Around 77% of people in America have social media accounts, and they use social platforms to communicate with brands. Besides bringing friends and family together, social media is a great marketing tool that gets marketers close to their goals and customers. These days, marketers use Facebook and Instagram as the most used social media platforms.
Whether you are about to start your maiden Facebook or Instagram marketing campaign or have been at it for years, there is always more about how you can improve your strategy to run successful social media campaigns.
Please read this guide to learn about the essentials of running social media marketing campaigns that help you maximize their impacts. Are you ready? Let’s get into it!
1- Develop a plan
Start your social media campaigns by developing a plan that should fit into your overall strategy for social media. That means your campaign should be a continuation of your brand’s voice. Begin with market research, analyze your existing followers across social platforms, and see how you can make improvements.
However, not all social platforms work the same, and businesses use them for different purposes. Choose the platform that best fits your needs. For instance, select Instagram and Facebook if your target audience is millennials.
2- Goal-setting and objectives
Once you’ve got to know who your audience is and which platform works best for your business, you will need to set a goal for your marketing efforts on social media. The plans for most small to medium-sized companies are to get website traffic, build brand awareness, and lead generation.
You need to track metrics to measure the success of your social media campaigns. For example, website traffic-assisted social conversions and total conversions are some key metrics you can use to measure your success.
3- Budgeting
After setting your goals and objectives, you need to determine the budget you can allocate for your social media campaigns. Many factors determine how much budget you should assign for your social media, such as the scope of your campaign, the platform you use, advertising cost, and more. You may need to invest money in social media management tools, content, analytical tools, and paid promotions.
4- Research your competitors
Many marketers forget to research the competitor, which is the most crucial step to running a successful marketing campaign. Research your competitors and use this valuable insight to improve your campaigns.
You need to see what social media platform they used, post frequency, type of content, and what kind of their posts get more likes and engagement. You can also see your competitors’ tone and the time they post their content. Is their content a bit salty, or sharing informative content?
Uncovering your competitors’ strategies for their social media will give you an edge and help you create a more robust plan for your brand. You can use competitor research tools for social media like BuzzSomo and unbox social or do your research manually.
5- Choose the Platform
The platform you choose plays a crucial for the success of your social media campaigns. If you choose the right platform for marketing, you will likely get the highest returns. To select the platform, look at the activities of your target audience on Facebook, Instagram, and others.
Please choose the one where your audience spends most of their time. Every platform has a different purpose. You can see how it relates to your goals. For instance, Facebook is the best platform to run your marketing campaign if you want to build brand loyalty. On the other hand, Instagram is the best engagement platform, which means you can use it to engage with your audience.
6- Establish Your Important KPIs and metrics
KPI is the data that tells you how effectively you can achieve your business goals. With KPIs, you can also know how your marketing campaign performs and compare and track the performance. You can use many tools to monitor your social media marketing campaigns from time to time.
7- Craft your content strategy
Creating a content strategy is an essential part of any social media campaign. Using a mix of content makes your campaign successful. All you need to develop a process to craft that content and make the most out of it. You can use different tactics to maximize your range. Your content should be helpful, emotional, and engaging. Share visual content on social channels because it has a great chance of getting appreciated on social media.
Posting emotional content create curiosity, excitement, and fun in people’s mind, leading to more post engagement. Moreover, it would be best if you emphasized posting valuable and informative content as it increases the engagement ratio. People are likely to share it with friends or for self-help.
8- Cross-promotion
Your social media campaigns need help from other platforms to achieve desired results. The benefits of cross-promotion are twofold: those who are not on the social media you choose to run your campaigns are informed, and those you reach through social channels like Facebook and Instagram are reminded through other communications.
9- Track analytics
Tracking your analytics is one of the most crucial things you can do to improve your marketing strategy for social media. It gives you a complete picture of what promotion strategies worked and didn’t. You can also identify the type of content that worked for your campaign. Analytics will help you repurpose that content to keep the momentum going and achieve the results you want.
The bottom line:
It would be best if you had a solid social media marketing strategy to increase the chances of success for your marketing campaigns. A campaign starts with setting clear goals you want to achieve. You need to understand your target audience, craft content that resonates with them, use the tools to run social media campaigns, and track its performance throughout.
SC Social Media Campaign | Blog on Social Media Marketing | SEO After Coffee | All Rights Reserved | Feb 2023 | Greenville South Carolina
Great Article. Helped let us know what was involved in social media marketing so we have better knowledge when we shop for
a local Social Media Management Company.
This is an excellent read. Thank you for sharing with us.