Right now it may seem impossible to grasp, understand and correctly execute a social media strategy for your business in fact it can quickly become overwhelming. With sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a variety of other social networks knowing where to start can seem confusing. You may even feel like giving up prior to starting, don’t! Just like with any traditional advertising campaign social media is no know different. Spending some time beforehand knowing your target audience and having the proper benchmarks in place will make all the difference between success and failure.
Running a successful social media campaign can seem more complicated than a traditional advertising campaign. With traditional advertising you may place an ad in the local paper then play the waiting game hoping someone reads your ad and feels compelled to respond. On the other hand social media involves you engaging your base. With that said if not properly managed and executed, you will have wasted that valuable commodity known as time. Having a better understanding of what you want to accomplish before hand will make all the difference in the success of your campaign. Lets look at some questions to consider before you start.
Why do you want to start a social media campaign?
Do you have the time to run an effective campaign?
What do you want to accomplish with a social media campaign?
How will you define success?
How is you competition using social media?
Who is your target audience?
How long will your campaign run for?
What is your intended message?
What will you use to benchmark your ROI? (An ROI doesn’t necessarily have to be monetary)
What will you use to benchmark failure?
Do you know which tools will allow you to best engage with your intended audience?
How will you actively promote your campaign?
Will you reward people for following you?
I was recently talking to the owner of a local pizza place, I actually found his high gloss really expensive pizza takeout pizza menu on the ground in front of me. Ironically as I continued walking down the street I noticed a lot of his high gloss really expensive takeout pizza menus scattered up and down the sidewalk and street. Now I am pretty sure the street was not the intended recipient for his menus.
The owner told me that he knew he was wasting his money with the menus but he felt that if he didn’t, when people wanted pizza he might not be considered an option. So I asked him how many times he thought he was considered as an option when people wanted pizza, he had no clue! As a business you need to connect with your local community. Building actively engaged with your customers base and builds champions for your brand. Having an effective presences on different social networks makes the likely hood of being an option when someone needs your product or service increase twofold.
Imagine knowing that you are actively running an ineffective advertising campaign because you felt that you had no options. The same holds true for people that need and want your product or service if they need to know your an option, You need to engage them.
I wanted to share this example with you because without a plan any engagement that you participate in will ill fated. You are going to invest your time, and or money on a campaign. You need to be able to measure your results. In order to measure your results you must have some benchmark in place so that you will be able to define what success will be?
Are you looking for brand awareness, growing your customer base, adding to the bottom line or looking to be considered as an option. It starts with a well thought out plan. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.