How to Launch a Successful Social Media Campaign
Want to launch a successful social media campaign but don’t know where to start? Use our guide, packed with resources, strategies and more.
Posted 11 months ago
Written by
Julia CohenPosted 11 months ago
Launching anything on social media can be both exciting and daunting. In such a competitive space, it’s important your campaign launch packs a punch, and cuts through the noise, rather than fading into the background. In this article, we’re going to walk you through the ultimate checklist to make sure you are covering all your bases when planning, managing and analyzing your next campaign launch.
We get it, this is a pretty hefty guide, so you can jump to a section here:
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Step one: outline your goals and resources 🏹
The very first thing you should do when planning your social media campaign is understanding what you have to work with, and what your goals are, before starting to develop your creative vision. You don’t want to fall in love with an idea that you can’t quite execute! Here are some questions you need to ask yourself:
- What channels are you creating this campaign for? Is it solely for Instagram, or is it a multi-platform activation that will sit across TikTok, IG, Facebook and Twitter?
- What is your intention or goal? Are you trying to drive traffic and awareness or is this campaign purely sales-focused?
- Some KPIs could include; Traffic, Engagement Rate, Conversions, Product button taps/clicks, Impressions, Views, Reach, or Goal Completions.
- How long will this campaign last? Is this an always-on activation, or will it last a few weeks to a month?
- What audience are you trying to reach? Is it your existing, dedicated fans, or are you trying to cast a wide net, to reach new people?
- Is this campaign going to purely sit on your organic social channels, or do you have a pot of budget you can use for paid social?
- Will you be leveraging influencer marketing as part of this campaign?
Tap the image below to open the social media campaign planner template!
Step two: Analyze the competition 👀
Now, we know you probably want to get brainstorming ASAP – but to understand how to be successful with your launch, you’ll want to look at past campaigns and common factors that have helped accounts like yours achieve their goals.
First, do a bit of an audit – take a look at accounts that you would usually benchmark against, within your niche, and explore their recent campaign launches. Do a deep dive and understand what platforms they leveraged, what posts had higher engagement rates, how long their campaign ran for, and whether they used any unique marketing tactics you could replicate.
Best launches on social media
Let’s get some inspiration by looking at some of the best social media launches, and why they worked so well.
Case Study 1: Maybelline Sky High Mascara
One of the most successful social media campaigns in the e-commerce/product space was the launch of the Maybelline Sky High Mascara, which took TikTok by storm. The Mascara sold out 4 times after going viral on TikTok and achieved 240+ million views after the first video was published.
The reason this campaign was so successful was its ‘guerilla’ marketing style, which was extremely authentic, reliable, organic and results-focused. The campaign started with a video reaction to the mascara, from someone at home, providing a genuine reaction that gave credibility to the product. Whilst the video was technically an ‘ad’ it felt extremely natural, which allowed other users to trust the results and try it for themselves. Users started creating reaction videos with the original content, trying the mascara for themselves, which started a sort of knock-on effect.
What to take away: Leveraging mass influencers or consumers at the same time makes your product or service hard to avoid, as it is literally, everywhere. To go viral doesn’t however, necessarily mean needing a huge pot of budget. Just one, authentic, organic and results-based piece of content, can propel your product or service to virality – and it’s something you can even create yourself.
@alxcext Testing out the viral maybelline sky high mascara #WonderWaterWhip ♬ original sound – ♡
Case Study 2: Spotify Wrapped
Speaking of shareability, Spotify Wrapped has been one of the most successful social media campaigns to date – and it continues to be every single year. At the end of each year, Spotify provides listeners with their year, wrapped, including the songs and artists you listened to the most, as well as the ‘anthem to your year’. Spotify leverages influencers to get the word out when their campaign launches, encouraging partners to share their results on their Instagram Stories. Once their followers see that Spotify Wrapped is back, they want to share their own playlists and results, causing the word to be spread quickly.
Some more of the best social media launches to look into:
- Apple: Shot on an iPhone: The brand encouraged user-generated content to show the quality of what could be shot on an iPhone in an always-on marketing campaign. The brand made sure to make the #ShotoniPhone front and centre in their bio, after seeing millions of content created into the hashtag.
- Getty museum challenge
We challenge you to recreate a work of art with objects (and people) in your home.
🥇 Choose your favorite artwork
🥈 Find three things lying around your house⠀
🥉 Recreate the artwork with those itemsAnd share with us. pic.twitter.com/9BNq35HY2V
— Getty (@GettyMuseum) March 25, 2020
- Oreos ‘oreoscope’
- Airbnb: We Are Here Facebook Live
- McDonald’s: I’m Lovin’ It Superbowl Campaign
- Nintendo Switch Launch
- Anthropologie: Open Call
Step three: brainstorm ideas 🧠
It’s time for what we’ve all been waiting for: brainstorming sessions.
Once you’ve collated your resources, competitor examples and goals you can start coming up with ideas. Whilst we can’t GIVE you your unique campaign idea, we can help guide you along the way to coming up with your campaign premise.
Social media campaign brainstorming starting points:
- What are you trying to market? Can you create a play on words to come up with your campaign name/hashtag or think about fun things to leverage within your niche?
- What’s trending on social right now, and how can you use a TikTok sound or a Reels challenge to your advantage?
- Who are you trying to reach, what would they value and respond to?
- Do you want your partners all to create the same piece of content as a starting point, or do you want to kick off your campaign and let people follow?
- Will you include an incentive for your followers to create user-generated content? Will you include or leverage a competition?
- Will you build your campaign around a sound or start a trend?
- Who would be your best partners to get the word out?
Click here, to use our brainstorming template for your next social media campaign!
Step four: create and plan the launch of your social media campaign 📆
Now you know what you’re doing, it’s time to start creating and scheduling your content for the campaign launch date.
Here are a few things to ask yourself:
- How much time and feed real estate do you plan on dedicating to this campaign?
- How much content do you need to create in advance, so that you don’t run out of momentum before you start to see user-generated content come through?
- When do you want your partners to post? Is everyone posting on the same date, or will you stagger posts to retain traction?
- What deadlines do you have for those that are creating content for you?
- How will you balance evergreen content that your followers love, with campaign content?
How to plan your social media campaign:
One of the most important factors for a successful social media campaign launch is an organization, and getting things out on track. In order to make sure you remember and can visualize what content you have available and already set to go out, you should use a post scheduler. By doing so, you’ll be able to see what content you have available in the bank, and when it’s time to make more, as well as pick your best times to post in order to see the most engagement and traffic.
You can learn more about scheduling, and our hacks for making the most out of it, here.
Creating copy:
Besides the content you create, the copy you include is a vital part of a successful social media campaign launch. Creating and scheduling in your copy ahead of time allows your team to have wider visibility on exactly what is being posted.
Here’s what you should consider:
- Include a CTA in your caption copy, or in the copy on your content. You should always be driving towards your goals, in order to meet your KPIs.
- Think about copy limits on different platforms. Whilst some platforms like Instagram allow for up to 2,200 characters, you should always include your hook in the first line of your caption in order to assert exactly what your campaign is about.
- Create an epic launch post, which allows users to clearly and concisely understand what your campaign is about, whilst making an impact.
Get some inspo for creating captions, here.
Flick Top Tip: Want 30-days of pre-written caption templates for your Instagram posts? Download 30-days of free caption templates.
Step five: measure your performance and adapt your strategy 📈
Most successful social media campaigns are guided by metrics, so yours shouldn’t be an exception. You should always be tracking and analyzing the performance of your campaign in order to understand which posts or partners are helping you achieve your KPIs and goals, and which aren’t. You should always be agile and not be afraid to adapt your strategy if something is performing exceptionally well, or if something is totally tanking.
Do a weekly audit of your performance, and make adjustments accordingly, in order to stay on track with your goals. You can learn more about how to implement an Analytics tracking strategy, here.
The most important things to remember when launching a successful social media campaign 💡
If you take nothing away from this guide (we really hope that’s not the case 😳) then you should at least take away these key points:
- Tailor your content to your different platforms. Not everything that performs on Reels will be a hit on TikTok.
- Pay attention to what is trending and see how you can leverage this in the context of your campaign.
- Plan, plan, plan. Scheduling and organizing content ahead of time is imperative.
- Know your resources and limits. Don’t come up with a crazy-ambitious idea as your starting point, to later realize you might not have the resources to pull it off.
- Leverage user-generated content – this is a common thread in some of the most successful marketing campaigns out there.
- Be clear in your messaging, so your audience knows exactly what it is you are asking them to do.
- When resharing content for your campaign, make sure to ask for permission and get rights, especially if you are leveraging the content on paid social.
- Analyze and adapt. Pay attention to your performance, and adapt your strategy, in order to see optimum success.
Now it’s time to get off the ground running with your campaign launch! If you want to join a group of social media experts to bounce your ideas off of, become a part of our free Facebook community, below!
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