Is Your Social Campaign Ready to Publish?
It’s 2016. By now you know the importance and impact of an integrated social media strategy. You’ve secured a social media advertising budget and you are ready to push the big red go button on a campaign. But, before you promote your beautiful graphics or videos, do you know why you’re launching this campaign in the first place? Do you know why you’ve chosen a particular social media platform to advertise on over another? Are you even sure you can call it a “social” campaign?
Let’s explore a few questions that need to be answered before even beginning a social media brainstorm, let alone a campaign.
- What’s the point?
I’m a firm believer in the theory of more content does not always equal good content. Yes, it’s important to continue to find new ways to tell your story, but if every post, tweet, snap or pin can’t be tracked back to your brand’s core messaging, don’t hit publish. Speaking of tracking, we’ll talk more about the importance of measuring your goals below. - Who are you trying to reach?
Each social platform wants your advertising dollars. Because of this, there are countless studies on why certain platforms targeting capabilities and audiences are the best. However, it’s your job to understand your audience and how they will react to your messaging on each platform. Start by running a series of A/B testing campaigns to see how audiences react on different platforms. If your budget doesn’t allow for this, consider what keywords users are responding to on other digital platforms and take time to understand how users are working through your website. Whether your advertising budget could reach the moon or just around the block, Social Media Strategists should leverage every cent. If Facebook is for you, then great, get started. But, if you can’t answer why it is the best choice, take the time to figure it out. It will benefit your brand in the long run. - What end result are you looking to achieve and how will you track these results?
Begin by understanding the brand’s overall goals. Before launching, write a campaign strategy that includes specific KPIs for each goal. And don’t forget to write a report at the end. Not all campaigns can be a success and that’s ok. By revisiting the campaign strategy and comparing the results to the previously laid out goals and KPIs, you will learn an important lesson about your audience and will create a more intuitive and research-based campaign in the future. - Is this really a social campaign?
Are you simply repurposing creative from a print or digital campaign and calling it social? Just because you’re publishing it on social media, doesn’t make it a social campaign. It is important to have unified messaging and creative across mediums, but understand that it needs to have a social element. Fellow VIer, Gentry McKeown, explained it best when she reminded us all to keep our social media accounts social. Take advantage of social’s core strengths – listen and engage with the audience you’ve worked so hard to reach.
Social media platforms and strategies will always change, but understanding your brand’s core goals and audience will never go out of style.
Now push that big red go button and get social.
