How to run social media campaigns successfully
Frankly, it is not enough or wise to have social media accounts across various platforms without running campaigns. As a business, you must run campaigns to become visible online, strongly position your brand, sell your products, fight competition or engage your online customers.
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Since social media users spend billions of minutes every month on the news feeds of various platforms to read contents posted (or shared) by their friends, fans or followers, it is appropriate that businesses also take a valuable share of the time spent.
However, businesses cannot run campaigns successfully on social media without following meticulous and creative processes to optimise the benefits various social media platforms offer, in terms of their features and functionalities by way of design. Businesses must also set their campaign objectives in order to know how to achieve them. Some of the popular social media platforms to use are: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Ten steps to follow
Social media campaigns are not different from those run on other media channels such as radio, television, newspapers or websites. To run successful campaigns, businesses on social media must follow some steps to achieve their campaign objectives. These steps include:
Offer irresistible big benefits: The heart of any campaign is the benefits it offers the target audience. You cannot run campaigns without a big offering for the consumers you are targeting. To get the attention of your social media target-community, you must offer benefits so irresistible that they will participate in the campaign and also share with their community of friends, fans and followers. Big benefit offerings attract massive participation.
The benefit can be personal (to them) or collective to a cause they believe in. Your benefits can include price cuts, great discounts, latest gadgets, cars, houses, travel packages, gifts for family or friends, cash, etc. Whatever the benefits you are offering, they must be irresistibly valuable to them.
Know the preferences of target consumers: You cannot offer benefits that your target community do not need. You must know what they prefer by doing some interviews or informal interactions with some of them to have an idea of the big benefit to offer. The benefits can be some quantity of your products or length of subscription of your services. It can also be things that they will feel proud to own or dream to have. You must also know the social media platforms they usually spend their time on and prefer to engage with others on.
Choose the right social media platforms: Use the social media platforms that deliver the highest number of your target consumers and optimal level of engagement for the campaign. You will waste time and money if you do not choose the right platforms. Obviously, it is easier if you have social media presence already for your business. If you do not have one, you must create accounts on the platforms that have your target consumers.
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Develop creative contents: Content is the medium to communicate your benefits as a business on social media. Develop creative contents, either in text, images, audio or video, depending on the platforms you are using, to project and present your big benefits clearly and strongly. Your message can also instruct your target community to create contents related to the theme of your campaigns as a major qualification requirement. For example, you can instruct them to share their love stories during your Valentine’s Day promotions on their pages and tag your business page in the posts.
Implement strong engagement strategy: Your campaign will be a whisper (instead of a strong voice) if it does not have an engagement strategy embedded in it. You need the rapt attention of your target community, from the beginning to the end of the campaign. You can instruct them to create their own campaign-related contents. It increases campaign visibility within their network of friends and increases participation in the campaign.
Include community-building elements: Since social media is about building communities around common interests, the campaign must have elements of community-building. It is easier to get people to participate in a social media campaign with their community of friends. Let them instruct their friends to Like or Share their campaign entries as an endorsement or a criteria to select the winner. It makes your campaign go viral and increases the visibility of the campaign.
Select the best campaign team: You must have a team of people to manage, monitor and moderate your campaigns. They must be in charge of knowing how your target community is responding to the campaign on the respective social media platforms. They must answer questions, respond to queries and facilitate conversations around the campaign. Your team must also include the panel of judges who will select the various winners.
Have a budget for the campaign: It will cost money and time to run a social media campaign successfully. You need to have a budget for the prizes you will give, paying for the contents, boosting posts on some platforms, running online adverts, paying your social media team, buying devices and internet connectivity, and other resources you will need for the campaign.
Be transparent about your processes: You have to be transparent about your campaign processes: The breaking of the campaign, rules governing the campaign, selection criteria, duration of the campaign, stages of the campaign, declaration of winners, and the prizes (or benefits) for each position. You need to be trusted by your target community for them to participate and also recommend it to their peers.
Measure your returns: Every campaign must come with expected benefits to the business (the campaigner). With a clear set of objectives for your social media campaign, you can measure your returns. You must know if you have achieved your set objectives or expected results and whether there are returns on your engagement or investment.