Strategies to Factor in Before Launching Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

So you have decided that you are going to go forward with a social media campaign in order to market your brand. But wait. There are certain pre-requisites that you need to take into account. It is natural to get swayed into thinking about the returns that you will be making out of your social media campaign and the real keyword here is if/or when successful.

Then how do you go about ensuring that it proves to be a successful venture and not an amateur work? How to not wreck your campaign rather ride out into the storm and come out on top. The secret lies in the execution and that execution will only pay off when you accounted for the basics beforehand.

The basic Five

1. Know your goals and targets.

The most important step in the entire process of building a social media campaign. The goals and targets keep you on point. Being successful in your effort is a pretty generic statement. Everybody wants that. Be specific and by specific it means, what roadmap are you going to follow in order be successful. Vagueness in the message will get you nowhere. Thus, be clear cut in setting your objectives from the outset.

These objectives can range from bringing in more traffic, more likes, and followers, greater brand awareness, to tailoring content for your chosen demographics, availability of tools at your disposal, subsequent methods for generating interest and their effective utilization. These objectives will help you steer your social media campaign inthe right direction.

Therefore, if you have bagged all responses to the above set of objectives, it means you are ready to launch your campaign but if you haven’t, don’t just yet. Do research and learn more about the industry you are operating in before launching the campaign. Heck, if you were asked to measure whether or not you are headed in the right direction with your campaign, you wouldn’t know thefirst thing about it, if you haven’t done your homework. 

2. Confirm individual responsibilities and checkpoints.

Identifying key players in the organization is essential. It is because they will take the helm of certain crafts. They could be those who are responsible for posting and updating the site with fresh content, there could be others responsible for addressing online customer queries via forms, email, and chat. It is imperative that the duties have been clearly communicated and assigned so there remains no room for confusion when the campaign is in full swing.

Monitor progress. Set up meets on a fortnightly or on a monthly basis to evaluate whether or not things are on track or have they deviated. If found to have been deviated corrective measures should be exercised so that any irreparable damage can be avoided. Weigh and cut down on wastages that are detrimental to campaigns health. Furthermore, solidify areas of strength.

3. Establish conversion opportunities throughout your site.

Another aspect of social media marketing is the rate at which people click through to your website and subsequently convert. So how dazzling your social media campaign is if it fails to bring in conversions, you have failed sir. Converting can be understood in terms of people actually subscribing to your mailing by submitting their email addresses or availing your services or actually placing an order to buy your product.

Thus, you have to be up and about for your site that it will be serving the purpose when it’s time to get those conversions. Do not build your campaign around something which won’t pay off when the time comes. Rectify matters by working the core first and then design your campaign around it i.e.ensure that your site is optimized for customer conversions.

Owing to your goal setting in point number 1, above, you could be seeking to develop targeted landing pages for different types of audience. Whatever it is, the ultimate goal should be to get people to visit and interact with what you have to offer (content enriched pages) where it is highly likely that your desire audience will land so that, resultantly, purchases may occur.

4. Set up an ongoing blog.

We talked about content in the last point – content enriched pages, but how do you achieve that? By maintaining an ongoing blog. This will provide you with the opportunity to churn out high-quality posts which you should be specialized in (which if you do not then get a professional writer to help deliver it to you). The importance of great content cannot be argued with. Believe you me, when I say the content is the real driver behind attracting your potential customer and render them loyal.

First what you need to understand about content in an ongoing blog (that you’d be maintaining on your website) is, it will serve as a platform for visitors to engage in discussions which you will leverage to magnify your social media channels. Secondly, the content’s intent is not merely that your visitor remains on your site but rather compel the visitor that you are worthy of fostering a business relation with him.

You can understand this from a very simple example. Ever seen a salesman who’s selling insurance to you. He will greet you with an upbeat attitude and explain how seemingly cruel world we live where anything can happen to anyone and that you’d better be prepared. He will hit with that emotional pitch where he musters the strength to let you who will provide for your family when you are not around and then switches gears and tells, should you stay alive for the entire term of the contract you will have your savings to savor.

Similarly, in the digital landscape, your content is your insurance sales, agent. See the resemblance? So be sure to have content that registers your brand to stand out and connect with the audience, inculcates trust in the visitor and yield purchases.

5. Flesh out your profiles.

Fleshing means fill in all your social media accounts with complete company information and maintain harmony in the theme everywhere. If the theme is a corporate entity, be mindful that although your LinkedIn speaks a corporate, your Facebook gives off funky vibes. See the harmony I’m referring to? Couple your profile information with relevant images of your business/company or of the industry you operate in.

Consequently, you will have done the homework for search engine rankings. Your business will show as higher in the search result when the prospects search for a keyword that has relevance to your niche. And you know when your site begins to show up in the most searches, the business is a booming (traffic and conversions are a routine). Gaining new followers will be a piece of cake. The need for constant posting of updated content can take a back seat (not completely eliminated) because you are in the visibility radar of most of the world. 

Summary of the Five

Now that you have had a pie full of pre-requisites, you can now enter the pre-launch phase. Just to reiterate what has been said above, first set aim. A goal which will tell if you have hit your target or missed it. Usually, the intent is to garner new followers and making the old ones continue to show their patronage. In addition to, creating maximum brand awareness and have your content shared far and wide.

Next, plan the schedule. With the end result in mind that you will be seeking to achieve by launching your social media campaign, mark your calendar year with some important dates. This will enable you to see whether or not you can burst onto the scene when holiday season or festivities are around for maximum output. Make a note of how long will it take to plan and then actually executing the campaign and keep all the stuff you will be required at hand. Don’t be without aclue when it’s show time. At least, get blog posts ready.

When the campaign is underway, measure the outcomes. Is it as you desired? Measure the traffic your webpage gets or measure how many numbers of followers are sharing your posts on different platforms. Is the ratio of those reading and actually sharing very low or people just don’t enjoy sharing. What can you get them to do to start sharing? Employ the use of analytics tools for best performance gauge. Perhaps start a trend with a hashtag or contest to facilitate launch.

Bonus infographic:

Courtesy of: Millforbusiness.

Conclusion

Hence, the aforesaid five points are meant to serve you as a benchmark. You can set your campaign against this checklist of the sort. See if you are able to cross off all the points on the list before proceeding with the launch. There are no guarantees in life so don’t consider them as guarantees either. They are meant as a guide and can benefit you gravely when devising your social media campaign. Once you are in motion, you will observe that the toughest part is over, it is now time to reap rewards and outgrow rivals.

Author Bio:

Ethan is a digital marketing expert and a social media enthusiast. He loves to travel and blogs in his leisure time. You can contact him for UK essay help by following him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.