Establishing tactics for a successful social media campaign

When thinking about social media, the average person will think about their favorite dog influencer on Instagram, their favorite cooking profile on TikTok or their go-to travel page on YouTube. Because of the way social media has evolved over the last decade, it’s not out of the ordinary to believe it’s anything otherwise. But for those who live in the worlds of marketing or communication, social media can be a vital tool for the success of a brand.

Nowadays, marketing and communications departments are teaming up with social media managers to create plans that reinforce not only short-term and long-term goals, but also allows teams to track and measure their efforts by way of a coordinated marketing plan. These strategic blueprints are known as social media campaigns.

According to an article by e-commerce platform BigCommerce, a social media campaign should focus on a singular business goal that must be measurable. Whether the content is on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, common goals include getting feedback from users, building email marketing lists, increasing web traffic, improving overall brand engagement or driving direct sales.

Before jumping into a campaign, the marketing team should first establish a baseline measure of the targeted metric to ensure the team is able to track changes and performance throughout the campaign. A simple way to shape these goals is by determining the target audience and brand message. Demographics also play a key factor in the success of a social media campaign, so it is crucial to figure out the audience and use the platform that is best-suited for that specific target audience.

NOW

A few weeks ago, I set out on creating a bike safety awareness campaign by way of a video series, podcast and a social media campaign, which means there are several tasks I need to tackle these next two weeks in order to complete the entire project by week seven. My goal this week was to address the social media campaign portion of the project to ensure my goals were defined and I had a definitive timeline for the campaign.

Before starting or creating anything, I sat down and wrote down all the topics I wanted this project to touch on. This meant crafting the strategy I wanted to accomplish and answering questions such as:

What is the purpose of this plan?
Who is my target audience?
What is the potential reach of this campaign?
How is this campaign being marketed?
How do I foresee the engagement rate?
What is the time frame?

A helpful tip I learned in an article on SocialChamp suggested that while crafting a strategy was important, being informative and staying true to your social media voice were also extremely important to keep in mind to ensure the campaign is genuine and engaging until the end.

After establishing my strategy, I then spent nearly 10 hours creating more than 15 graphics that not only answered my questions, but also offered several opportunities for engagement from my target audience.

Because integrating social media accounts to determine who is seeing the content, how they’re responding and whether the campaign is getting anywhere is also vital to campaigns, I began scheduling all the posts on the social media management platform Hootsuite. The posts will span a month and will consist of the social media graphics and the links to my podcast and video series that will be completed in the next two weeks.

What I learned from creating more than a dozen posts for a single campaign was how time consuming it would be, especially because they each involved an incredible amount of data, statistics and safety tips for both cyclists and motorists. I needed to be sure what I was sharing was accurate because it could be the difference between life and death if the information was false or inaccurate and a cyclist or motorist took it as fact.

My goal with each graphic was to create an educational post that will either surprise users or inform them of something that could help them or someone they know.

SOON

Once the content is posted, I will be sure to engage with the audience regularly by replying to comments and responding to any questions they may have. Hubspot suggests doing this to show the audience how important they are to the big picture in addition to keeping them invested in the long run.

Another measure I will take as I wrap up all the posts on Hootsuite is including hashtags to generate stronger SEO results. For the purpose of my campaign, I will use the hashtags #SharetheRoad, #BikeSafety and #CyclingLife.

In order to know how well my campaign did in the end, I will use analytics from Hootsuite, as well as the organic analytics from each respective platform to determine which posts worked and where there are opportunities for growth. Whether or not I hit 100 percent on every goal, what I’ll learn from the analytics will help me tremendously moving forward.