The monthly active social media users are staggering… over two billion on Facebook, one billion on Instagram, and 365 million on Twitter worldwide (source: statista.com). With social media advertising reaching audiences in a low-cost, impactful, and effective way, it’s no wonder why social media campaigns have become a crucial marketing strategy for businesses.

The most common reasons businesses create social media campaigns is to promote:

  • Key dates (holidays)
  • Major milestones
  • New partnerships
  • Important news
  • User-generated content promotions
  • Contests/give-aways

Using social media will allow you to reach your target audience, engage with current and potential customers, create brand loyalty, increase website traffic, and drive sales….

  • Engage with your audience to create brand loyalty. Use trending and relevant hashtags and incentivise social media users to share your content.
  • Boost website traffic. Not only should your bio have a link to your website, but in posts too.
  • Drive sales. Get people excited about a new product launch by posting snippets and previews and encouraging people to share, use images, and get the word out.

When creating a social media marketing campaign, you should create SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) goals and align KPIs to each goal. This will help you when you’re at the analysis stage (end of campaign – but should be monitored during) and can provide feedback on what has been effective, what should be ditched in your next campaign, and what has room for improvement.

Crafting your strategy will be next in your to-do list – although your strategy will vary on your sector, the social media channels you use/your target market uses, and the campaign type, the following tips could help you transform your campaign…

  1. Monitor and analyse your competitors. Have a competitor that you think is successful in the way they handle their social media accounts? Then take note of what they do, get inspiration, and try to enhance their technique in your own strategy.
  2. Craft your strategy around your target audience. Your top priority should be “will this reach my target audience? Will they engage with the content? Will they share?”. Once you have an idea of what your target audience likes, you can then decide what content type best suits your (potential) customers: photos, graphics, text, GIFs, videos, memes…
  3. Promote your content. A great way to gain traction is by spreading one message across all of your chosen platforms. That way, your target market will see the same message over and over again which makes it more likely to stick. However, make sure to balance your promotional and non-promotional content to avoid looking like you are “hard-selling/pressuring” customers.
  4. Be engaging. Regularly engage with your target audience and make sure to make your content unique and consistent so that your target audience recognise your brand before even reading your posts. Another way to do this is by creating a unique hashtag for your company.
  5. Be efficient – schedule posts. Using scheduling and automation programs enables you to focus on other aspects of your marketing campaign. Many scheduling tools also come with analytical tools so you can also see how well your posts are doing. However, you must also post in real-time to interact with your audience.
  6. Live stream. Recent reports have predicted that by 2021, live streaming is expected to become more than a $70 billion (£54.4bn) industry (source: neilpatel.com). Live streaming creates a unique and engaging experience and is a great way to update followers on news as it happens

Social media campaigns give your business the potential to directly reach and engage with a significant audience in a cost-effective way. To find out more, get in touch!