Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign
Nicole Dean
Nicole Dean
Designing and executing an effective social media campaign isn’t as easy task. In this day and age, social media campaigns are a crucial component of effective branding and advertising. When you are building your campaign you must find the most effective platforms to use, identify channel specific objectives, focus on customer engagement, making sure your content follows your brand, and creating a content calendar.
Choose the most effective platforms.
The majority of social media users have a Facebook account but beyond Facebook, social media usage preferences vary significantly by demographics. You don’t want to assume that your target demographic is using a particular social media site. You need to do your research. For example, Twitter is most popular with those between the ages of 18 and 29 living in urban and suburban areas and Pinterest users are females between the ages of 25 and 34 with an annual household income over $100,000. The point here is that a 25-year old college student and a 72-year old retiree are likely choosing to engage with brands on different social media platforms and in different ways.
Identify channel specific short-term and long-term objectives.
The clarity and precision of your campaign determines the success of it. You want to identify what you are trying to achieve with each social media campaign. Are you trying to boost sales? Is the goal to increase visibility? Do you want more followers? Use short-term objectives as stepping-stones meet long-term goals so you can easily track progress.
Focus on strengthening customer engagement.
Social media engagement can be roughly broken down into four broad categories: a follower liking your content, a follower sharing your content, a fan commenting on your content, or a follower tagging you in content. The terminology for these varies a bit depending on the specific social media platforms. For example, when a follower shares your content, on Twitter it’s called a “re-tweet” and on Instagram it’s called a “re-gram.” The terminology may vary, but the concept behind it is similar and the engagement is absolutely crucial.
To strengthen your engagement, focus on what you can do for the follower, not what the follower can do you for. The trick is to create content that is compelling, relevant, and interesting. Many social media marketers find it useful to develop content that fits on one of the following three categories:
Useful
Think about how what you are sharing will be of use to your target consumer. Will it help them save time? Will it teach them something new? Will it help them save money? Whether it is a new quick and easy dinner recipe or a great coupon, consumers are always appreciative on content that they can use in their everyday lives.
Thought-provoking
Whether it’s a fascinating article about a trending news topic or a bit of wisdom, you can actually make consumers think they will appreciate it.
Humorous
The bottom line is that consumers like to laugh. However, do keep in mind that you will want to avoid any kind of crude or vulgar humor.
Precision is important here. You want to make sure that you are tailoring content to your target demographic. Different demographics have different needs and interests so you need to figure out who you are trying to target when developing a social media campaign.
Make sure your content echoes your brand’s voice and values.
Whether you are posting a picture on Instagram or tweeting an interesting article, all of the content that you post should clearly reflect your brand’s voice and values. One of the easiest ways to do this is to establish a clear and concise mission statement and guide all content creation around this mission statement. Don’t forget, it’s about what you can do for your follower and not what your follower can do for you. A great example of this is Starbucks. When it comes to Instagram and Facebook, Starbucks is a social media giant. It’s because of their simple consumer-driven mission statement, “To inspire and nurture the human spirit–one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”
Create a content Calendar.
One of the biggest social media blunders is sporadic posting. The key to enhancing social media visibility and facilitating consumer engagement is regular posting. If you abandon your social media accounts for weeks at a time, your consumers are much less likely to find you relevant.
Once you have a timeline down for a campaign and have identified major milestones, it is time to create a calendar. Identify what you will be posting, which networks you want to publish to and when you will be posting it. Always include specific days and times. Tools like MavSocial allow you to create a complete content calendar and then schedule your posts across multiple channels to post at the times you selected.
Don’t be afraid of hashtags!
When it comes to marketing, hashtags are a HUGE tool to reach customers. Some people don’t like to use them or think they’re scary but they are extremely helpful, especially when searching for new target markets. Hashtags open up the potential of allowing the consumer to influence the ad campaign. They are integral to the way we communicate online, and it’s important to know how to use them. Hashtags are searchable on most social media platforms and they act like keywords.
Be Specific
If you’re using a hashtag to join a conversation, make sure the hashtag is specific and relevant to your topic. If you’re talking about Obama’s health care plan, use #Obamacare instead of simply #Obama. A vague or generic hashtag like #health or #opinion isn’t effective either.
Keep it Simple
Hashtags, like links, look like spam if they are used too often. Three hashtags should be the maximum on Twitter and Facebook, but you can get away with more hashtags on Instagram and Vine. And don’t hashtag the same word twice (“#Gravity is a great movie! Everybody go see #Gravity”). It’s #redundant.
Give Context
A tweet that contains only hashtags is not only confusing — it’s boring. If your tweet simply reads, “#happy,” your followers will have no idea what you’re talking about. Similarly, if you tweet, “#BreakingBad is #awesome,” you’re not really adding much to the conversation.
Successful Social Media Campaigns
*I want you to take note that most of these campaigns below use hashtags! These companies are great examples of the way they can be used specifically for a campaign. To further explore examples of their campaigns, check out these companies on social media!*
Check out this powerful “Always #likeagirl” YouTube campaign!
The HRC created this insanely powerful campaign that exploded nationwide and turned the internet RED! This was such a powerful campaign that was done right!
Starbucks, as mentioned previously, is a social media GIANT. This is just one of their many successful social media campaigns that they launched.
Target took Instagram and Twitter in a cute and still powerful way
