By Tereza Cervena
Social media is a set of tools for developing social interactions on the Internet. These platforms facilitate interaction, collaboration and content sharing between Internet users. A social media campaign, when part of a solid social media marketing strategy, is a long-term investment which fits into the digital strategy of your business and is as well consistent with the global marketing strategy. It is important to remember that the interactions with customers brings interesting information and ideas for businesses.
Here’s what you need to bear in mind while creating a social media campaign.
1. Watch, Listen and Observe
Identifying your target audience is a crucial part of a social media campaign. Try to get to know bloggers, individuals and communities that mention your activity sector and observe them. Identify what they say about your industry, your market, but remember these reactions can be positive or negative. What to do then? If they say positive things about your business, feel free to post a thank you and be thankful. You can also give advice or a little more information.
This kind of attention can transform a satisfied customer into a true brand ambassador. On the other hand, you have to know how to react quickly to criticism to prevent negative comments from spreading too much on blogs or on Twitter. By responding to reviews, you are demonstrating that you are an open brand that listens to its customers and takes their opinions into account. Finally, try to keep a cool head and not be discouraged by complaints.
2. Create Your Profile and Brand Image
Your social profile pages are the first contact people have with you or your business. You have to be clear, nice and convincing. Never leave an empty profile: the more carefully you fill it in, the better you will be seen and identified. In addition to your photo or your company logo, fill in your contact details as well as the description of your business, your activity. If you have a blog or website, LinkedIn profile, Youtube, etc., add them there.
3. Focus on Content Creation
In this step, it is necessary to create and distribute the content on the different web platforms. How can you develop interesting content, comments or reactions?
- Brainstorm. Get involved, participate, debate and discuss.
- Involve your employees and friends – motivate them to publish interesting content, links and favorites connected to your business.
- Have a content strategy – what is the goal and how to get there.
- Have something interesting, informative or enjoyable to say or share.
- Use multimedia content such as pictures, charts and infographics.
With all of the content you create, make sure you are open, honest and transparent.
4. Distribute and Promote the Content
Several types of combinations are possible, explore the different solutions the most suitable for you. For example, you can write about a topic in your blog, insert photos related to it on Flickr, make a short video published on Youtube and encourage people to see this content through Twitter or Facebook.
5. Create a Community
This step is done throughout the whole process. The first objective of your presence on social networks is to make yourself known to Internet users who are of interest to your activity. They can become prospects, customers, partners or even future employees. When you start to have a certain authority and a community is created, you can interact directly with your contacts by asking them questions, by making a contest, by inviting them to contact you in the physical world during an event.
6. Measure, Analyze and Adjust
It’s also important to know which types of content and social media generate strong reactions, and which have less impact.
You should always measure your success against clear, defined goals from the start of your social media activity. There are 3 main steps for measuring and evaluating activities on social media:
- Take into account obvious numbers such as the number of Facebook fans, the number of Twitter followers, the number of referring sites, current site traffic and traffic sources, etc.
- Review more advanced benchmark indicators – customer satisfaction rates, quotes and mentions of the brand across the web and then by platform (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), whatever the sentiment. general regarding your brand.
- Consider Return on Engagement of the other channels. How much does it cost to acquire a new customer using other marketing channels? What is your advertising budget and how is it currently divided?