How to design a successful social media campaign

Many years ago, companies used newspapers, flyers, brochures, radios to reach out customers which still remains an effective source for advertising – but they didn’t allow you to measure performance. Such source will no doubt spread out your voice to customers, but it becomes important for you to measure – what amount of traffic is diverted through each source? Which is the most potential source? Which is the least one? Knowing such metrics you can easily save money by investing in the correct source as well as time that you blindly invest on the ones that brings in traffic equivalent to negligible.

However, with the advent of the Internet – companies were able to track social media campaigns and metrics were measured accurately – but there was a gap of communication. Using Internet you could measure your traffic, but the reasons for their bounce rates could only be guessed.

There was no dedicated platform where companies could communicate with their customers, hence it was difficult to determine the returns on investment. Today, there are many social media platforms that allow you to communicate with customers on-the-go using the Internet. These platforms helps you to target relevant customers as well as receive feedbacks from customers about your advertising campaigns (including offline) to make the best returns on investments.

Adding social media in your advertising strategy is one thing, but designing  and managing the campaign is another issue. If you are one of them who is willing to start a social media campaign, below are some tips to design a successful one.

1 – Determine your goals

Simply having a presence on social media platforms and uploading few images and videos without planning will not result to an effective campaign. Instead create micro-goals that are relevant, measurable, easy-to-achieve, and time-bound. Running a social media campaign with an aim just to invite traffic may prove to be less effective, instead creating a micro-goal determining  target (for instance – to improve 10% traffic in a month) will be more effective. Similarly, determine a micro-goal for increasing engagement level for each of the social media platforms you are using, as well as create a content strategy for each source. Determining your goals, you can easily track progress and evaluate success over time.

2 – Target the correct platform

There are multiple social media platforms that will help you reach out your voice, as well as allow you to communicate with the customers. But, that doesn’t mean you select the same platform (for instance Facebook or LinkedIn) just because everyone is using it. What works for others may not work for you. So, ensure that you first know your target audience and identify (more explanation given in point number 4) the platform where they are gathering. This way you can make data-driven decisions to target the correct platform, as well as offer the type of content to make the most out of the campaign.

3 – Implement a strategy

Once you are clear with your goal and the platform you wish to conduct your social media campaign, you’ll need to lay out a plan of action to make the best out of your campaigns. Simply sharing content about the price and quality of your product will not churn results that you are expecting, instead bringing out content that your audience can relate to – will be an effective way to advertise your brand. Implement a strategy, including how often you’ll post the content in a day or in a week, and the type of content you will wish to roll out. The best way to keep your audience engaged with your content and brand, is by sharing fun videos (behind the scenes of making a product), success stories, or even the culture of your company.

4 – Monitor crucial metrics

Adopting tools to monitor crucial metrics becomes very important. It will allow you to track performance as well as identify the weakness and strengths of your social media campaigns. “Google Analytics” is one the most preferred analytic tool that will help you monitor where your traffic is coming from, and did they engage with your content or did they leave immediately. Also, this tool will help you set up monetary and time-bound goals as well as allow you to measure their results. Using Google Analytics you can also access it’s “Advanced Segments” to segment your social media traffic and see how those visitors behave on your site. Hence, monitoring crucial metrics will help you identify those sources that can bring most value to your company.

5 – Adopt social media solution          

Adopting a team of expert and a day-to day plan is important for designing a successful social media campaign. More and more business owners begin social media campaigns in-house, but later realize that it becomes more confusing and time-taking to switch between multiple social media platforms and manage them individually. Adopting a social media solution like “Hootsuite” will link all your social media platforms on one dashboard from where you can view and manage them in real-time. This way you avoid the hassle of logging into different account and eliminate the risk of missing out on an important social media account that brings the most traffic for your business.

Another great source – Buffer will not only help you link multiple social media accounts in one place, but also allows you to add future post to the queue – while Buffer will publish them to your social media account at the correct time.

In summary

A successful social media campaign cannot be designed in a day, it needs a team of experts, careful planning and execution. Keeping in mind the above tips and automating your social media campaigns will help you increase accuracy, as well as save time and cost – when done manually.