A well-placed social media campaign can be your most powerful tool if you want your small business in Upstate New York to compete with the big boys. But, you might be wondering: “What is a social media campaign, and how in the world is that supposed to help me scale my brand?”
Well, young Padawan, give me 3 minutes to walk you through exactly what this is, how you can benefit from it, and how you can get started. Let’s go!
What is the definition of a social media campaign?
A social media campaign is a more carefully planned and executed marketing strategy that uses one or multiple social platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube have commonly been where this happens but there are many other social platforms that you can use.
Moreover, this is different from regular social media marketing – that, by the way, you should also be doing – because it reinforces your already established goals and brand identity.
A good example of this would be Apple’s latest #shotoniphone campaign. With all the new phones coming out, Apple used this campaign to bring light to the power of their phone’s cameras.
This, in turn, led to more social interactions and, ultimately, more sales. Heck, we even took part in this and made a coffee reel.
What are the goals of a social media campaign?
To be perfectly honest, it can be anything your brand needs.
Do you need more people to know about your product? Sure. Need more people on your email list for leads? No problem. Want free content from your customers? It has that power, too!
Regardless of what the goal is, they have to be SMART.
- Specific – Be as precise as you can with your goal. An example of a vague goal would be to simply “increase sales” whereas something specific would be to “increase sales by 100%.”
- Measurable – Have some metrics you can track – like followers, video views, and click-through rates, for example.
- Attainable – It’s okay to aim high but be realistic, too.
- Relevant – Don’t forget that these social media campaigns are merely tools for you to achieve bigger goals. So, make sure that whatever campaign you run fits into the overall picture.
- Time-bound – Give yourself a deadline. Goals without time limits are just ideas.
Broad examples of goals for social media campaigns:
- Promote engagement, where you want your audience to interact with your brand or talk about your product or service. This could be in the form of shares, comments, likes, or other similar metrics.
- Increase sales, where the ultimate result of your campaign is to make more money. These campaigns can either result in immediate sales or an increase in your number of leads.
- Customer service, where the underlying goal is to nurture your relationship with the customers you already have. This could be in the form of surveys, review requests, and others.
- Expand your reach, where you want to increase the number of people who know about your brand.
Best practices to follow for your campaigns
CTAs are crucial
With any type of content that you use for your campaign, make sure to tell your audience exactly what it is you want them to do. In the marketing industry, this is known as a call-to-action (or CTA).
For example, do you remember when Coke added names to their labels? That was their “Share A Coke” campaign. It was their CTA, too – and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were littered with pictures of Coca-Cola bottles. Needless to say, it was a massive success.
If you can replicate Coke’s triumphant campaign, kudos! But, really, you can start with something simple, such as asking your audience to sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your channel.
Incentivize their actions
Pairing your CTAs with some type of reward is a great way to urge your audience to do what you ask them to do. In fact, many marketers, including myself, don’t consider CTAs complete without some type of incentive.
Here are a few examples:
- A Youtube channel running a campaign to increase its subscriptions might incentivize the red button with some sort of giveaway.
- A tattoo business might give discounts if you bring a friend, use their hashtag, and share a photo of your tattoo.
- A business that sells cameras might run a photo competition as a campaign with the winner getting a huge gift card
Make sure your prizes are relevant
Your incentives need to be relevant to your business for continuity purposes.
If you’re running a pizza shop, it just doesn’t make sense for you to offer dog food as an incentive.
Use multiple social platforms
While certain campaigns are meant mainly for specific platforms, it also doesn’t hurt to run them on others.
For example, let’s say your audience mainly occupies Facebook so you focus your campaign there. That’s cool, but post your stuff on IG and Twitter, too.
Make sure your campaign fits your brand’s personality
This is true for ALL the marketing maneuvers you plan on doing – including social media campaigns.
Be true to what your brand represents and let its personality shine through to your audience. Use your color palette, use messaging that represents you, and use the same voice that all your other content. Be you.
A good example of this would be Dove’s Real Beauty campaign where they use social media to encourage women of all shapes, sizes, and colors to take a stand against unrealistic beauty standards.
Gilette had their version of this, too, where they encourage men to be better and veer from toxic masculinity.
Track, track, and track
It’s the only way to measure the success of your campaign.
If the metrics you’re tracking aren’t improving as much as expected, shift strategies.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, social media campaigns are targeted marketing strategies that are used to accomplish very specific goals.
Those goals can be anything that your brand needs but they need to be SMART. And, whatever you plan to do with your campaign, make sure to follow the best practices to maximize your results.
