All you need is a bit of inspiration and a strong planning process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To help with the latter, we\u2019ve created a <\/span>free social media campaign planning template<\/span><\/a> to guide you through the process (and we\u2019ve got a few examples for inspiration below too).<\/span><\/p>\n In this post, we\u2019ll walk you through how to use this template step by step and also look at:<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s get to it.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n At its core, it\u2019s a marketing campaign that\u2019s created to achieve a business goal using social media. A bit vague, we know.<\/span><\/p>\n The reality is, a social media campaign can be almost anything\u2014there are almost as many varieties of them as there are businesses in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n What it isn\u2019t: random general posts that you post to your social media channels. The key word here is <\/span>campaign: a social media campaign<\/span><\/i> has to have a coordinated series of posts with a very specific goal behind it.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again, there are many, and they vary depending on what the campaign goal is and what resources business have at their disposal.<\/span><\/p>\n Here are three of the most popular types of social media campaigns:<\/span><\/p>\n Giveaways are, dare we say, <\/span>the<\/span><\/i> most popular kind of campaign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Brands love using giveaways to increase their engagement and grow their audience. We see this across industries\u2014from <\/span>Mala the Brand<\/span><\/a>, a handcrafted candle company that created an eco-conscious-themed giveaway, to <\/span>Mana Poke<\/span><\/a>, a poke bowl restaurant that teamed up with a local food blogger for their giveaway.<\/span><\/p>\n And we can\u2019t blame them. The upfront costs of giveaways are next to nothing, while the likelihood of getting more comments and new followers is high.<\/span><\/p>\n Make sure the entry guidelines you set directly contribute to your campaign goal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For example, if you want to increase engagement on your social media channels, ask people to like and comment. Want to grow your audience? Ask people to tag a friend or two.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remember that any contest or giveaway will have to abide by the rules of the platform it\u2019s hosted on. A few things to look out for would be age limits, location restrictions, and what information you\u2019re allowed to collect from people. Make sure you\u2019re checking the fine print there.<\/span><\/p>\n While you may have heard of the rise (and fall) of the influencer, they\u2019re definitely not out for the count.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In influencer partnerships, the influencer accepts products or monetary compensation in exchange for creating content to promote your brand.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Brands have been finding success with micro-influencers (who have anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 followers) and, most recently, with nano-influencers (1,000 to 10,000 followers).<\/span><\/p>\n Why bother with nano-influencers? Well, while nano-influencers have a smaller following, they tend to have more engaged audiences and lower rates. They\u2019re a good place to start if you\u2019re looking to explore influencer partnerships and don\u2019t want to invest a ton of money off the bat.<\/span><\/p>\n Collecting user-generated content is a huge win for any brand. Why? Because it engages your audience <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> provides you with content you can use later on. Utilizing a social wall<\/a> can enhance this process significantly.<\/span><\/p>\n UGC is any form of content, such as images, videos, or text, that has been created and published by social media users\u2014and that you don\u2019t have to pay for.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While UGC doesn\u2019t always have to be collected through a contest, doing so definitely helps you collect it faster. Plus it means the users\u2014your audience\u2014will get a reward out of it as well.<\/span><\/p>\n Before we dive into the planning process, let\u2019s get inspired.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Burger Revolution is a restaurant in Ontario, Canada, specializing in house-ground craft burgers, fries, and poutine (a Canadian treasure).<\/span><\/p>\n When looking at their Facebook and Instagram, we can see they\u2019re playing to each platform\u2019s strengths and using that to inform what they post on each channel.<\/span><\/p>\n While Burger Revolution\u2019s Instagram mainly displays drool-worthy photos of their burgers, their Facebook is used to engage with their community.<\/span><\/p>\n They do this by sharing content from their customers, but not in the way most restaurants might do. Burger Revolution has an ongoing social media campaign called \u201cComment of the Day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Inside the restaurant, they have a board where customers can post comments or doodles on a sticky note. Every day, one of these sticky notes gets posted on their Facebook as the comment of the day:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a fun, easy way to build and engage Burger Revolution\u2019s community, both online and offline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Restaurant patrons may see the board and then like the Facebook page to see if their comment will make it up there. (You can see in the screenshot above that one user posted that the Comment of the Day was their drawing!)<\/span><\/p>\n Those who already follow the page will keep an eye on it to see which comments make it as the chosen one of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n With this campaign, Burger Revolution has a steady flow of incoming content that they don\u2019t have to create themselves. That\u2019s social media gold.<\/span><\/p>\n Bonus: This particular Comment of the Day features Baby Yoda, a meme that blew up on social media in the span of a few days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n By choosing a topical comment, Burger Revolution can easily increase their engagement based on whatever big cultural events are happening. (They do this most often with holidays and major sports games.)<\/span><\/p>\n Burger Revolution\u2019s Facebook posts with the highest engagement feature their staff\u2014either photos of them in the kitchen or little blurbs about what they\u2019re up to that day.<\/span><\/p>\n A way to build upon this would be to involve staff in the Comment of the Day campaign in order to increase engagement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe one day a week, the chosen comment could be from a sticky note a staff member wrote. Another option could be to have staff members choose the Comment of the Day and post a photo of themselves with the sticky note.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiouser and Curiouser is an independent print and gift shop in Edinburgh, Scotland.<\/span><\/p>\n They recently launched a social media campaign to celebrate their ninth birthday by having nine days of giveaways. A new item was up for grabs each day:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n By having the giveaway span a nine-day period, Curiouser widened their window for higher engagement. That\u2019s nine days of increased likes, comments, and friend-tags.<\/span><\/p>\n They kept the giveaway fresh by having nine different items and a new twist to each day\u2019s entry requirements. While leaving a comment was a requirement on most days, the comment prompt would be themed around that day\u2019s giveaway item. Clever.<\/span><\/p>\n Curiouser also asked their audience to tag a friend as an entry requirement on some days. By switching between this and leaving a comment, they were increasing both their community engagement and audience size.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, all the posts were written with personality. Their brand voice<\/a> really comes through in each one, with personal stories from shop owners and cute comment themes like \u201cComment below and tell us, if you won today\u2019s prize, what would you call this wee guy??\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While Curiouser did have a birthday sale happening in store, they could have used their captive social media audience to promote a special sale for those who had seen the giveaway online.<\/span><\/p>\n Having a sale exclusively for their social media audience would make their community feel like they were still getting a reward, even if they didn\u2019t win the giveaway. And the element of exclusivity would likely increase their number of store visits.<\/span><\/p>\n Now that you\u2019ve seen a few social media campaign examples, it\u2019s time to roll up your sleeves and get started on one of your own.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n
What exactly is a social media campaign, anyway?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What kinds of social media campaigns are there?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Giveaways<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"Pacific](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image7-19-668x1024.png\")
Influencer Partnerships<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"Laura](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image17-3-1024x656.png\")
UGC (user-generated content) contests<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"Sniff](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image15-5-1024x655.png\")
A few social media campaign ideas to help you plan<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Burger Revolution: a play on UGC<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"Burger](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image2-46-1024x657.png\")
Why it works:\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n
What they could also try:<\/span><\/h4>\n
Curiouser Shop: 9th birthday giveaway<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"Curiouser\u2019s](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image21-3-1021x1024.png\")
Why it works:<\/span><\/h4>\n
What they could also try:<\/span><\/h4>\n
How to create your social media plan in 4 steps<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Cotopaxi](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image20-3-609x1024.png\")
![\"BETA5](\"\/us\/en\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/image5-29-1024x1022.png\")