10 Key Steps To Take Before Planning A Social Media Marketing Campaign
More than 50% of businesses say that social media has a positive influence on their sales and revenue. It helps them reach out to a lot of potential customers - even people who would have otherwise been unaware of the brand’s existence.
Social media marketing can help your business reach new heights - but only if done with proper planning and campaigning. The key to success here lies in creating campaigns that will spark engagement, growth, traffic and eventually drive sales.
Making a social media campaign successful requires intensive planning and a well-thought-of strategy. Here are 10 key steps to take before planning a social media marketing campaign -
1. Identify your purpose
A campaign without a clearly thought of goal is most likely to backfire. Setting the primary and secondary goals for your campaign should be the first step. There can be different purposes, such as whether you want to build brand awareness with more page likes, get more engagement with likes, comments and shares, generate leads or sell a product/service.
Source: Hootsuite
If aligned with the primary purpose, a secondary purpose can also be identified. For example, building brand awareness and getting engagement can work together. Similarly, lead generation and selling products can also be combined together.
2. Set goals for your purpose
Once the purpose has been set, setting measurable goals should be the next step. For example, if your main objective is to build a community, set metrics like the number of page likes you want to get per day, per week or throughout the entire campaign. If the goal is to increase engagement, set a goal for the percentage of your followers who will be liking, commenting or sharing your campaign posts.
Setting metrics that align with the goals you set for the business is important to get an insight into the performance of your content and the behaviour of the audience.
3. Choose the right social media platforms
“92% of marketers say that social media has helped increase exposure.”
Using social media to the fullest is important, but it is equally important to choose the right combination of social media channels for your campaign. It can be decided on your past experiences or the nature of your campaign. For example, Facebook has 2 billion + monthly active users and is suitable if you want to reach a large number of people. In case of lead generation, LinkedIn would be the better choice.
Source: Clutch
Combining the social platforms for cross promotions also needs to be done wisely. For instance, running a contest campaign on Facebook and LinkedIn is not a good idea as they have different personalities. However, doing the same jointly on Facebook and Instagram can yield positive results.
4. Create a specific landing page for the campaign
If your campaign purpose is lead generation and you want to drive traffic for a particular reason for the audience to take a specific action - a landing page is a must. It makes it easier for users to go to the correct place right away. Targeting users for a specific reason and redirecting them to the homepage can prove to be confusing as they would not know what to do next or where to go from there.
A simple landing page with easy navigation will greatly help to increase the conversion rates. Adding a relevant video can further increase conversion rates by 86%.
5. Maintain a consistent style
If you want your audience to be familiarized with your campaign, you have to build a consistent style and design. This same style should be used on all social media platforms to improve brand recognition and build the trust of your followers. Moreover, in order to integrate your brand personality in the campaign, keep the colours and the logo placement fixed and maintain the same tone (be it casual, formal, polite or happy).
Source: Facebook
Other factors like post formats and audience interactions should also match to enhance brand recall.
6. Create a unique hashtag
Hashtags can be really powerful, especially when it comes to Twitter and Instagram. Not only it helps drive engagement, but it also assists in tracking your campaign results. Create a unique hashtag for your campaign that will also resonate with your brand to keep a track of user-generated content and engagement - even if people do not mention your brand in their posts.
Ensure that your campaign hashtags are not too common and it should also not replace your general brand hashtag. You can also use them both in your posts.
Source: Facebook
7. Set a budget
“Do you know that a post's average organic reach is only around 6.4% of your page's total likes?”
Businesses always have to face tough competition on social media. In order to stay ahead of the competition and drive conversations, paid advertising is equally important. Strategizing to balance your organic and paid reach is also necessary as you wouldn’t want to spend more than what you’re gaining.
You can budget your spending on mobile ads, display and retargeting ads, social platforms and also lead generation. You can experiment and see what kind of ads perform well and what can boost your social media campaign.
8. Maintain a content calendar
Your campaign can be a mix of several types of posts like static posts, GIFs, infographics, videos or even curated content. In order to keep everything in track, it is better to plan all your content and create a calendar so that you’re aware of what you’re publishing and when.
Apart from your posts, other factors like any similar campaign by your competitors, the hashtags of your campaigns or the important keyword to use should also be recorded for your convenience.
9. Team up with influencers to increase reach
“89% of marketers say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels.”
Social media influencers are greatly trusted by online consumers, as they work as an authoritative and experienced voice to customers. Apart from that, they also have a loyal follower base that can help you reach several new customers.
Source: Instagram
Before launching your campaign, you can create a list of relevant social media influencers who will help in making your campaign viral, and spread the word. The biggest advantage here is the fact that getting support from even one influencer can help you connect to thousands of new audience.
10. Always measure results
Once launched, measuring the results is an integral part that will provide a clear understanding of the impact of your campaign. An analysis will give a clear picture of the areas that were a success and the ones that require improvement.
There are analytic tools that help you measure results in real-time so that you can make the necessary changes on the ongoing campaign. For example, you can re-boost the well-performing posts or the ones that have the best ROI. Make sure to check into analytics at least once on a regular basis to make the most out of your campaign.
Remember is that every post, reaction, comment or share on your social media campaigns have the purpose. The better the strategy, the more effective will be the execution. Things change rapidly in the digital sphere, and so you have to keep adjusting your strategies to be on top of the game.