As a business owner in today’s digital world, you know how important it is to have a social presence to build brand awareness and get social proof. But you may not be familiar with the traits of an effective social media marketing campaign. When it comes to marketing on social media, there are a few things to keep in mind: customers, customers, customers. And of course, measuring the performance of your campaign.

5 THINGS EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGNS HAVE IN COMMON

1. STRATEGIC

front view of business people attending a seminar in board room

For every campaign, there needs to be a strategy and a clear plan that outlines how you’re going to achieve your business goals. You shouldn’t go shooting in the dark as you carry out your social media marketing campaign. You don’t have to plan every tweet, Facebook post, and Snapchat, but you do need to outline the important details of your campaign such as:

• Your audience: Determining your target audience is perhaps the first thing you should do before moving forward. Your target audience will determine so many factors of your campaign such as what types of ads you should use, the format of your posts, and more.
• Social networks where your audience is most active: This may be obvious, but you might be surprised at how often some businesses post on every major social media platform to reach as many people as possible. But they fail to realize that their audience may not be active on certain sites, which means they could be wasting ad spend on platforms their audience doesn’t use often.
• Goals of your campaign: Setting goals is an important piece to the social media marketing puzzle. They determine the tactics you need to use. Need more leads? Post more highly-targeted ads. Looking for more engagement? Create posts that attract discussions and show visuals.
• Best ways to get your message across: What are the best ways to grab your target audience’s attention? What type of post format do they prefer? Do they engage more with videos or do they gravitate more towards text posts?

2. CUSTOMER-CENTRIC

You have a business that sells a product or service, so of course, it’s natural to tell your audience how great that product or service is. One of your end goals is to make a sale. But what are your customers’ end goal(s)? Getting to the root of what your customers need and want is the key to creating a customer-centric social media marketing campaign.

Learn your customers’ pain points and their preferred solutions to their problem(s). Center your campaign around your customers in a way that makes them relate to you, almost as if they were having a conversation with another customer. A customer-centric approach to social media marketing steadily reminds your customers of the benefits they’ll get from buying your product. This approach should answer the pressing question, “What’s in it for me?”

Remember that it takes 12 positive experiences with a brand to make up for one unresolved negative experience. This means that you should have a good impression on a prospect the first time around and a customer-centric strategy can help you do just that.

3. HIGHLY TARGETED

Target Audience

Great social media campaigns are laser-targeted to a specific audience. These campaigns feature ads with a clear focus on a certain type of user. Posting ads and hoping they attract customers isn’t the best approach. To see real success from social media marketing, you should take advantage of the tools available on social media platforms to choose who will see your ads based on certain factors such as demographics (i.e. age, location, income, education, employment, etc.), interests, and buying behaviors. This not only helps your message reach the right people, but it can also help you get the most out of your ad spend because you’re not wasting ad space on users who aren’t interested in your offers.

As you target a specific audience using the platforms they use the most, some of them may not convert the first point of contact they have with your company. This is a great time to have a social media retargeting campaign in place to draw cold leads back in. You can use internet cookies or Facebook Pixel to track their behavior. For example, if they visit your website or add an item to their cart without completing the purchase, you can program your chosen social media platform to deliver more ads to that user. Also, if you use a marketing automation tool to manage your customer relationships, it will automatically send remarketing emails to leads who haven’t converted.

4. MEASURABLE

If you can’t measure your social media campaign’s performance, then you won’t know which tactics work and which ones don’t work to drive results. Thus, having a campaign that’s measurable is key to your success. Let’s look at an example of a metric you can use to measure the success of your campaign. Google Analytics doesn’t just track the amount of traffic your website gets, but it also tracks the sources of that traffic. If your goal is to drive more traffic to your website from social media, then you can track the progress of that goal using Google Analytics. Has the number of visitors from social media increased? Or have they stayed the same? The answers to these questions can help you determine your next course of action.

5. SIMPLE

It’s often natural to assume you need to create complex posts to get your point across, but you may be surprised to find out that simplicity is best. Being creative is awesome, but that’s not the main thing social media users are looking for in a brand. They’re looking for value. They want a reward for their engagement. Keep your social media posts simple and immediate, with special offers your audience can’t resist. As long as your message is relevant, fun, and engaging, that’s all that matters.

If you’re looking to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level with an amazing social media marketing campaign, feel free to get in touch with us today or fill out our Discovery Form to see if we’re a good fit for your company.