5 Steps to Create a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign

There’s no doubt that social media plays a huge role in your marketing strategy. Especially if you’re looking to reach a wide, new audience. Whether your launching your business or a new product, a social media campaign can help guide you and your team to success.

If you haven’t created a campaign or are looking for ways to improve, these steps will help you.

What is a Social Media Marketing Campaign?

Before diving into the key steps to the creation of a stellar social media campaign, it is important to understand what it actually is. Although strategic, a campaign is not to be confused with a content strategy. Think of a campaign as a part of your strategy.

A social media campaign is a more specific strategy that is typically used to promote a product or service. Your campaign will generally be over a shorter time frame and have an end date, unlike your strategy which evolves and should be constant.

Steps for Creating a Social Media Campaign

Step 1: Define Your Goals

The first step is to identify the goals you want to achieve through this campaign. Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (think S.M.A.R.T).

A few such goals you can look for include:

• Raising brand awareness 
• Increasing social engagement rate 
• Driving traffic and sales to your website 
• Improving customer retention 

Applying S.M.A.R.T goals will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, and keep track of the end goal for your campaign.

Step 2: Know Your Target Audience

Once you have finalized your goals, the next step is to understand who your target audience is for your campaign. It may be different or more specific than the audience in your content strategy. You might consider:

• Age
• Location
• Interests
• Average Income
• Industry

You can often get some of these insights through social media, Google Analytics, and or other analytics tools. These insights allow you to refine your strategy by understanding your customers so you can target them specifically. 

Step 3: Check Out Your Competitors

Need inspiration for your social media campaign? See what others in your industry are doing! Analyze their content closely and understand how they are using social media. You will be able to get an idea of the kind of content that your audience likes and the type of content they post most frequently.

Step 4: Get Strategic with Your Content

You’ve got your goals, your audience, and some inspiration up your sleeve. It’s time to start planning out your content – strategically, of course. Make sure that every piece of content has a purpose and aligns with your campaign goals and audience. These are things to consider when planning content for your campaign:

• What type of content does your audience like most? Is it long or short forms of videos, static posts, gifs, or others?
• Make a weekly content calendar to brainstorm your ideas and keep track of what’s being created.
• Share User Generated Content (UGC), if possible, to give authenticity to your brand and build loyalty.
• Reach out to influencers or content creators that have similar audiences as yours.
• Make use of current social media trends that align with your campaign.

Step 5: Measure Goals

Make a list of key metrics you will use to measure how well your campaign is performing. You can always keep learning and adjusting the strategy based on the performance. At the end of your campaign, it’s important to understand the analytical data you capture. For example:

• Raising brand awareness (number of followers gained, followers’ growth, and reach) 
• Increasing social media engagement rate (number of likes, comments, and shares)
• Driving traffic and sales to your website (check your link clicks, conversions, conversion rate, and email sign-ups)
• Improving customer retention (testimonials, and sentiments of people towards the brand)

You’re ready to launch your social media campaign! The ATB Social team wishes you luck as you get things started. Of course, if you need any help putting together your campaign, reach out to us here and we’ll help you get started!