There may be a lot riding on the performance of your social campaigns, so knowing how to wring the most out of the investments you make in this area is obviously valuable.
To give you a leg up, here are five tips and tactics to put into practice, particularly if you feel like your current performance levels leave a lot to be desired.
Take a look at how the competition are doing it
One shortcut to improved social media campaign performance is to take a peek at what your rivals are up to and see if they are using any strategies which you could harness even more effectively in your own marketing efforts.
The use of competitor benchmarking tools makes this a breeze, since you can track a whole host of metrics from how frequently they post content to how much engagement they are getting from their customers, and use this to determine what they are doing right and, by extension, where you have room for improvement.
Select channels that work for you
Gaining traction with a campaign on social services can feel like pulling teeth sometimes, yet it is important to recognize that this is not always down to the content or management of the campaign itself; it could just be that the channel you have chosen to host it is not a good fit for your business.
As such you need to consider carefully which channels you have a presence on, and focus your efforts on the most important platforms that will give you the biggest chance of connecting with your target audience.
This decision will depend on several variables, such as the industry you work within and the products you are aiming to promote.
Increase specificity to boost ROI
Because social media feels like a tool you can use to communicate with the whole world, it is tempting to try and be as broad as possible with the construction of your campaigns in an attempt to appeal to the widest possible swathe of users.
While this might be relevant for major multinational consumer brands, for most businesses it will be far more impactful and cost-effective to craft campaigns in a more specific, bespoke and relevant way. Pay attention to what the main body of your intended user base wants, and cater to this, rather than watering things down without justification.
Iterate to achieve uniqueness
In a lot of cases the advice for those brands hoping to make a splash on social media is to create something truly unique, with the expectation that this will dramatically increase its shareability and thus lead to serious levels of campaign success.
This is not only very difficult to do well, but also not something which is necessarily guaranteed to hit home just because novelty has been at the top of the agenda during the planning stages.
It is better to find what works well already, whether within your own back catalogue of campaigns or through the aforementioned assessment of your competitors and iterate upon these ideas to develop uniqueness without having to start from scratch or take big risks in the process.
Embrace audience participation
Social media is an innately interactive phenomenon, and so you will find that some of the most memorable campaigns are those which are based upon a concept involving audience participation.
Once again there are a whole host of routes to pursue even within this seemingly narrow arena. You could create polls and surveys for your social media followers to fill out. You could run competitions which encourage creative submissions from anyone who wants to contribute. You could partner with industry-relevant influencers to connect with prospective customers indirectly.
Obviously, this kind of campaign will require a more hands-on approach to its management, but the rewards could make the added effort more than worthwhile.
Final thoughts
Whichever strategies you decide to implement to turbocharge your social media campaigns, remember that it is only by measuring the metrics and being willing to continue making changes that you will increase your chances of long-term success. And if there are any failures, do not get disheartened, as this is just another type of learning opportunity.
