Social Media Campaigns
How to Plan a Social Media Campaign
1. Assemble a team
A successful team consists of members who can take ownership and responsibility for carrying out day-to-day updates in addition to long-term campaign goals.
Do: Include anyone who could benefit from a successful campaign and those with writing and photo editing skills and business-related social media experience.
Do: Consider looking outside your immediate area if you want the campaign to have a broader reach. For example, trying to reach prospective students? Consider including Admissions communications staff on your team.
Don’t: Try to tackle a campaign completely on your own (if you can help it).
2. Plan your campaign
Ask and answer the following questions:
Who is your audience?
On which social platform(s) will you be most likely to reach your audience?
What are your short-term goals?
What are your long-term goals?
How do your goals align with Advancement goals?
What are your calls-to-action? (i.e. visit a website, take a survey, etc.)
How will you determine success?
What activities/responsibilities are needed by team members before, during, and after the campaign?
Do you have a budget available to aid in your campaign?
3. Choose your social platform(s)
Determine your target audience
Review your social media accounts’ analytics to learn follower demographics. Pay close attention to the engaged followers – they’re the ones who are more in-tune with your content and respond with action.
Pick the best platforms to reach your target audience based on follower demographics.
4. Use an editorial calendar to plan posts
Use a shared digital spreadsheet or calendar (i.e. Google Calendar) to lay out time and order of posts in your campaign.
Use scheduling tools like HootSuite or Buffer to accomplish this, if available.
5. Determine a tone/voice appropriate for your campaign
Within the overall tone of your brand, adjust your campaign posts’ voice to what your audience will engage with.
Maintain professionalism even when being informal, fun, and friendly.
Use emojis and hashtags to add content value and to be a part of larger conversations.
Source: Social Media Examiner
Check out our 2019 training on creating social media campaigns:
Training Slides (PDF)