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It’s 2023, so at this point, you know that your business needs a social media strategy. It’s necessary for all modern businesses, ranging from small mom-and-pop stores to e-commerce giants and enterprise-level organizations.
But all too often, business owners launch their social media presence without any organized plan backing it. If you post on your social media pages without a targeted campaign, you’re just wasting precious time and money. A social media strategy must be precise, targeted, tracked, and backed by technology.
It’s one thing to hear those words and even to recognize them. It’s another altogether to actually know what they mean.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of social media campaign creation, breaking down the process step by step to help you achieve greater visibility and a higher level of success.
Ready to take your social media campaigns to the next level? Let’s start with the basics.
What is a social media campaign?
A social media campaign – or social media strategy – is an organized plan for creating and rolling out your business content on social media platforms.
It also details several vital factors that are essential to your social media success, like:
- Your social media channels
- The duties of your social media team
- The kinds of content you’re going to create
- A social media content calendar
- Your goals
- Audience demographic information
- And much more
To keep track of campaign progress and hold employees accountable for individual tasks, compile this information into a central file. This essentially creates a roadmap for success which you can reference throughout the process.
What’s more, a solid and detailed social media campaign can help you determine where you went right or wrong while reviewing your progress. You can track what you’ve done and how many conversions these actions brought before adjusting your campaign accordingly.
Without a social media campaign, you’re essentially flying blind.
Why is social media so important for modern businesses?
Social media has evolved into a virtual space where the entire world can come together. It has made us more connected than ever, for better or for worse.
So much information passes through social media, and it has grown in ways that no one could have predicted more than a decade ago.
For example, in social media’s early days, the idea of talking about issues like anxiety treatment on social media was unheard of. Talking about anxiety and mental health, in general, was taboo for a long time.
Brands such as Hims & Hers have made conscious efforts to remove this taboo using the framework of their own marketing campaigns to contribute to raising people’s awareness. The spread of quality and informative content builds trust and respect for the brand among consumers.
The brand has a positive goal and message, but without a social media campaign backing this venture, it would have fallen flat on its face. Using the power of social media, Hims & Hers could meet its audience where they already were and provide them with quality, engaging, and educational content. This both increased brand awareness and improved the lives of its audience.
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How can you create an effective social media campaign for your business?
Identify your audience
Before you can decide how best to engage your audience on social media, you must first understand who these people are and what they want to see.
Your audience may be so broad that they have different pain points and uses for your products or services. When this happens, it’s important to separate your audience into segments so that you can launch different campaigns for each.
Via Mobile Monkey
For example, a website called Young and the Invested teaches young people how to invest and manage their money. If this company were to launch a social media campaign, it would need to separate the groups within its target audience. After all, “young people” is a very broad demographic.
Content for high schoolers using TikTok would be different than for college students using Instagram.
The company’s content would vary, appealing to vastly different needs on completely different platforms. The overall social media strategy must address each of these audiences.
You should gather a wealth of information on your audience, including their average:
- Age
- Gender
- Geographic location
- Preferred social platforms
- Preferred medium
- Likes
- Dislikes
- Profession
- Income
- And much more!
You may use various tools, like Instagram Analytics, to help you better understand your audience. You can convey the right message to them and use your resources more effectively if you’re aware of who they are and how they engage with social media.
Identify your goals
If you want a successful social media campaign, you must first decide what success looks like. The goal of any business is to make money, but your social media strategy doesn’t have to lead directly to sales.
Instead, you might be trying to generate more views and spread brand awareness. Perhaps you’re trying to get subscribers to a YouTube channel or a podcast. You could even be trying to gather lead information by offering a free webinar.
While these actions don’t translate to immediate dollars and cents, they can still contribute toward your ultimate profit goal. That’s why it’s essential to have these goals clearly defined at the beginning of your campaign. You’re setting the benchmark for your success and establishing how to measure the results of your social media campaign.
Create fresh content
The heart of every social media campaign is the content you produce. When producing your content, you’ll have to keep both audience information and your own goals in mind. What does your audience want to see? How can producing this content appeal to them and help propel them toward your goals? Is this content they can access from other places? If so, how are you different?
Via William Joseph
For example, expect employment websites to talk about what happens if you fail a pre-employment drug test and how to effectively prepare for an interview. These are topics that appeal to a segment of their audience, and they answer vital information that these consumers sorely need.
By providing this information on social media, employment companies establish themselves as a credible source for all matters regarding employment.
But not all content is text-based articles. Visual content goes a long way on social platforms.
The year 2022 clearly showed us that the visual side is important in social media, and it will only receive more attention in 2023. Brands for whom visual beauty and aesthetics are crucial will try to further refine the visual side of content, including photo and video quality.
Educate the audience
Educational content is something that audiences find useful. You can provide a valuable service while showing off your industry knowledge and expertise by creating content meant to inform rather than sell.
This content is shareable, meaning that your prospective customers might share your posts on their platforms, exposing you to an even larger audience.
Educational content can appear in the form of:
- Video tutorials
- Listicles
- Infographics
- Interviews
- And more!
Pick your social media channels carefully
While you need a social media presence, you don’t need to be present on every social media platform. If you cast too wide a net, you’ll end up wasting valuable resources like time and money.
Your selection of social media platforms should be precise and based on the information you’ve gathered about the audience. For example, TikTok is a massive platform with Gen Z users, but it doesn’t resonate nearly as well with baby boomers.
So, if you’re running a campaign aimed at an older crowd, skip TikTok, as it won’t get your content in front of the right people.
Your choice of platform also boils down to the type of content you want to make. For example, Instagram is a primarily visual platform with images and short videos. If you’re looking to create a lot of text-based content, you might want to steer clear of this platform and focus your efforts on Facebook instead.
TikTok is for short-form videos, so infographics won’t do you any good. You’d be better off choosing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Perform competitor analysis
The effectiveness of social media isn’t some big secret. Every one of your competitors knows about it, and they’re undoubtedly on the same platforms you’re looking at.
With that in mind, take a look at what they’re posting. Dive deep into their content and see what’s working for them and what isn’t. Scroll through their posts and look at their likes, comments, and shares. Are people resonating with specific content? What hashtags are they using?
Your competitors are trying to appeal to the same audience as you, so take advantage of their social media presence to see see what works and what doesn’t.
Understand your brand voice
What does your brand sound like? Are you formal and educational in tone or more laid back and approachable? You can’t present an inconsistent tone on your social media profiles, even if many team members contribute to your posts.
Via Uscreen
You need a clear, unique brand voice that appeals to your target audience.
For example, a more formal and intellectual approach might be appropriate if you’re offering medical advice. But if you’re marketing a line of fun outerwear for young adults, you can be more casual and use some slang that would appeal to them. However, avoid overusing or misusing terms that can make your brand seem out of touch.
Since fast fashion has earned a negative reputation in 2022, fashion brands will try to avoid the brand names involved and topic overall. This avoidance holds true whether the company sells linen suits or underwear.
You’ll also need to consider the audience’s level of expertise when creating your brand voice. Are they newbies to your industry, or are they experienced veterans with a wealth of knowledge?
If they’re completely new to your business and industry, throwing a ton of jargon at them will be confusing and off-putting. But if you’re speaking to established professionals, explaining base-level terms would be a waste of their time and maybe even insulting.
Invest in automation platforms
Running a social media campaign comes with many recurring menial tasks that you can’t ignore. But they also shouldn’t take up an excessive amount of time for your team. That’s why you should look into automation tools that can provide various services using AI systems.
You can use different tools to keep track of your data and campaign results automatically. Tracking data is essential because analyzing this data will help you create better campaigns in the future. For example, Digits offers AI-powered tools like a report creator that will build reports more efficiently and easily.
Then you have social media scheduling services like Hootsuite, which can schedule your posts to go up on various platforms at specific high-traffic times.
Investing in new technology and content marketing is crucial to building effective social media campaigns.
The real estate industry is a clear example of how using new tech tools to boost their content strategy is a game changer. Many realtors still rely on real estate direct mail marketing, a tried and true method of marketing in the industry. However, websites for realtors have been evolving thanks to this — they now offer virtual tours of the properties they sell, which has significantly increased their audience engagement.
On social media platforms, real estate agents can use automated systems like chatbots to engage potential clients and answer entry-level questions.
Promote your channels
There’s no point in working on these social media channels if no one can find them. That’s why you need to promote and push your channels wherever possible, including on your website, in your email signature, on your business cards, and more.
For example, if you’re a CRNA and want to promote your blog website to a highly targeted medical audience, you should include buttons for all your social accounts on your website. The prime real estate on your home page, footer, and About and Communications pages are perfect for social media icons.
If you have an email list, include a link to your social media channels in any emails or newsletters you send. You can include social media buttons in the automatic footer of each email.
Engage the audience
One essential element of a successful social media strategy is connecting with your audience and showing them you care.
Showing the behind-the-scenes or sharing personal aspects of life at your company can be a great way to break the barrier between your brand and the users. You can take inspiration from this Instagram post by Tailor Brands, which shows candid pictures of the team working to create the best content possible.
View this post on Instagram
When potential customers comment, be sure you’re quick to respond. Answer any questions and reward their attention with some of your own. A quick response will encourage others to comment until you’ve developed a complete community around your brand.
Encourage sharing
One of the best ways to ensure that as many people view your content as possible is to encourage your already loyal followers to share your posts. You can also incentivize this process by running contests, giveaways, and promotions around referrals.
For example, if you own an insurance business that offers landlord insurance or condo association insurance, try doubling the rewards for your referrers so they’ll be more enthusiastic about telling more people about your brand.
You can extend the campaign to new customers by giving them discounts if they can provide an adequate referral. A good referral and social campaign program can help you stand out if you play your cards right.
Consider working with influencers
Many businesses are including social media influencers as valuable components of their social media campaigns. These popular social users can promote your products and services to their sizable audiences in exchange for commissions or an upfront payment. This practice led to the birth of influencer marketing.
Some smaller micro-influencers might even promote you for free products, but the general practice for any level of influencer is monetary compensation. These creators may be influencing full-time or using it as a primary income source. You can give them a commission using a custom trackable promo code or just pay upfront for their services.
Make sure that the influencers you choose have a following that overlaps with your target audience. You can also run special holiday influencer campaigns to coincide with particular times of the year.
Conclusion
Social media is incredibly important for businesses in 2023, but without a detailed and targeted social media campaign in place, these platforms aren’t going to do you much good.
Use the information above to create a strong and effective social media strategy that will allow you to make the most of your social presence, increasing brand awareness and generating more conversions for years to come.
About the Author
Joanne is a PR Specialist at Codeless, a digital brand mention agency. Besides her passion for digital PR and management, her hobbies revolve around Japanese culture, art, and music.
