What is a social media campaign?
“Social media marketing campaigns are advertising initiatives that appear on social media networks and/or platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, blogs, or other media channels that exist in the digital space. Social media marketing campaign content can be: (1) owned media, (2) earned media, and (3) paid media.” (MediaKix, 2016)
What are the components of a social media campaign?
How do carry out a social media campaign?
1. Make a plan
a. Identify the reason(s) for creating a social media campaign
i. Increase brand awareness
ii. Drive more website traffic
iii. Improve customer relationships
iv. Specific need, services, or product
2. Set clear goals
a. Use the S.M.A.R.T. technique for goal creation
i. Example: To raise $500 for a non-profit emergency fund for homeless high school students using Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat targeting high school students for the next 30-days
3. Select most effective platforms
a. Identify the social network platforms for optimizing the social media campaign
i. This could be all the social network platforms your brand is on, or just some of them
4. Select key metrics
a. Select specific metrics for measuring the campaign’s success and take a base measurement before
i. Take more measurements during the campaign to find out if adjustments to the campaign are needed
ii. Take a final measurement at the end of the campaign to figure out the success of the campaign
iii. Example: Increase brand awareness by 1,000 new Twitter followers in the next 60-days
1. The key metric would be how many followers the brand has on Twitter before and after the campaign
5. Design graphics, hashtags, short URLs and content specific for each social network platform
a. This steps is crucial in the success of the social media campaign for it is the content that tells the story.
i. Use proper graphics that are sized correctly for each social network platform and tell the campaign story (Try Canva.com for free)
ii. Register specific hashtags using Twubs.com (use the free version) to brand the campaign
iii. If the campaign is pointing visitors to a website then use a URL Shortening Tool (Try Bitly.com for free)
iv. Write content that tells the brand campaign story --- make sure there are no spelling errors in the content (Try Hemingwayapp.com for free)
6. Create a posting calendar (sometimes referred to as an editorial calendar)
a. Select the day, time, frequency and social network for posting the campaign content (Try Google Calendar for free)