Social Media Strategy Tips for Successful Campaigns

There are no hard and fast rules for social media marketing campaigns. What works well for one company could fail magnificently for another. Searching for sure-fire techniques is like searching for Amelia Earhardt, answers are out there, but they’re just really hard to find. You want buzz. You want a unique message that says, “This is our brand. This is who we are.” You want visitors to become fans and fans to become customers. This is a great key to attraction marketing.

After analyzing some of the most notable social media marketing campaigns of 2012, we’ve come up with what we think are 5 keys to creating your own social media success story.

5 Keys to a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign

There are no hard and fast rules for social media marketing campaigns. What works well for one company could fail magnificently for another. Searching for a sure-fire technique is a bit like searching for Amelia Earhart: answers are out there, but they’re hard to find. Still, you want buzz. You want a unique message that says, “This is our brand. This is who we are.” You want visitors to become fans, and fans to become customers. That’s a great key to attraction marketing.

What Makes a Social Media Campaign Successful?

1. Have a Cause and Make it Fun

Some of the most successful campaigns of 2012 had a pay-it-forward vibe. Take for example the partnership between Levi’s and Water.org. Levi’s created a Facebook game to educate fans about water conservation. The better users were at the game and the more they shared it through other social media channels, the more liters of water were unlocked. Once the combined total reached the goal of 200 million liters, Levi’s would donate $250,000 to help Water.org’s mission.

As a result, the campaign gave fans a reason to participate beyond simply promoting a product. It tied directly to a cause people cared about.

Not sure how to build a cause-driven campaign your audience will actually care about? Talk to our attraction marketing team about developing one for your brand.

2. Be Interactive and Consistent

Posting a daily image or question and hoping for a response is not enough. It’s got to be more than a one-image post that allows the audience to interactive with the content in many ways. Take for example Oreo’s “Daily Twist” campaign. To celebrate Oreo’s 100th anniversary, a Daily Twist website was created with 100 days of unique images that highlighted a number of significant events in pop culture. The website also offered a little more to the content, often surprising fans with fun extras like a playable game of Oreo Pong or an Oreo cookie shaped record player spinning cool beats.

Beyond creating exceptional interactive content, Oreo achieved something equally important: consistency. The brand set out to deliver 100 days of content, and it delivered exactly that. Therefore, having a plan matters. Pre-schedule or pre-plan your content if you need to, but make sure you execute it with regularity. Doing so keeps visitors active and coming back for more.

3. Have Fun With Your Brand

Grey Poupon has always boosted that their mustard is for the those with discernible tastes and with their social media they have moved their messaging into the next decade. “The Society of Good Taste” by Grey Poupon fancy mustard offers a new generation to say ‘but of course’. Boasting content that was reserved for only those with the finest of social involvement, the private and privileged nature of the Facebook page enticed people to explore and enter their page through the Good Taste algorithm to see if they qualified.

In short, Grey Poupon had fun with its brand by leaning into its air of exclusivity and refinement. How can you have fun with your own brand image?

“A campaign doesn’t need mass appeal to succeed—it needs a strong hook, a distinct tone, and messaging that stays true to what your brand already stands for.”

Grey Poupon had fun with their brand by playing off of their air of exclusivity and refinement. How can you have fun with your brand image?

What Makes a Social Media Campaign Successful Continued

4. Make the Most of Your Medium

From a small kitchen appliance company who had an unwitting success with a user submitted 140 character tweet Twitter cookbook to British Midland International, who launched a Pinterest re-pin contest (entering fans who re-pinned a randomly selected destination image into a lottery for a round-trip ticket any BMI destination), it’s important you consider your platform. Campaigns don’t often work as one size fits all across your social media platforms. Use one channel to drive to another or have separate campaigns. Don’t just connect your accounts to automatically mimic each other.

Before choosing a platform, it helps to know exactly who you’re trying to reach. If you haven’t yet defined your ideal customer, read our guide on why buyer personas are so important—it’s a useful first step before building any campaign.

5. Be Positive With Your Brand

Does your campaign do more than just drive traffic? Regardless of how popular a campaign becomes, it needs to make connections in the consumers mind to your brand image. Let’s look at the Levi’s partnership with Water.org, again. Levi’s water conservation Facebook game links back to the company’s conservation efforts and strengthens the image of its Water<Less jeans line (manufactured with essentially no water). The Society for Good Taste creatively cements Grey Poupon fancy mustard as refined and exclusive.

How to Test Your Message Before Launching

Don’t just create something. Create a campaign that sticks a positive brand image in the back of a consumer’s mind. Unsure of how the content you’re posting is going to read to your audience? Try showing it to a coworker uninvolved with the campaign and ask for their reactions. If someone saw this post on Twitter, for example, what thoughts would they associate with the content? If the answer you receive is negative feedback, re-work your message to get the desired results. It may take more than one go around to finally hit the desired tone and message you were going for.

Frequently Asked Questions About Social Media Campaigns

Do I need a big budget to run a successful campaign?
Not necessarily. Budget helps with production value and paid promotion, but many of the most memorable campaigns—like BMI’s Pinterest contest—succeeded because of a clever mechanic rather than a large spend. A clear idea, tied to your brand and your audience, often outperforms a bigger budget with a weaker concept.

Which social platform should I focus on first?
Focus on wherever your audience already spends time, rather than trying to be everywhere at once. Reviewing your buyer personas is a good starting point, since it tells you not just who your audience is, but where they’re likely to engage.

How do I know if my campaign is actually working?
Track metrics tied to your original goal: engagement (likes, shares, comments) for awareness campaigns, click-through and conversion rates for sales-driven campaigns, and audience growth over time for brand-building efforts. If the numbers aren’t moving, that’s a signal to revisit your message before scaling the campaign further.

What’s the biggest mistake brands make with social campaigns?
Treating every platform the same. A message built for Twitter rarely works unchanged on Pinterest or Facebook, since each platform has different user expectations and content formats. Tailoring your approach—even slightly—to each channel tends to perform far better than a copy-paste strategy.Now Go Out and Do It

With a little effort and some outside of the box thinking, you too can create a successful social media campaign. Start small. Maybe you have an exclusive offer or downloadable content if the user shares your link on their social media pages. Whatever you do, remember:

• Have a clear cause and make it fun.

• Build something truly interactive.

• Don’t be afraid to have fun with your brand persona.

• Make the absolute most of your chosen platform.

• Always tie your message back to a positive brand image.