime.

As you track, you may notice shifts in how your competitors and industry leaders are using social media. You may come across new, exciting trends. You might even spot specific social content or a campaign that really hits the mark—or totally bombs.

Use this kind of intel to optimize and inform your own social media marketing strategy.

Just don’t go overboard on the spy tactics, Amanda advises. “ Make sure you aren’t ALWAYS comparing yourself to the competition — it can be a distraction. I’d say checking in on a monthly basis is healthy. Otherwise, focus on your own strategy and results.”

Step 4. Do a social media audit

If you’re already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s working, and what’s not?
• Who is engaging with you?
• What are your most valuable partnerships?
• Which networks does your target audience use?
• How does your social media presence compare to the competition?

Once you collect that information, you’ll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve.

We’ve created an easy-to-follow social media audit guide and template to walk you through each step of this process.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping.

To help you decide, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is my audience here?
• If so, how are they using this platform?
• Can I use this account to help achieve my goals?

Asking these tough questions will keep your social media strategy focused.

Look for impostor accounts

During the audit, you may discover fake accounts using your business name or the names of your products.

These imposters can be harmful to your brand—never mind that they’re capturing followers that should be yours.

You may want to get your accounts verified too to ensure your fans know they are dealing with the real you.

Here’s how to get verified on:

Step 5. Set up accounts and improve profiles

Decide which networks to use.

As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.

Benefit Cosmetics’ social media manager, Angela Purcaro, told eMarketer : “For our makeup tutorials … we’re all about Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Twitter, on the other hand, is designated for customer service.”

Hootsuite’s own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hootsuite 🦉 (@hootsuite)

Pro tip : Write out a mission statement for each network. A one-sentence declaration to keep you focused on a specific goal.

Example: “We will use Twitter for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”

Or: “We will use LinkedIn for promoting and sharing our company culture to help with recruitment and employee advocacy.”

One more: “We will use Instagram to highlight new products and repost quality content from influencers.”

If you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social media channel, you may want to ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Note : While larger businesses can and do tackle every platform, small businesses may not be able to — and that’s ok! Prioritize social platforms that will have the most impact on your business and make sure your marketing team has the resources to handle content for those networks. If you need help focusing your efforts, check out our 18-minute social media plan .

Set up your profiles

Once you’ve decided which networks to focus on, it’s time to create your profiles. Or improve existing ones so they align with your strategy.

• Make sure you fill out all profile fields
• Include keywords people would use to search for your business
• Use consistent branding (logos, images, etc.) across networks so your profiles are easily recognizable

Pro tip : Use high-quality images that follow the recommended dimensions for each network. Check out our always-up-to-date social media image size cheat sheet for quick reference.

We’ve also got step-by-step guides for each network to walk you through the process:

• Create a Facebook business page
• Create an Instagram business account
• Create a TikTok account
• Create a Twitter business account
• Create a Snapchat account
• Create a LinkedIn Company Page
• Create a Pinterest business account
• Create a YouTube channel

Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Remember, it’s better to use fewer channels well than to stretch yourself thin trying to maintain a presence on every network.

Step 6. Find inspiration

While it’s important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

“ I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what’s trending, which campaigns are winning, what’s new with the platforms, who’s going above and beyond,” says Amanda. “This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it’s just as crucial as the rest of them.”

Social media success stories

You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. ( Here’s Facebook’s , for example.)

Case studies can offer valuable insights that you can apply to your own social media plan.

Award-winning accounts and campaigns

You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

For learning and a laugh, check out Fridge-Worthy, Hootsuite’s bi-weekly awards show highlighting brands doing smart and clever things on social media.

Your favorite brands on social media

Who do you enjoy following on social media? What do they do that compels people to engage and share their content?

National Geographic, for example, is one of the best on Instagram, combining stunning visuals with compelling captions.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo)

Then there’s Shopify. The ecommerce brand uses Facebook to sell themselves by showcasing customer stories and case studies.

And Lush Cosmetics is a great example of superior customer service on Twitter. They use their 280 characters to answer questions and solve problems in an extremely charming and on-brand way.

Hey lovely! 💕 We are sorry to hear how much you are missing Scrub Scrub Scrub. We will make sure our team knows you'd love to see it back on the shelves. In the meantime, check out Magic Crystals for a similar scrubtastic feel 😍💜 — Lush North America (@lushcosmetics) October 15, 2021

Notice that each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone, and style. That’s key to letting people know what to expect from your feed. That is, why should they follow you? What’s in it for them?

Consistency also helps keep your content on-brand even if you have multiple people on your social media team.

For more on this, read our guide on establishing a compelling brand voice on social media .

Ask your followers

Consumers can also offer social media inspiration.

What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs?

If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.

Step 7. Create a social media content calendar

Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact.

Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).

Set your posting schedule

Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images, link sharing, and re-shares of user-generated content to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns.

Your calendar also ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the best times to post .

Pro tip: You can plan your whole content calendar and get recommended best times to post on every network based on your past engagement rate, impressions, or link click data in Hootsuite.

Determine the right content mix

Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.

(We know, it’s tempting to jump on every meme, but there should always be a strategy behind your social media marketing efforts!)

You might decide that:

• 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website
• 25% of content will be curated from other sources
• 20% of content will support lead-generation goals (newsletter sign-ups, ebook downloads, etc.)
• 5% of content will be about your company culture

Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.

If you’re starting from scratch and you’re not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule :

• 80% of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience
• 20% can directly promote your brand.

You could also try the social media content marketing rule of thirds :

• One-third of your content promotes your business, converts readers, and generates profit.
• One-third of your content shares ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry or like-minded businesses.
• One-third of your content is personal interactions with your audience

Don’t post too much or too little

If you’re starting a social media marketing strategy from scratch, you may not have figured out how often to post to each network for maximum engagement yet.

Post too frequently and you risk annoying your audience. But, if you post too little, you risk looking like you’re not worth following.

Start with these posting frequency recommendations:

• Instagram (feed): 3-7 times per week
• Facebook: 1-2 times per day
• Twitter: 1-5 times per day
• LinkedIn: 1-5 times per day

Pro tip : Once you have your social media content calendar planned out, use a scheduling tool to prepare messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day.

We might be biased, but we think Hootsuite is the best social media management tool. You can schedule social media posts to every network and the intuitive calendar view gives you a full picture of all your social activity each week.

Try It Free

Step 8. Create compelling content

Remember those mission statements you created for each channel in Step 5? Well, it’s time to go a bit deeper, a.k.a. provide some examples of the type of content you’ll post to fulfill your mission on each network.

If you’re not sure what to post, here’s a long list of social media content ideas to get you started.

The idea here is to:

• Keep your content aligned with the purpose of each network;
• Show other stakeholders (if applicable) what kind of content they can expect to see on each network.

This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven’t posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet. It’s not in the strategy, Linda!

Ideally, you will generate content types that are both suited to the network and the purpose you’ve set out for that network.

For example, you wouldn’t want to waste time posting brand awareness tweets if you’ve designated Twitter for primarily customer support. And you wouldn’t want to post super polished corporate video ads to TikTok, as users expect to see short, unpolished videos on that platform.

It might take some testing over time to figure out which type of content works best on which type of network, so prepare to update this section frequently.

We won’t lie: content creation isn’t as easy as everyone not on the social team seems to think. But if you’re struggling, Amanda suggests going back to basics.

The first question to ask is: is there cohesion between your content types? Is your content providing value? Do you have a good mix of entertaining, or educational content? What does it offer that makes a person stop and spend time? Creating a few different content pillars or categories that encompass different aspects of storytelling for your brand, and what you can offer your audience is a good start.

This brings us to Step 9.

Step 9. Track performance and make adjustments

Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try. As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

Look at performance metrics

In addition to the analytics within each social network (see Step 2), you can use UTM parameters to track social visitors as they move through your website, so you can see exactly which social posts drive the most traffic to your website.

Re-evaluate, test, and do it all again

Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, social marketing campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your social media marketing strategy in real time.

You’ll want to check the performance of all your channels at least once a week and get to know the basics of social media reporting so you can track your growth over time.

Pro tip: If you use Hootsuite, you can review the performance of all your posts on every network in one place. Once you get the hang of checking your analytics, you may even want to customize different reports to show specific metrics over a variety of different time periods.

Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your social media strategy is working. Ask your followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.

Finalizing your social media strategy

Spoiler alert: nothing is final.

Social media moves fast. New networks emerge, others go through demographic shifts.

Your business will go through periods of change as well.

All of this means that your social media marketing strategy should be a living document that you review and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to stay on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.

When you update your social strategy, make sure to watch our 5-step video on how to updating your social media strategy for 2023:

Social media strategy template

What’s next? When you’re ready to put your plan into action, we’re here to help…

Save time managing your social media marketing strategy with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can easily:

• Plan, create, and schedule posts to every network
• Track relevant keywords, topics, and accounts
• Stay on top of engagement with a universal inbox
• Get easy-to-understand performance reports and improve your strategy as needed

Try Hootsuite for Free

With files from Shannon Tien .

Do it better with Hootsuite , the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.

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Social Media App Business Plan Template

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Swiftly Prepare your Social Media App Business Plan by entering the necessary information using our Integrated Editor. Our Template was Created by Experts in App Development to make sure you build your brand and gather insightful data from your consumers. Establish Objectives, perform a SWOT Analysis, and create a strong Marketing and Operational Plan. Share the Document via Email with your Colleagues and Stakeholders after Downloading it in the Format of your Choice.

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Social Media Marketing Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Social Media Marketing Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their social media marketing businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a social media marketing business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your social media marketing agency as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.  

Why You Need a Business Plan

If you’re looking to start a social media marketing business or grow your existing company, you need a business plan. A social media marketing business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your business in order to improve your chances of success. Your business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your social media marketing agency grows and changes.  

Sources of Funding for Social Media Marketing Agencies

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a social media marketing business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for social media marketing agencies.  

How To Write a Business Plan For a Social Media Marketing Agency

If you want to start a business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. Below we detail what should be included in each section of your own social media marketing business plan:  

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of social media marketing business you are operating and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a social media marketing business that you would like to grow, or are you operating social media marketing in multiple markets?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the social media marketing industry. Discuss the type of social media marketing business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.  

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of social media marketing business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types of social media marketing businesses, or a full-service agency:

• Paid Ads : this type of marketing business focuses on creating social media ads and optimizing social media ad campaigns. A social media marketing agency may specialize in ads for one platform in particular or across all platforms.
• Content: this type of business focuses on creating content, either for specific platforms or across all platforms.
• Strategy: this type of marketing is where campaigns are created around specific goals that help businesses or individuals tailor where and how to best achieve results that will help them succeed.

In addition to explaining the type of social media marketing business you will operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of customers served, number of positive reviews, total campaigns, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the social media marketing industry.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the social media marketing industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy, particularly if your research identifies market trends.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your social media marketing business plan:

• How big is the social media marketing industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your social media marketing business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: corporations, small business owners, nonprofits and individuals. Customers may also be segmented by industry, such as healthcare, technology, beauty, restaurants, music, B2B, and more.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of marketing business you operate. Clearly, individuals in the music industry would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations in the healthcare industry, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Only select social media marketing agencies primarily serve customers living in their same city or town. However, if your niche is to provide social media services to local businesses, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.    

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other social media marketing agencies.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes digital freelance platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr. You need to mention such competition as well.

With regards to direct competition, you want to describe the other businesses with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will have a similar niche audience.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What types of social media services do they provide?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide better social media strategy, content and ad services?
• Will you provide services that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.  

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a social media marketing business, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of social media marketing agency that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering. For example, in addition to social media marketing, will you provide web design services, copywriting or any other services?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your agency. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your business located in a busy professional district (good if targeting local businesses), or is it fully remote (good if targeting clients that aren’t place-specific). Discuss how your location might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions : The final part of your marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local websites
• Social media marketing
• Local radio advertising

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your business, including discovery calls, onboarding new clients, attending campaign meetings, managing employees and working on campaigns.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to take on your 10th client, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your social media marketing business into a new market.  

Management Team

To demonstrate your social media marketing business’ ability to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing social media marketing businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing social media marketing agencies or successfully running small businesses.  

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you gain one new client per month or per quarter? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets : Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your social media marketing business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a social media marketing business:

• Location build-out including design fees, construction, etc. (if there will be a physical location)
• Cost of equipment and supplies (including hardware and software)
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or outlines of campaigns you are currently working on.  

Putting together a business plan for your social media marketing business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the social media marketing industry, your competition, and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful social media marketing business.  

Social Media Marketing Business Plan FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my social media marketing business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily complete your Social Media Marketing Business Plan.

What is the Goal of a Business Plan's Executive Summary?

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of social media marketing business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a social media marketing business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of social media marketing businesses?

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Social Media Marketing business plan?

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how Growthink’s professional business plan consulting services can create your business plan for you.  

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Guide to writing a business plan for a mobile app business

✓ Last checked and updated on 7 August 2023

Mobile app business plans

Thinking of developing a mobile app? Done properly, app development requires a significant investment of time, money and resources. And therefore some careful consideration before you proceed. 

Writing a business plan for a mobile app business, in advance of any development, can really help to clarify your vision as well as identify the steps you need to take to maximise the return on your investment.

We’ve written about how to make an app . But in order to make sure your app pays for itself and provides an income , you really need to make sure you have an app business plan in place.

How to write a business plan for an app:

Make sure you’ve taken the right factors into account

What problem are you aiming to solve with your app?

It’s vital to understand what your competitors are already doing – and how your app will improve on this

Think about your app’s USP and how it benefits your users

No matter how good your mobile app business idea, good financial management will ultimately be key to its success

You will need to give some considerable thought to how you plan to market your app

1. Decide what to consider when writing a mobile app business plan

Mobile apps are continuing to grow in popularity year on year – in fact, mobile apps are projected to hit $188.9 billion in revenue by 2020 – up from just $88billion in 2016 ( Statista ).

It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to wonder  what the future holds for mobile apps  – and whether the market is already saturated.

And yet technology is constantly changing (think about the rise of voice-based apps such as Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri for instance) along with consumer habits and expectations. 

So there is no doubt that the demand is still there for apps that can genuinely be shown to be more innovative and more engaging than their competitors.

Whatever your business, writing a business plan takes time. But it’s an iterative process can and one that can be hugely helpful in clarifying exactly what you want to achieve in the development of your own app.

So what are some of the key points you might want to consider when putting together a business plan for your mobile app?

To get you started, here is a app business template:

App business plan template

• Executive summary
• Company overview and business goals
• Industry analysis
• Customer analysis
• Competitive analysis and market research
• Marketing strategy plan
• Operational plan
• Management team (if you have one!)
• Financial plan and forecast

2. Define what kind of app do you want to develop

It is tempting to rush into the development of an app simply because other businesses similar to yours already have one.

But it’s worth giving some genuine thought to the ‘problem’ that you aim to solve with the creation of an app.

Businesses build apps for all sorts of reasons, such as branding, improving customer engagement, direct marketing etc. 

But as online publishing platform  Medium  says “Ultimately an effective mobile strategy involves more than just a mobile friendly website.”

3. Research your market

Once you have identified  why  the marketplace needs you to develop the app, it is vital to understand what your competitors are already doing – and how your app will improve on this.

When  conducting market research , you should look at both primary and secondary data and consider key information such as include the size of your market as well as a thorough understanding of pricing. 

A  SWOT analysis  can be useful for understanding your business’ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. 

LivePlan  explains “Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your company—things that you have some control over and can change. Examples include who is on your team, your patents and intellectual property, and your location.

“Opportunities and threats are external—things that are going on outside your company, in the larger market. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. Examples include competitors, prices of raw materials, and customer shopping trends.”

Building on this, there is also a value in conducting a  PEST analysis  to look at macro economic factors that may influence your business.  These are opportunities and threats due to Political, Economic, Social, and Technological forces. 

Pestle Analysis  explains these four areas in more detail: 

• Political   Here government regulations and legal factors are assessed in terms of their ability to affect the business environment and trade markets. The main issues addressed in this section include political stability, tax guidelines, trade regulations, safety regulations, and employment laws.
• Economic   Through this factor, businesses examine the economic issues that are bound to have an impact on the company. This would include factors like inflation, interest rates, economic growth, the unemployment rate and policies, and the business cycle followed in the country.
• Social   With the social factor, a business can analyze the socio-economic environment of its market via elements like customer demographics, cultural limitations, lifestyle attitude, and education. With these, a business can understand how consumer needs are shaped and what brings them to the market for a purchase.
• Technological   How technology can either positively or negatively impact the introduction of a product or service into a marketplace is assessed here. These factors include technological advancements, lifecycle of technologies, the role of the Internet, and the spending on technology research by the government.

4. Define your app’s unique selling point (USP)

So what problem does your app actually solve? What makes it different from all the other apps out there? Any why will someone download your app rather than another, similar one?

Identifying your app’s unique selling point (USP) is a useful exercise in really understanding what you plan to do that’s different to everyone else. 

It can also help you develop an ‘ elevator pitch ’ – a 20 second, one or two line summary that comprehensively explains your product. And which could, as the phrase suggests, be articulated to a potential investor between the floors of a buildings – should you be lucky enough to find yourself in a lift with someone on the lookout for your product! 

5. Understand your budget and how your app will make money

No matter how good your mobile app business idea, good financial management will ultimately be key to its success.

How, for instance, are you going to make money from your app? You might decide on a freemium model, where basic features are free but full functionality is hidden behind a paywall. You might prefer in-app advertising. Or your app might be for solely for in-app purchases. 

It is reassuring to know that  it is possible to develop a mobile app on a tiny budget  – but that budget still needs careful management.

Alongside all the usual business plan financial headings, you should also consider costs that are specific to app development. 

These can include customer acquisition cost, which  Appster  elaborates as cost per app install or CPI, suggesting “If you want to go one level deeper and be more exact, find out the cost per activation, keeping in mind that there will be a percentage of users who might install the app, and then uninstall it without engaging with the app.”

6. Decide how you plan to market your app

Developing an app is one thing but getting it to arguably saturated marketplace, with good take up is quite another.  

You will therefore need to give some considerable thought to how you plan to market your app once it is built (and possibly even before you have launched it). 

And so taking the time to put together a  marketing plan for your mobile app business  can pay dividends after launch.

Looking for a hand with writing a business plan for your mobile app business?  

If you would like a steer developing a business plan for your mobile app business, then the team at Creative.onl would love to help.

We are a friendly bunch with expertise across all of the following areas: 

• Digital strategy 
• UX design 
• App development
• Web development 
• Responsive web design
• Graphic design
• Video animation 
• Marketing support 

And we would love to help you with any aspect of your digital marketing strategy.

Whatever you are looking for,  get in touch with Creative.onl  to talk through the creative process.

App business plan FAQ

A mobile app business plan is exactly what is sounds like: a business plan, created specifically for a business based on launching a mobile app. Any startup business should have a business plan, and mobile app businesses are no exception.

Follow our 6-step process, and include the following 9 sections: • Executive summary • Company overview and business goals • Industry analysis • Customer analysis • Competitive analysis and market research • Marketing strategy plan • Operational plan • Management team (if you have one!) • Financial plan and forecast

If you feel that you have the expertise then you can go ahead and write your own app business plan yourself, without spending a penny: totally free. Or if you’d like some professional help, you can commission an app launch specialist like Creative.onl to write one for you: this might cost anything from £500 to £5000, depending on the level of support needed.

Every business is unique, whether it’s a mobile app business or otherwise. So this means that every mobile app business plan is also one-of-a-kind of tailored specifically to the business in question. But having said that, most app business plans follow the rough format we detailed, with emphasis added or removed from each section.

Send us an email to [email protected] and let us know what you need, we should be able to provide you with a PDF template.

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Sample Social Network Business Plan Template

Social networking site business plan sample.

Social networking sites are places or platforms where people anywhere could meet, connect with old and new friends, and date. It is also a place where entrepreneurs could advertise and market their products and services.

Some of the leading social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

If you are already set to write a business plan for your social networking website, then you will find this simple social network business plan very useful in guiding you write a good business plan for your business.

SEE: SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY BUSINESS PLAN

Here is a sample business plan for starting a social media network business.

BUSINESS NAME: Singles Mingle, LLC.

Executive Summary

Our Products and Services

Vision Statement

Mission Statement

Business Structure

• Market Analysis

Sales and Marketing Strategy

• Financial Plan

Sales Forecast

Singles Mingle, LLC is a social network website which will be based in the United States of America, but will be open to users from various countries around the world. We have been able to secure a very good facility in a good location in New York, United states. Singles Mingle, LLC will be very concerned with providing a number of products and services to satisfy its users.

As part of the preparation for launching the website, the owner has been able to raise a total of $200,000 towards the startup budget of $300,000 required for launching the business. The other part will be secured from the owner’s bank as soft loan.

Singles Mingle, LLC is a social network website which has been launched with the aim of making profits and particularly connecting singles. We are aware of the top social network websites in the United States and around the globe, and we are very set to favourably compete with them and take our place. The following are our products and services offering:

• Casual social networks
• Dating sites for single people
• Specialty services
• Blogging social networks
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Entertainment services

We have one vision in the industry which is very simple. Our vision is to build and nurture a standard social network website which will be very focused in being among the leading social network websites in the whole world, not just in the United States of America.

Our mission in the industry is to launch a website for single people where they will be able to meet, connect and date.  We want to make sure our users are very happy with the services which we have to offer.

And lastly, we want to be able to favourably compete with other top social network websites in the world.

Singles Mingle, LLC is a social network site which will not take with levity anything that will help in achieving the business vision. As stated earlier, our business vision is to be among the leading social network sites in the world.

We will not be able to accomplish this vision if we do not do the needful, especially as it concerns our business structure. This is why we will take very seriously the recruitment process of our business. We have resolved to only hire qualified, honest, and hardworking individuals to fill up the following positions in our business:

• Chief Executive Officer
• Human Resources and Admin Manager
• Creative Director
• Sales and Marketing Executives
• Client Service Executive
• Online Traffic Generator / Content Creator
• Web designer

Market Analysis Market Trends

It is no longer news that social network sites has over the years, been experiencing an exponential increase in the number of users throughout the world.  Facebook alone has more than 1 billion worldwide users. This indicates that social networking is the new trend.

Target Market

Having done our research carefully, we have found the following to make up our target market:

• Single males and females
• Financial institutions such as banks, and insurance companies.
• Corporate organizations
• Blue Chips companies
• Research and Development Companies
• Real Estate Owners , Developers, and contractors
• Celebrities and public figures
• Entrepreneurs and Startups
• Religious Organizations

We have done our thorough research on the market and the industry, and what we found out is that there is a very stiff competition in the industry. Bearing this in mind, we have been able to source for sales and marketing experts who have helped us to devise ways on how to take hold of the market:

• We will begin by making sure we introduce our business by sending introductory emails and sms to as many email addresses and phone numbers we could get.
• We will create adverts for our social networking website on several business magazines, radio and TV stations, etc.
• We will always attend seminars, events, conferences, so as to promote our social network website to prospective customers.
• We will also make good use of the internet to promote our social network website.

Financial Plan Source of Startup Budget

$300,000 is the amount which we have found out to be the budget for starting up our social network website business. It will be a medium-scale yet standard social network website launched in the United States. The website will be owned and run by Jamie Wong.

Jamie Wong has been able to secure a total of $200,000 from his savings and investments towards the startup budget. The other part, $100,000, will be obtained by sourcing for a soft loan from the owner’s bank.

This is our sales projection for the first three years after we start up our social network website. We have been able to arrive at this sales projection based on the data we were able to get regarding the industry. This sales projection has not paid any attention to any economic downturn which could occur in the industry, in the future.

First Fiscal Year                   $250,000 Second Fiscal Year               $550,000 Third Fiscal Year                  $800,000

This business plan sample is for a social network website business. ‘Singles Mingle, LLC’ is the name of the business. The website will be operating in the United States of America, but it will be available to users from all parts of the world.

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