Social Media is simple, we just get one guy who stays all day on the internet and we ask him to set up the social media accounts and post some things about us. If we post lots of stuff on all the social media platforms and sometimes we add something very funny like a kitten playing, we will get a lot of awareness. Then we ask the guy to do some viral campaign like others did, because it’s free, nobody pays for such viral campaigns, they are just cool and that’s it. Also, if we will add the content on some bookmarking websites, there is no way we won’t have success.

What I wrote above is definitely not true, this is the view of someone who didn’t have enough contact with social media marketing. A view of someone who could be in an executive position wanting to expand the marketing efforts of the company but without the expertise in this new domain. Social Media Marketing is now a part of Marketing, it grows very rapid and it’s changing from day-to-day.

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As any other marketing type, social media marketing has to have S.M.A.R.T Objectives, Strategy, KPIs, Tasks, Budgets etc.  If you want or need social media in your company, plan it very good and think about integrating it also with your other marketing efforts. It is not enough to get a Social Media wannabe Guru/Specialist/Expert. You can read more about how and where to put the Social Media Team in your company in the article Anatomy of Social Media Departments .

There are many things that need to be known by the person who runs it in your company, the best would be if he/she has a strong Online Marketing background and started doing social media along with it.

Social Media integrated into the Company’s Marketing Effort is the key, below there are some examples on types of Social Media Campaigns:

Awareness Campaigns are focusing on the spread of brand identity and the products offered. This type of campaign focuses on potential new customers acquisition, creating brand recognition/education in the consumer’s mind and sparking its desire to acquire the product you are offering. Measuring can be done via target groups questioning, an example question for this (non-branded) would be “What brand comes to your mind when you think of X?” or “What product would you recommend to your friend if he needs a X?“. Awareness campaigns can be done in several ways, from the use of social ads by targeting users of competitors with messages that highlight the company’s awards for product quality, company details and product range, to partnership with industry leaders or supporting social causes.

Promotion Campaigns are composed out of special offers for and on social media platforms. The action which the user has to do on the social platform to get the offer, can result in getting exposure to new potential customers, creating content on/around the company social account or increasing the pre-customer database. Such offers are typically time limited in case of special prices, free products or additional benefits. Promotional Campaigns usually target competitor customers and new brand aware customers from your target audience.

Customer Retention Campaigns are about loyalizing current customers through social media tactics, this type of campaign is good if your customers are also your followers/likers/+1ers/etc. on your social properties. The benefits for the customer can be information on how to use the product best, information about the industry and happenings, special offers for them as current customers for future products, free products or special support. By having benefits for current customers trough your social properties, you can tie them to your brand and your products.

Support Campaigns are focusing on improving free customer support by helping clients where they talk about their issues, such as on blogs, forums, facebook, twitter and other social networks. Long term support campaigns are beneficial because they limit the spread of negative messages on the social platforms which can influence potential new customers but also affect the current ones. It happens very often that customers prefer to ask about or report issues with products on social platforms, by coming with help right where they report the issue, you can solve it and make the customer happy. In this case the final result is a positive customer experience. There are also short-term support campaigns, that are usually focused on limiting the damage on the brand and product image, which appeared as a result of an error that affected the customers very severely.

To say the title correctly, it should be “Doing social media campaigns is easy with the right knowledge“.