Top tips for a great social media campaign

Social media has become a must-have business tool for professionals and companies alike. Here Faheem Gill offers tips on how to make the most of your social media campaign…

With such a connected audience, developing social media campaigns that capture the attention is essential

Social Media a must for any company that wants to be successful. The UAE has the highest penetration of smartphones in the world (72%), not to mention that 52% of UAE residents visit social media sites daily. With such a connected audience, developing social media campaigns that capture the attention is essential.

Facebook is now limiting organic reach to roughly 2% of followers of pages, which is forcing most companies to begin looking at other social media channels. With social media users in the UAE embracing these new social channels, it is worth reviewing your social media strategy. Here’s five top tips to help you stay on track:

1. Start with your goals
The goals of a social media campaign must be defined first. Whether it is just getting more followers, or increasing engagement, the goal of the campaign must be measurable. In addition to having clear targets, you must have a good analytics package to measure this. With most social media channels you can either use third party tools or develop a custom tool to measure the key performance indicators that you and the client have agreed upon.

In addition to having the goals in place, you should also:

• Ensure the client has a social media policy, and how does the campaign fit the policy
• Define the key customer including their interests, demographics and psychographics
• Be within the confines of the cultural and legal framework of the region

While you are getting ready to run your client’s campaign, a value added service you can provide to your client is to measure how their competitor is doing during the same time. Tools such as Moz Analytics gives you a good way to gain some insight into your client and their competitors and gives you a granular look at the competitive landscape.

2. Be active
With a plethora of social media channels out there, you have to be active on the ones that are important for the campaign. For example, a B2B may be more inclined to be on LinkedIn whereas a B2C in the home and garden space would be a better fit for Pinterest. Being active on the right channels at the right time is key. One tidbit we have found out is that more negative viral events occur during holidays and weekends than the weekdays. A good rule of thumb is to be active three times a day with three different touch points to the target customer.

3. Entertain through images
Visual graphics and videos are easier to share and have to be part of the mixture. From videos to images and infographics, there are numerous options that can fit your campaign. In general campaigns should have a good mixture of visuals to content. You can easily newsjack trending topics with images that fit your campaign’s goals.

4. Quality over quantity
Campaigns must meet the right balance of hitting the touch points without becoming spammy. Often there is too much content being distributed without any feedback. Engagement with your target customer is key and some try a ‘throw everything’ approach. The top three most visited sites in the UAE are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  Having your campaigns on these sites will be enough for most campaigns. Just don’t overuse the #hashtags (3 maximum).

5. Measure and report
We started with the goals of the client and we end with it as well. The way to keep your clients satisfied comes from the data that shows how social media is helping them with their goals. Tools such as Buddy Media, Brandwatch, Social Sprout and many more can help you capture the data you need and keep your clients happy.

Faheem Gill is Managing Director, Asia Operations at Xelleration. Follow him on Twitter @ims43