Guide Social Media

1. creating successful
Social Media
Campaigns
A step-by-step guide to

2. Social Media offers great potential for businesses. With low
costs, it enables direct engagement with customers and
reaches thousands – if not millions – of people.
This step-by-step guide provides a framework on how to
create effective social media campaigns that manage to
engage with key audiences, increase sales and enhance
website traffic.
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
Marketers use of Social Media Platforms
Percentage of marketers
using the platform
Source for data: Stelzner 2018, p. 15

3. 8 steps for creating
a strategic plan for
Social Media
Campaigns

4. 1. Developing campaign goals
In order to create an effective social media campaign,
goals must be determined that define the end-purpose of
the campaign. Suitable goals could for example be:
 Driving sales for a particular product
 Enhancing brand awareness
 Increasing the traffic of the companies website
 Building relationships with customers
(Baker 2018)
The goals of a social media campaign should always align
with the short-term and long-term business goals of the
company (Kim 2016)!

5. 2. Defining audiences
Identify the key audiences for the success of the
campaign:
 Who does the campaign want to reach?
 What does the audience want?
 What are the interests and values of the audience?
Most organisations have different primary and secondary
audiences. However, the campaign should be designed for
the needs of the audience that is most important to the
chosen goal (Kim 2016).

6. 3. Defining key objectives
Identify key objectives that support the overall goal of the
campaign.
 What should the campaign accomplish for the company?
The objectives must be tailored towards the interests and
behaviours of the key audience that was identified in the
previous section (Kim 2016).

7. 4. Strategies
Strategies can be defined as the approach the campaign is
using, to meet it`s objectives.
Campaigns need to dentify activities and approaches that
engage the audience, meet the key objectives and help to
facilitate the success of the campaign (Kim 2016).
Possible examples:
 Staging a competition on social media
 Creating a series of posts that are seasonally-themed

8. 5. Tactics
Tactics are the different parts and activities that must be
completed to bring a strategy to life (Kim 2016).
 Ask yourself: What needs to be done, to successfully realise
the strategy?
Example:
 Strategy: Create a series of posts that are seasonally-themed
 Tactics: Create a list of possible topics, decide when to
publish the posts, create written and visual content for the
posts, define a hashtag

9. 6. Key messages
The key messages of the campaign should be tailored
towards the audience that the company wants to reach.
 The messages should meet the audiences interests and
values.
 The messages should highlight the ways, in which the brand
benefits the audiences needs.
When formulating the key messages, write down one or
two sentences that define the most important aspects of
the campaign. In tonality and language, the key messages
should relate to the companies overall brand identity
(Kim 2016).

10. 7. Measuring and evaluating
success
The success of social media campaigns must be measured
and evaluated with relation to the defined goals and
objectives (Chartered Institute of Public Relations 2013).
Useful metrics for quantitive measurement of the reach of
campaigs are:
 Fans and followers
 Retweets
 Comments
 Likes
Make use of measurement tools such as Google Analystics
 The tool helps to determine genuine audience interaction and
the impact on the stated objectives (Chartered Institute of
Public Relations 2013).

11. 8. Social Media Ethics
Organisations that use social media must be aware that
they are entering into relationships with people.
Therefore, it is of highest importance that social media
strategies apply an ethical framework to making decisions
and communicating with people online (Kim 2016).
To ensure ethical behaviour, social media campaigns
should at all stages adhere to the following rules and
regulations:
 Terms and Conditions of the Social Media Platforms
 Best practice guidelines, set up by industry bodies such as
CIPR and PRCA

12. Sources
BAKER, K., 2018. The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Marketing Campaigns
[online]. HubSpot. 2 October [viewed 7 December 2018]. Available from:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-campaigns
CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS., 2013. Social Media
Best Practice Guide [online]. [viewed 7 December 2018]. Available from:
https://www.cipr.co.uk/content/policy-resources/toolkits-and-best-practice-
guides/social-media
KIM, C., 2016. Social Media Campaigns. Strategies for Public Relations and
Marketing. New York: Routledge.
STELZNER, M., 2018. 2018 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. How
Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses [online]. [viewed 7
December 2018]. Available from: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-
media-marketing-industry-report-2018/