Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How To Run Social Campaigns That Move The Needle
How To Run Social Campaigns That Move The Needle
1 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Table of Contents
1 Setting Objectives
and Metrics 2 Planning Your
Campaign
Measure Demonstrating
3 Performance 4 Your Success
2 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Introduction
Run social campaigns that move the needle for your brand
This ebook will answer those questions. We?ll look at what really
constitutes a successful campaign, and how you can run more of them.
In doing so, we?ll give you a solid grounding in how to:
3 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Advice from four social marketing pros
For this ebook we?ve enlisted help from four social marketing pros from the in-house and agency worlds. Throughout, they?ll
share their tips, experiences and insights to help you run social campaigns that genuinely move the needle for your brand.
Jo is a social media manager specializing in the charity sector. Starting out as a copywriter, she fell in love with
social and has held in-house social media management roles at the Epilepsy Society and the British Heart
Foundation. Follow her on Twitter at @ThatJoEden.
Jess is director of Halo PR, a PR agency that majors on content and social to boost brand awareness and sentiment.
Working with clients at the cutting edge of technology and innovation, Jess believes in telling stories about people in
new and creative ways. Follow her on Twitter at @_Jessification_.
Pollyanna is a social media manager with a background in retail and FMCG ? including an early dream job at Oreo.
On a constant mission to elevate the status of social, Pollyanna has worked with brands across Europe and taught
social marketing in Paris. Follow her on Twitter at @Pollage.
Katherine is director of full-service social marketing agency Oh So Social. An award-winning social marketer and
Facebook #SheMeansBusiness mentor, she loves delivering results for clients ranging from the NHS to up-and-coming
entrepreneurs. Follow her on Twitter at @OhSoKatherine.
4 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
1 Setting Objectives and Metrics
If you want your campaign to be successful, you first have to know - Reading the company?s annual report and interim statements ? if
what success looks like. your client is a publicly listed company, this is a good guide to their
strategy and goals for the coming year
That may sound trite, but it?s surprisingly common for brands to run
social campaigns that don?t tie in with the brand?s wider aims. And it?s - Paying attention to what senior executives say in media interviews ?
especially common with reactive campaigns, which often jump on as this can give you clues as to what?s on their mind, and may spark
topical events without considering whether they help towards the ideas for campaigns to run
brand?s overall goals.
So how can you be sure what success looks like for your campaigns? - Asking your stakeholders/ clients what they?d like you to help them
The key is to understand what the brand as a whole is aiming to achieve. Not every stakeholder makes the connection between
achieve. That could mean different things depending on your role and business goals and social marketing, so they may not automatically
the size of your organization. tell you what their strategic aims are. By asking the question, you?ll
mark yourself out as someone keen to help the business succeed
Some things you can do to increase your understanding of overall
business objectives include:
5 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Understanding Business Objectives
Once you understand what the business is aiming to achieve, you?ll be
able to plan campaigns that help to deliver on those objectives.
Often, your social campaigns will be part of the wider campaign mix
planned by Marketing. So make sure you?re aligned with what
everyone else is doing ? and be ready to challenge their expectations
of what social is able to contribute.Sometimes you might be asked to
do things that you know won?t work on social. And sometimes, you?ll
encounter stakeholders who aren?t aware of how powerful social can
be in helping to achieve business objectives. The more you can make
the case for what social can and can?t do, the more you?ll be seen as a
trusted advisor, which will ultimately help you in your career.
JO SAYS:
?Our stakeholders used to tell us what they wanted us to
achieve, but those objectives weren?t always right for
social. Now, we ask them about their objectives ? it could
be growing the marketable universe, increasing
propensity to donate, or increasing awareness or signups
? and we tell them what we?re able to contribute.?
6 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Getting SMART
The caveat, of course, is that your campaigns need to actually deliver on
the objectives you?re aiming for. To do that, you need to be sure you set
objectives that are achievable through social, and you need to be able to
measure whether you?ve achieved them or not.
POLLYANNA SAYS:
?For me it's about understanding what the overarching business
objective is and from there a strategy can start to take shape with
KPIs that ladder up to the business objective. This also helps us with
what social media channels to use, for example what is it that we
want the audience to do, what does success look like, how long do we
need to run it for, what creative do we need, what other marketing
activity is happening at the same time...? It's definitely more than just
choosing the channel you like the most!"
You?ll likely have come across the term SMART when talking about objectives,
and social campaign planning is no exception. When you set goals for your
campaign, it will help to make sure they are:
- Reach and recall: If your objective is to increase brand awareness, you could
measure how many people saw your campaign and remembered it as coming
from your brand
- Sentiment: If your objective is to improve brand perception, you could measure
positive and negative mentions of your brand over time. You can also measure
keywords people use in relation to your brand, to see if they map to the image
the brand would like to portray
- Engagement: If your objective is to build an engaged following for your brand,
you could measure engagement indicators like conversations, mentions, shares
and retweets
- Signups: If your objective is to build an engaged audience for your content, you
could choose metrics like newsletter signups or event registrations
- Donations: If your objective is fundraising for a charity or initiative, you could
measure total donations made as a result of social campaigns
- Sales: If your objective is to increase revenue, you could measure online sales
that were initiated through social ? as well as cost per conversion, for paid
social. Although it?s much trickier, you may even be able to measure social?s
impact on offline sales, too
These metrics are all very different, but they all relate to overarching business
objectives your brand may want to achieve.
When you start thinking in those terms, you begin to see how vanity metrics ? like follows and
likes ? are at best a superficial method of measuring campaign success. To truly understand
the impact of your campaigns, you need to dig a lot deeper.
Once you?re sure of your metrics, you can start to plan campaigns that will deliver on them.
We?ll look at that in the next section.
Further reading
For more
8 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move on setting suitable campaign objectives, get our tip sheet: 5 Tips for Setting Measurable Social Media Goals
t he Needle
My most successful social campaign: Jo
Brand: British Heart Foundation
Platform: Twitter
Results: As not all of the CPR training was being delivered by the BHF,
signups couldn?t be measured in one place. However, Jo says: ?We were
able to look at anecdotal feedback, and at spikes in signups that we were
able to track. We found the impact was really tangible. For the first time,
people understood the seriousness of the problem, and signed up to learn
CPR as a result of seeing the campaign.?
9 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
2 Planning Your Campaign
You know which strategic business objective your campaign is going If you?re running a brand awareness campaign for a big consumer
to hit, you?ve set corresponding SMART objectives for your campaign, brand, that audience could be very broad. But if your target audience is
and you?ve decided on the metrics you?re going to measure. Now it?s hiring managers in UK manufacturing companies, or owners of stringed
time to start planning a campaign that will deliver against all of that. instruments, you?ll want to take a much more targeted approach.
To give it the best chance of succeeding, you?ll need to consider Rolling out a campaign without first understanding where to find your
things like: audience, and how best to target them, means you could be wasting a
huge amount of effort.
- Audience insights
- Platform choice
- Paid vs. organic
- Creative execution KATHERINE SAYS:
- Roles and responsibilities ?First we have to identify who we?re speaking to. For our
client Amati, a specialist auction house, it?s people who own
Let?s have a look at each in turn. a violin. But how do you find them? We did a lot of
audience analysis and breakdown, a lot of breakdown of
Audience insights their previous ad campaigns, a lot of asking their staff ? the
team that value instruments ? what kind of people come to
their valuation days.?
If you want to deliver on your objectives, it?s critical that your
campaign reaches the right people.
10 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Platform choice
Social platforms are used in different ways by different people, so it pays to be quite granular
about which channels you use for what.
It means thinking not just about where your target audience is more likely to congregate, but also
what they do on each platform, and what they?re thinking about when they?re there.
Just because you can post video on Twitter, for example, it doesn?t mean Twitter is always a good
platform for your video content. And likewise, if your content is business-oriented, don?t
automatically rule out Facebook in favor of LinkedIn.
POLLYANNA SAYS:
?Paid social is the fire that will set your content ablaze. Paid social media
is an incredible channel because no matter the size of your brand, there's
a space for you to advertise. Large brands can take advantage of the cost
efficient reach where they can guarantee millions of eyeballs on their ads,
whilst small businesses can utilize the advanced targeting tools to speak
to those in their local postcode. It's important to have both, because like
every other advertising channel, it's pay to play.?
Creative execution
Creative is critically important to your campaign?s success ? in fact, Nielsen
has found that 56% of a brand?s sales lift from digital advertising can be
attributed to high-quality creative.
11 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
JESS SAYS:
?First we look at the audiences that we are looking to connect
with, and where they hang out online. Then we think about the
content that needs to be created-does it fit the audience, will it
stand out in a crowded marketplace? Finally we look to the
creative, and then we work it into an action plan of production.?
The treatment you choose will depend on your brand and the
campaign at hand, but your considerations might include:
12 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
You can also use it to brief designers and content creators, to ensure they
build content that will meet your objectives. That?s especially important
when reacting to topical events, as you need to turn around on-brand,
on-tone creative fast, and your regular design team may be booked up.
Objective: Position Razor as the leading voice across the UK, Sheffield and
the North in technology innovation and development
13 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
3 Measure Performance
Once your campaign starts rolling, it?s time to start tracking Note that measuring performance is not the same as monitoring
performance to see if it?s hitting the success metrics you set for it. engagement. You should be listening and engaging with the audience
on a continual basis ? which will intuitively give you a sense of how
For this you?ll want to have a good idea of how often you want to the campaign is performing. But measurement involves looking at the
measure. You?ll also need analytics and reporting tools, and access to data around your metrics, and comparing it with the objectives you
the right data. Finally, you?ll need to have some idea of how you?ll set for the campaign at the start.
react if the campaign is performing very differently from what you
expected. Analytics and reporting
Frequency of measurement It?s vital that you have tools that will allow you to accurately measure
campaign performance against the metrics and objectives you set at
How often you measure performance will depend on the campaign. the start.
For a rolling brand awareness campaign, you might measure monthly
If you?re operating on a tight budget, you may find yourself relying
or even less frequently. But for a launch or sales campaign, you might on in-platform analytics, and manually collating information into a
want to measure every day, so you can tweak the campaign if it?s single place for analysis. The drawback is that if you?re tracking
underperforming. something complex, like sentiment or share of voice against
14 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
competitors, the data-gathering work can quickly start to take up all of your time.
When that happens, it?s worth investing in an analysis and reporting tool that can do the heavy lifting for you. Tools like our Meltwater Explore
don?t need to be expensive, and can free up days of your time to spend on audience engagement, campaign optimization, or planning the next
campaign.
JO SAYS:
?Most people nowadays have a social listening tool. But if you want to be a bit smarter about finding out how
people are engaging and reacting, you can?t do it with in-platform analytics. Not everyone is in a position to
invest in their own analytics tools, but we've definitely seen a return on our investment in our tools.?
The good news is that because your campaigns are optimized for business impact, you should be able to prove their financial value to your
organization ? which makes it much easier to justify the investment in an analytics and reporting tool.
As well as the right tools, you also need access to the right data. If you?re trying to track click-throughs to a sales page but you don?t have access
to your brand or client?s web analytics package, measuring performance is going to be tricky.
KATHERINE SAYS:
?The beauty of social is that if you know something?s not working, you can pull it, or change it, or tweak it.
There?s no point creating loads of content and then finding out six weeks later that it?s all been rubbish.?
With experience, you?ll be able to spot more of these things upfront, but especially when you?re starting out, you need to see the campaign
performing before you can judge how well it?s working for you ? and change tack if need be.
15 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
Responding to campaign performance
competitors, the data-gathering work can quickly start to take up
Measuring the success of your campaign at appropriate
all of your time.
intervals means you can take timely action if things aren?t going
When that happens, it?s worth investing in an analysis and to plan. If you?re not hitting your metrics on your call to action,
reporting tool that can do the heavy lifting for you. Tools like our for example, it could be worth reviewing the creative to see if it
Meltwater Explore don?t need to be expensive, and can free up could be made clearer, or more compelling.
days of your time to spend on audience engagement, campaign
optimization, or planning the next campaign.
KATHERINE SAYS:
?The beauty of social is that if you know something?s not
JO SAYS: working, you can pull it, or change it, or tweak it. There?s no
point creating loads of content and then finding out six
?Most people nowadays have a social listening tool. But if weeks later that it?s all been rubbish.?
you want to be a bit smarter about finding out how
people are engaging and reacting, you can?t do it with
in-platform analytics. Not everyone is in a position to
invest in their own analytics tools, but we've definitely
seen a return on our investment in our tools.?
As well as the right tools, you also need access to the right data.
If you?re trying to track clickthroughs to a sales page but you
don?t have access to your brand or client?s web analytics
package, measuring performance is going to be tricky.
16 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
With experience, you?ll be able to spot more of these things upfront, Once the tour started, two people worked full-time on the
but especially when you?re starting out, you need to see the campaign: one sharing new content, and one responding to
campaign performing before you can judge how well it?s working for every engagement. As interest in The Man Engine built, the team
you ? and change tack if need be. used well-targeted humour to manage expectations around when
and where he was to appear.
My most successful social campaign:
Results: The team had been tasked to get 7,000 visitors to the
Katherine
events. Thanks to a carefully orchestrated social campaign,
Brand: The Man Engine 500,000 turned up to the events, and another million watched
online. Key campaign results included:
Campaign name: Man Engine Tour 2016
- Total social media reach: 25.4 million
Objective: Drive 7,000 people to attend a series of live events where - Twitter impressions: 1.1million (total value £41,936.50)
The Man Engine ? a giant mechanical puppet ? was scheduled to - Facebook reach: 7.3 million (total value £95,490.90)
appear - Hashtag reach for #TheManEngine and #ManEngine: 14
millionCampaign ROI: £147 for every £1spent
Platform: Facebook, Twitter
KATHERINE SAYS:
?It was completely record-breaking. As a team, our job changed
from getting people along to events, to helping with crowd control
and getting people on and off site safely. It?s a prime example of
how good social can be.?
17 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
4 Demonstrating Your Success
18 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
JO SAYS:
We?ve learned some weirdly specific things through campaigns
that we?ve run, like how talking about avocado really annoys the
public. Because we could show that through our reporting, people
in other teams listened to us, which helped us change the shape
of campaigns to come.?
By trying to hide the truth, you risk undoing the great work you?ve done to
elevate social into a strategic, business-enhancing marketing discipline.
You?ll find you gain more kudos and respect from having an honest
conversation with your stakeholders about why something didn?t work as
well, and explaining what you?ve learned and what you?ll change for next
time.Even better ? if you notice early that a campaign?s not working, you can
make the necessary tweaks in good time. Then, when it comes to reporting,
you can show how your mid-campaign tweaks turned performance around.
In this ebook we?ve explored what goes into creating social campaigns that
will genuinely move the needle for your brand or client.
19 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle
We?ve looked at to set meaningful objectives, how to apply appropriate metrics, and how to plan, execute and report on
campaigns based on them.
One thing we?ve touched on is that using in-platform analytics and manual measurement to demonstrate your success can
quickly become a drain on your time. You can free up huge amounts of time by using a single platform to measure campaign
success and report on it to your stakeholders.
You can easily set up dashboards to monitor multiple channels, including news, social media, forums, reviews
sites and podcasts. And our powerful drill-down capabilities mean you don?t just see what?s happening,
but also what?s driving that activity.
If you?d like to see how you can use Meltwater Explore to measure and
report on campaign performance, ask us for a demo. You can get
in touch at meltwater.com/ social.
Get In Touch
20 | Cam paigns Wit h Im pact : How t o Run Social Cam paigns That Move t he Needle