The Framework of a Great Social Media Campaign

When you were a kid back in elementary school, did you ever trace?

Tracing was like a gateway into drawing. You just put a piece of paper over top of the original and draw a copy. No, it wasn’t your work, but it was a great way to learn the basics.

I’ve always found that frameworks act in much the same way for learning a new skill, like creating a social media campaign. When you first start out, you might not have a clue how all of the moving parts work together, but if you have a framework to base it off, you will have a guide, something to “trace.”

Over the years, I’ve built up my own social media framework that I can use to structure social media campaigns for my clients quickly. It’s super simple and very effective. And it all starts by asking some questions about your customers:

Find Your Target Audience

If you think of the social media world as a vast ocean, you need to be very selective about where you put your net to “catch” the right customers.

While you could aim your social media posts and ads at a general audience, it is much more effective if you target a specific audience of people, your ideal customers.

Before you write a single word of your social media campaign, write down who you believe is your ideal customer (customer avatar). Where are they from? What’s their gender? What social media networks are they most likely to be on. Once you have this information, you can start to build your social media campaign with them in mind.

[TWEET “If you’ve never designed a social media campaign, then my framework is a good place to start!”]

Set Up Your Social Media Channel

There are a LOT of social media channels out there. Yes, there are the big two: Facebook and Instagram. But you also have to think about Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, and many more. Plus, new features are being added all the time!

You want your small business to have a consistent presence across all your channels, so it’s vital that they all share the same profile picture, color scheme, and a similar bio. When someone finds one of your social media profiles, you don’t want there to be any confusion about who it belongs to.

Figure Out Your Goals

This is similar to figuring out your customer avatar.

What do you hope to accomplish with your social media? If you want to use it primarily for advertising, then you want to focus on micro-targeting your audience. If you’re going to build a community around your brand, then you’re going to need to regularly engage with posts and comments outside of the ones on your own page. I highly recommend doing both!

You also need to consider what kind of content you are going to be putting out there. A blog-focused social media campaign is going to be a completely different animal than one designed to sell a webinar.

Develop Your Content

Content marketing and social media marketing go hand-in-hand.

If your business is going to be posting regularly to social media, you need a hook to lure people in. Often, this lure is free and valuable content. What kind? Anything that you want.

It could be one of your blog posts where you explain a complex concept. It could be a fun and silly infographic. It could be a coupon for a deal on some of your products and services. Whatever your piece of content, you need to make sure that it is high-quality, personality infused, and perfectly aligned with your brand.

Write Your Posts

You have the audience you want to target, all of your social media accounts, a plan, and a ton of content to put out there. Now all you have to do is write the posts.

This can be one of the most time-consuming and stressful parts of the job. You don’t want to fire these posts off in a few seconds like you would a personal Facebook status. They need to be professionally written, designed to engage your audience and have the best hashtags for your niche. On top of that, one post simply isn’t enough. If you want your social media channels to look alive, you need to post multiple times a day to some channels. It can honestly become a time-sink (just like your personal social media).

I have found that this is often the stage when my clients come to me for help. While everything above is important (and also time-consuming), actually writing the posts is the thing that usually trips them up.

Create Your Graphics

Social media has evolved WAY past just being text-based, especially for channels like Instagram.

If you look at the posts from brands nowadays, they are packed with professional graphics that are designed to catch the eye. You also want your posts to catch the eye, so it’s crucial that you get together a graphics package that you can customize for every post.

If you’ve never drawn anything in your life (apart from tracing in elementary school), then this is another area where you want might to use a virtual assistant.

Schedule Your Posts

Actually posting your content is one of the trickiest parts of creating a social media campaign. Your posts need to a) go out at times of highest engagement, and b) be set to go out on a regular schedule.

If you’re doing this yourself, then you might have found it challenging, if not impossible. Things come up in your day. What if you’re in a meeting when you need to post, you think you’ll do it later, and then you forget. It happens.

This is why I’m such a big believer in automating your posts. With the help of a virtual assistant, you can set up a system that will automatically put up your posts at times you specify. That way, you don’t even need to think about it, like your social media is taking care of itself (and if you hire a virtual assistant, it is!)

[TWEET “Creating a social media campaign is much easier when you have a framework to base it on!”]

Social Media Ads

Writing effective social media ads is a necessary part of every social media campaign, but it isn’t easy. There is an art to writing the perfect ad, and it requires a lot of practice. If you want to get a headstart, I invite you to download my completely free Social Media Ad Template.

Dealing with your professional social media accounts is similar to using your personal ones, but much more complicated. You should always have some campaign or another running on your small business’ social media networks. If you don’t know where to start, even with this framework, or you’re tired of handling it yourself, then feel free to contact me today.

I’ve come up with countless social media campaigns that have gotten results for my clients. We are now offering social media packages too! Or if you aren’t sure what your profiles are missing, you could hire me to do a comprehensive social media audit! Schedule a free consultation and we can talk about the kind of social media campaign that will work wonders for your business’ online profile.