HAVE A PLAN OF ATTACK FOR YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
Social media campaigns are a significant part of online business. From hashtag awareness to launching a new product, these campaigns take on a variety of forms.
This versatility makes social media campaigns simultaneously so effective, yet so scatter brained at the same time. The temptation is to dive right in, tweeting, Instagramming, and Facebook-ing.
But what I suggest today is to take a step back. Before you start your campaign, answer the five following questions to make sure you get the most out of your time:
THE “WHY?” – ATTACH IT TO YOUR BUSINESS
The very first question you need to answer is the reason for your social media campaign. The “why?” will dictate all the steps, and goals of your tweets, updates, hashtags, and content.
The easiest answer to this is to gain exposure, awareness, user engagement, and sales for your small business. This is all a part of digital marketing. But instead of focusing strictly on numbers (however important they are), think of your campaign as elevating the core values of your brand.
This makes the content you create for your campaign take on a longer life, and continue to add to your brand long for years to come.
WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS?
If not having a clearly defined “why” is the biggest reason for social media campaigns failing, then not marketing to a specific customer base is second on the list.
It’s easy to get caught up in the mentality that your tweets or content will reach all the hundreds of millions of people on social media. Don’t try to reach every customer. Instead, narrow down your customer base, and create messages that will engage them.
Take Taco Bell Snapchat campaigns. They are clearly trying to reach one specific demographic.
Find your demographic.
HOW WILL YOU DEFINE AND MEASURE SUCCESS?
There’s traditional metrics of success in the digital marketing field: page views, clicks, average time spent on page, Facebook views, user engagements, reshares, likes and many, many more.
And of course, the amount of sales and new customers – whether you are selling a product or a service – is a significant indicator of your campaign’s success.
Measuring and charting the progress of your brand’s marketing is not only important to determining the success of your campaign, but also tracking what worked and what didn’t work for future campaigns. In fact, these metrics also enable you to make decisions on the fly.
WHAT PLATFORM WITH YOU USE?
Go back to Taco Bell’s Snapchat example. Snapchat, as we’ve covered before, is a platform that appeals to a very specific user base: teens and millennials.
So if you’re selling website development services for small businesses, for example, then Snapchat is not the platform to focus your digital marketing efforts.
Each social media platform appeals to a specific user demographic. LinkedIn features an older, wealthier demographic when compared to Facebook and Twitter.
Find your demographic first, then pick the platform to reach them.
HOW WILL THE CAMPAIGN ELEVATE YOUR BRAND?
In addition to the quantitative metrics we listed above, the x-factors of social media campaigns can be qualitative. Sure, the campaign may have been responsible for increased sales – but what was the customer experience like with your website? If a product was defective, how did customer service respond to customer complaints?
The biggest key to a successful social media campaign is planning the campaign before it starts. Narrow down goals, customers, and platforms that fit your business. The more you define your goals, the most likely you are to reach them.
