Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager
As social media grows in popularity (Facebook, for example, has over 250 million users worldwide), it has become essential for marketers to integrate social media within their existing marketing programs. Before diving in however, it is important to ask the following questions when developing and managing a social media campaign.
- Why am I doing this? Are you implementing a social campaign to help with organic search engine visibility, branding, promoting the launch of a new product or all of the above? Identifying the objectives and goals will help aide in the process of selecting the correct social media platforms, crafting your message/offer and determining which success metrics to track and analyze throughout the campaign.
- Where is my audience? It is important to identify which social media platforms your target audience is using and what offer or message will resonate best with them. If your target audience is younger, MySpace would be a good choice, while Facebook is great to reach a more mature audience. One useful tool is Quantcast, a free tool that provides demographic information for websites including most of the social platforms. Another way to locate your target audience is by getting social yourself. Reading blogs, searching Twitter, etc., will ensure you are a part of the conversation and can provide some great insights.
- It is running, now what? A social media campaign is not something that can be implemented and then left stagnant. It requires constant participation and management (responding to people’s comments, questions, etc.) and analysis and optimization of the metrics you are tracking. If you are not seeing responses or any activity, different messages may need to be developed or other platforms introduced. The important thing is to not get caught up in the idea that “if you build it they will come.”
