Social Media Campaign Basics for Niche Audiences
Building a
social media campaign is difficult enough, but when you’re trying to target a
very specific niche, it will require a comprehensive plan. You’ll need to
choose the social media channels you’ll target to achieve your goals.
Social media
campaigns require more than simply posting company and blog updates on your
various channels.
You’ll need
three main things to find success:
Expertise is
very important because you need to provide substance to your audience. If you
lack substance, you’re just sharing updates that are not nurturing potential
leads and making them customers.
Step 1: Identify Your Audience
Who is your
audience? If you don’t know who your audience is, you’re not able to focus your
campaign around them. Every audience has challenges and needs. You need to:
Target
market research allows you to approach your social media campaign with
precision. Once you know who to target, it’s time to develop campaign goals and
objectives.
Step 2: Develop Goals and Objectives for Your Campaign
Every
campaign needs goals and objectives as a way to determine how successful the
campaign has been. You can’t analyze the success of a social media campaign if
you don’t know what you would like to achieve.
Some common
goals that your brand may have are:
- Build brand authority
- Generate new leads
- Drive traffic to a website
- Make sales
- Engage customers
There are
campaigns built all around awareness, and this doesn’t mean that the campaign
is meant to generate sales. Instead, the campaign may be to engage customers,
start a conversation and build authority.
Reservations.com has created content, which is shared
on social media channels, that helps parents book their next hotel reservations
by finding the right hotel for their special needs children.
And there’s
a purpose behind each content and post shared on social media.
SMART goals
are ideal, and this means:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time bound
When goals
follow SMART rules, you’re setting your campaign up for success.
Step 3: Tactics for Success on Each Channel
Social media
channels have different audiences, and you’ll need to be able to cater to your
target audience’s needs on each channel. For example, you may decide to do the
following:
- Live stream a Q&A on Facebook
- Create a video series on YouTube
- Engage with users on Twitter
- Use a series of pictures to promote awareness on
Instagram
Don’t discount
paid advertisements and promotions either. You may be able to better reach your
audience, especially in the initial stages of a campaign, through promotion
rather than organic opportunities.
Over time,
you’ll want to also engage your audience and build relationships through
organic content.
Once you
have the first three steps completed, it’s time to create a content calendar.
The calendar will allow you to promote content across all social media
channels.
What type of
content will be included in your calendar? It depends on your campaign, but a
good place to start is:
- Blogs
- Text posts
- Images
- Videos
- eBooks
If you plan
on driving traffic to your offers, you can do so through landing pages that ask
the user for a specific action, such as purchasing a product or entering their
e-mail address to receive an eBook.
Finally,
you’ll want to start promoting content for your campaign and monitor your
success along the way. Tweak your strategies as you go along to ensure success.