How To Create a Social Media Campaign in Nine Easy Steps

Social Media is the most actively evolving trend in world history. The number of its users has almost grown equal to the number of internet users now. We don’t have to tell you how prominent it has become now, but the infographics below clearly state that around half of the people on this planet are using Social Media!

With such extensive popularity, these channels grant incredible marketing opportunities for businesses like you. If you are not making the best of these opportunities already, you will either have to choose to start using them right now or lose in the long run.

However, building the right campaigns to promote your business on Social Media isn’t an easy task. But there’s no need to worry, here’s a NINE-step approach to help you create, and execute a compelling Social Media campaign.

STEP 1: Define Your Social Media Campaign Goals

Are you promoting a new product or event? Are you working on a social giving campaign? Are you offering an e-book or product download? Whatever the campaign is for, understanding the end goal is the first thing you need to do.

Define your goals based on what action you want users to take when they view your post. While you do that, make sure to use the S.M.A.R.T framework, where each of your goals are:

?Specific

?Measurable

?Attainable

?Relevant and

?Time-bound

Here are some examples of focussed campaign goals:

Keep in mind that the types of content you will use in your campaign as we advance will vary based on these goals. For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website, the Call To Action (CTA) will be entirely different from just trying to initiate conversation among your target people. So, choose the goals very carefully.

STEP 2: Identify The Right Social Media Channels

Now that you have your goals defined. The next thing is to identify the right platforms you can use to start running your campaign. Some of the most popular Social Media channels for running campaigns are:

• Facebook and Facebook Live
• Instagram, Instagram Live, Instagram Stories, and IGTV
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Twitter and
• LinkedIn

You might already have a sense of which Social Media platforms will help you reach your target customer base and attain your goals. If yes, then turn to those.

However, if you need assistance with promoting your business through different channels, feel free to get in touch with our Social Media experts.

STEP 3: Plan Your Social Media Campaign Strategies

Once you have decided on the channels, start to create an outline of the content you want to use for your campaign. This means not just deciding that your campaign will include posts, or videos but also determining the types of posts or videos, and the supporting visuals you are going to have in the campaign.

A few examples of campaign strategies recommended by our Social Media Marketing team are given below:

• Building your newsletter audience by hosting giveaways that collect email addresses.
• Growing your Social Media followers with online contests.
• Gaining user feedback through Instagram Stories polls.
• Generating revenue by promoting your discounts and offers.

Remember, whatever content you use to run your campaign should tie back to your end goals, so as to get the best out of your marketings.

STEP 4: Choose the Metrics You Want To Monitor

One of the things we love about Social Media campaigns is that pretty much everything is measurable. Based on the chosen goals and Social Media platforms, pick the metrics that make sense. For example, if your campaign is done through Facebook with an aim to increase customer engagement, then metrics such as the number of likes, shares and comments are great to be evaluated. Now if you are aiming to enhance your newsletter subscriber base, the metric to consider is probably the number of new subscribers you are able to gain through your campaign.

Try using analytics tools that are specifically designed to monitor the metrics. Most of the Social Media platforms have inbuilt insights tracking features that you can utilise to get real-time updates about your campaigns.

STEP 5: Create a Social Media Content Calendar

A content calendar will serve as a roadmap for your campaign journey. Make a calendar and write in all the details about each day of the campaign. This will enable you to have a clear idea of how to proceed.

Make sure your content calendar has the following details:

• Deadlines for creating the content to feature during your Social Media campaign
• When and where are you planning to post the content
• Other Miscellaneous notes and details

With a solid schedule like this in hand, taking actions would always be as easy as 1-2-3!

STEP 6: Design Your Marketing Assets

Once your plans are in place, let’s move on to the most exciting part of creating a campaign – designing! The purpose of this step is to design compelling marketing assets and content that are capable of making an impact. Apart from the text-centric Twitter, the only way to promote your business through any other Social Media platform is with the help of spectacular visuals.

Even though there are a lot of designing tools that will let you create digital content such as campaign banners, logos, posts, videos, and more, the best way to get pro-level engaging marketing assets is to seek assistance from an experienced Social Media Marketing agency. At Parel Creative, we have a specialised team of designers, copywriters, and Social Media marketing experts, who can help you with crafting and managing Social Media campaigns as per your requirements.

STEP 7: Schedule Your Content

Management can sometimes become a daunting job, especially if you are launching a big campaign. However, online Social Media management tools such as ‘Hootsuite‘ can help you manage your campaigns far better.

This will help you schedule your posts and publish them at specific dates and times without needing any manual interventions. After uploading your content and scheduling the publishing dates, you can just sit back, relax, eat some candies, and watch your campaign flourish!

STEP 8: Manage Your Campaign

So now, it’s time to put aside the candies for a bit longer?, because a challenging part of Social Media campaign is managing it effectively as it goes.

If your campaign is working as you wish, you should now focus more on engaging with customers, answering their questions, replying to their comments, and more. But if you are not getting the required response to your current plan, it might be due to the poor selection of platforms, boring content, wrong targeting of the audience, and so on. So, this is the right time to identify such issues and adjust your strategies for better results.

STEP 9: Analyze The Results

Now that you are done with half part of your Social Media campaigns. The other half is the insight you will gather from running this campaign.

Once your campaign is over, make sure you evaluate and examine what worked, what didn’t, and what more you should do next time. This will definitely help you with your upcoming Social Media campaign and those that will follow!

Conclusion

You now have an overview of the NINE steps for creating a Social Media campaign. Well, that was a lot!

According to the data from Wikipedia, there are around 200 Social Media sites now – of course, that number will continue to grow.

So, it’s very important that you establish a Social Media presence on at least a few of them. Just figure out where most of your target audience is and run effective campaigns on that platform.

Need assistance with this? Get in touch with our Social Media experts now!