Social media campaigns are a great way to breathe new life into your brand accounts. They are a chance for you to branch out creatively and potentially do something new and exciting with your business’s social media!

Campaigns don’t have to involve expensive elements such as professional video and graphics or celebrity spokesmen like many national brands use. In fact, your campaign can be as simple as incorporating a new hashtag into your posts!

The important thing to remember when beginning a new campaign is this: do your research! Research is KEY to all five of the following campaign strategy components.

Goals and Objectives

What do you want to accomplish with this campaign? Look at some historical data for your brand. Is there a product or service that you want to increase awareness of? Is there a certain product that gains more traction during a certain time of year, for example, do you want to focus your spring marketing efforts on a product that, historically, more customers purchase during April and May?

Once you identify your goals and objectives for your campaign, whether it be building brand awareness or increasing website traffic, you will be able to align the rest of the components in this blog towards that goal.

PRO TIP: Make your goals S.M.A.R.T. for success! Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based goals will ensure that your campaign is truly a win!

Buyer Persona

Now that you know what you want to do, it is time to think about who you want to target your campaign to. This will be your campaign’s buyer persona.

If your goal is to generate more leads for a specific service that you offer, take a look at your current data about that buyer. By doing your research on your current buyer, or who you want that buyer to be, you’ll find out what social media platforms they are using most, what their pain points are, what problems you can solve for them, and so much more.

Use this information to shape your campaign. For example, if your buyer persona is stay-at-home mothers with children under 5 who are looking for the right preschool to send their child to, you’ll want to create a campaign that appeals to these moms. Use a template like this one to fully flesh out who your campaign’s target audience is.

Budget

You really can’t ignore social media advertising, especially for a campaign.

Because of Facebook’s latest algorithm change, it is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to organically reach their audience on the platform. With a dedicated ad budget, you’ll be able to ensure that your campaign content reaches who you want it to.

For more about Facebook advertising and how to use it, check out these blogs we’ve published recently:

• An Introduction to Facebook Custom Audiences
• Become Ad Savvy by A/B Testing Your Facebook Ads
• The Instagram Alternatives to Facebook’s Ad Saturation

Content

Now it’s time to think about what kind of content you want to produce for your campaign. The best campaigns will incorporate a mix of content to maximize reach.

Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media, so make sure your posts include pictures, graphics, or videos. Organic photos and videos are by far going to outperform other types of posts, so be sure to grab your phone and document your products and services in informal settings as much as possible!

The content you create for your campaign should resonate with your target audience, so don’t be afraid of evoking awe, excitement, or amusement with your content. It’s okay to be emotional!

Because you are trying to sell a product or service that will essentially solve a problem for your buyer persona, make sure you are also sharing content that is informational and useful. Showing your target audience how you will help them is the most valuable kind of content you can create.

Oh, and don’t forget to look at hashtags! They are helpful for organizing your campaign’s content – when you choose one that is unique to your campaign – and can also help people find your content! Do your research on hashtags before choosing ones to use for your campaign!

Analytics

Keep track of your content and platform analytics before, during, and after your campaign to gauge how well your campaign performs. The information you gather from native platform analytics will not only help you create the perfect buyer persona and craft content that will resonate with your audience, but it will also serve to inform future campaigns that you create.

Now, you’re ready to go out and create the best social media campaign ever! Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and get creative. And, if you’re short on time, let our experienced team of social media managers do the heavy lifting for you!