Checklist for brand managers before starting any social media campaign

Social media campaigns are an exciting way to engage with your audience and make a unique brand presence. But creating a great social media campaign may seem daunting for brand managers at times. It may become so overwhelming that the lines are blurred between the most important factors to the least. Too many people associated with the campaign will also make you lose clarity. 

As a brand manager, we believe you know what is best for your brand but sometimes when focusing too much on a campaign, you may end up making it complicated for your audience to even understand. If you have also lost the clarity and dug too deep into your campaign, here’s a quick must-have checklist that will help you to keep a reality check on any social media campaign you plan.

Set a clear goal

Setting a goal is always important but you need to evaluate if the set goal is clear. If a goal has too many strings attached, it may lose its meaning when developing the campaign. A clearly defined goal can work in your favour when communicating with team members and it can potentially bring many creative outputs.

Define your Target Audience

What your audience wants is the key to make any campaign effective. Define your audience; understand how they behave on social media and most importantly, what grabs their attention. Your overall audience base can be diverse but the beauty of a social media campaign is that you can target a specific set of audience who can relate to the brand. After all, you can’t please everyone

Develop engaging content

We all know that content is king but you also need to keep in mind that the content should be a good continuation of your brand’s existing voice and style. Besides developing stellar content, you also need to catch the pulse of different social media platforms. For example, if you have chosen Instagram and Facebook for the same campaign, the content should vary according to the platform. Instagram will give you a great response in short 15 second reels and Facebook will give you more engagement on longer duration videos. User generated content is a new wave that pushes the engagement up the sky.

For example, the #ShareTheLoad campaign by Ariel India, capitalizing content according to the platforms. They had a contest on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to get user-generated content. Moreover, Men’s’ day, women’s day or any topical conversation was converted into the content around the campaign. An offline campaign launch was also held with Mandira Bedi as a guest panelist to discuss gender equality.

Keep up with social media trends

It never hurts to do some additional research on current social media trends. If you can streamline your campaign with current trends, it is well and good, but if not, don’t try to force it anyhow. Following trends is important but don’t lose your brand voice in between. A well-developed campaign around current trends brings in more audience than you can imagine.

For example, Cadbury’s #NotJustACadburyAd campaign on Diwali that joined the conversation around #VocalForLocal during the pandemic

 

 

Peek into your competitor’s page

It is always practical to turn to your competitors for inspiration but be careful not to mimic their ideas. You can also identify what didn’t work from your competitors and it can help you in various ways for your campaign. Learning from your mistakes is a cliché, learn from your competitor’s mistakes and move forward. 

Analyze your past and current campaigns

As a brand manager, we know you love to analyze everything. Use your ability to analyze things to keep track of your previous campaigns and see what worked and how you can replicate the results. You also need to keep analyzing even after the campaign has launched and make changes accordingly. No one can have a perfect plan. Be open to amendments even after the launch.

Choosing the right platforms

Remember that different social networks exist for different purposes and they have different demographics on them. Choose which social media platform best fits your campaign. For example, Instagram is a great platform to target people in their 20s and 30s but you won’t find many older people on Instagram.

Set a budget according to your goal

Once you decide what kind of campaign you plan to run on the social media platforms you choose, it’s important to allocate your budget and resources. Include in your budget whether your campaign requires any paid social efforts or if you plan to rely on organic tactics.

If your campaign checks all the boxes from the above list, you’re moving forward with a strong campaign. If not, it might be a time to go back and refine it while you can. We hope this list helps you give clarity on the campaign you are planning and all the future campaigns. To get an expert help manage your overall social media presence, contact socialee.in