Power of Social Media Campaign to Drive Sales and Generate Customers
Niya gazed out of her balcony, feeling disappointed about how her day in college went. Now, two problems bothered her. Firstly, she didn’t get selected for the dance audition, for which she had so eagerly practiced for the last two weeks. She loved the idea of being a part of her college’s dance club, the coolest club out of all the others. However, the competition was high, and her dream slipped through her fingers like sand. Secondly, a family get-together on this day forbade her from joining her friends for the much-anticipated movie outing. Now she’s stuck at home with a huge fear of missing out (FOMO). The urge to do something cool or different haunted her. As she scrolled through her phone, social media notifications pinged relentlessly, each one a reminder of the fun she was missing out on. The photos of her friends at the movie theater, the dance club’s posts about the latest auditions, and the trending challenges all beckoned her to engage.
Unable to resist, Niya found herself diving into the world of social media. A particular campaign caught her eye—an online dance competition hosted by a popular influencer. The prize was a chance to feature in a music video and gain significant online recognition. It wasn’t the dance club but an opportunity to showcase her talent on a different stage. With renewed energy, she decided to participate, recording and uploading her dance video with hope and excitement.
This experience made her realize the immense power of social media. It could transform her mood, offer new opportunities, and connect her with a larger audience beyond her immediate surroundings. Despite the disappointments of her day, social media provided a platform to chase her dreams in a way she hadn’t imagined before.
Today, we will discover the power of Social Media Campaigning.
Table of Contents
What is Social Media Campaigning?
Social media campaigning involves creating and sharing content on social media platforms to achieve specific marketing objectives. This can include increasing brand awareness, engaging with audiences, driving website traffic, and generating sales. Effective social media campaigns utilize various types of content, such as videos, images, blog posts, and user-generated content, to capture the interest and participation of the target audience.
Why do Social Media Campaigns Work?
Unlike traditional advertising, social media offers real-time interaction and personalization. Here are a few reasons why these campaigns are so effective:
Widespread Reach: Social media platforms have billions of users, providing a vast audience for campaigns.
Targeted Advertising: Brands can tailor campaigns to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors.
Real-Time Interaction: Immediate feedback and engagement from users create a dynamic marketing environment.
Cost-Effective: Compared to traditional advertising, social media campaigns can be more affordable and flexible.
Setting Social Media Campaign Goals
- Improve Brand Awareness
Your business can boost brand awareness on social media by sharing your campaigns on different platforms, using specific hashtags, and offering incentives for followers to share your content and tag friends.
Improving brand awareness through social media doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Did you know that 91% of marketers saw increased brand visibility by spending just a few hours per week on social media?
A great example of using social media to increase brand awareness is Apple’s Shot On iPhone campaign. Users take high-quality photos with their iPhones and post them on Instagram with the hashtag #shotoniphone, and Apple shares selected photos on their page. This campaign has over 4.3 million posts and gives participants a chance to have their photos featured on a billboard. Apple’s campaign boosts brand awareness through Instagram, the hashtag, and user sharing.
- Connect with your Audience
Connecting with your audience is crucial in all types of marketing. In a world with increasing distractions and our attention spans as short as goldfish, it is super important to come up with the right marketing tactics. The good news is that social media makes it easier to connect with customers all around the world.
In a social media marketing campaign, you want the audience to get connected on a surface level, through likes, comments, and follows as well as on a deeper level through relatable posts that resonate emotionally with your brand or products.
Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is a great example. By printing people’s names on Coke bottles, they personalized the buying experience, making customers excited to buy and share these personalized bottles with friends and family. The campaign even included stickers that could be used as name tags or shared with others.
Coca-Cola made the campaign more inclusive by offering bottles with various spellings and less-common names. Customers could also personalize bottles online for a fee, ensuring everyone could participate in the campaign.
The Share a Coke campaign makes people thrilled about getting a Coke bottle with their name on it and creates a strong connection to the brand. As a result, millions of people have shared photos, videos, and stories on social media about their experiences buying and sharing a Coke. That’s how a successful marketing campaign works!
- Increase Website Traffic
Using social media effectively can increase visits to your website. Just by including your website link in your profile bio, you can direct users to learn more about your company or products. Customers have short attention spans, so having a clear URL in your bio helps avoid confusion and simplifies access for potential customers.
Your campaign team can further engage with followers by sharing URLs to specific landing pages on your website. This approach helps drive targeted traffic and enhance user experience.
- Drive Sales
Now tell me honestly – how many product videos – whether it be a stylish dress or a classy watch have you shared on social media with your friends? I’m sure the answer would be “Many times”. Marketers aim to generate excitement among customers for their products and brands. When a business achieves this effectively, it often leads to higher sales. Social media campaigns are particularly effective in generating excitement about new products as we can easily share them across the world.
One example is the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino campaign. Starbucks is known for creating special “secret menu” items that are popular for posting on Instagram and Twitter. They capitalized on this by introducing the Unicorn Frappuccino, a vibrant drink available for a limited time. Starbucks shared photos of the Frappuccino on social media to generate excitement and introduced the hashtag #unicornfrappuccino to encourage customers to share their experiences.
The $5 drink was so popular that during its one-week availability in April 2017, there were over 180,000 social media posts featuring it. The Unicorn Frappuccino also boosted same-store sales by 3% in the second quarter and 4% in March 2017.
Now that we’ve examined some highly effective social media marketing campaigns, let’s explore how you can begin your own.
How to create your campaign?
- Research Your Competition
It’s key to understand your competition.
Asking these questions will help you to know what’s working well in your field and how to make your campaign unique:
- Which companies similar to yours have successful social media profiles?
- Do the companies you’re researching usually run giveaways, contests, or live videos? How much interaction do people have with their social media posts?
- Set Your Target Audience
If you don’t want your audience to scroll through your posts, then make sure you set your target audience by answering these questions:
- Who are you trying to reach?
- What do you want to achieve for your company and audience through this campaign?
- How to keep your target audience engaged?
Always prioritize making content that your target audience will like. Remember this rule during your social media campaign.
Bonus Tip: Some ways to appeal to your target audience:
- Consider Current Trends. Incorporate social media trends into your campaign
- Be informative. Share valuable information to grab your audience’s attention. Give them a reason to engage with your post or campaign. Consider hosting a giveaway that encourages them to read your entire post. Explain how they can enter and when the winner will be announced.
- Create unique and attractive visual content. Whether it’s a video or picture, make sure it is appealing and interesting. Show your audience something they haven’t seen before.
- Engage with your audience. Did you know that 84% of consumers expect companies to respond within 24 hours? If your followers ask questions or leave comments, respond to them. This builds a personal connection with your audience, making them more loyal to you and your brand.
- Choose your content type
Choose what kind of content you want to create. Think about why you’re running your campaign. Companies might run social media campaigns for:
- Holidays
- Special events or achievements
- Partnerships with other businesses
- Promoting user-generated content
- Contests or giveaways
Decide which type of content suits each platform best. For example, Instagram is great for still photos, Facebook for live streams and longer videos, and Twitter for quick updates. Consider each platform’s strengths when deciding.
Pro tip: Use AI to repurpose your current content into different formats while maintaining a consistent style and message.
- Promote your Content
Now it’s time to share your campaign and promote your content.
Promote one message throughout your campaign
Keep things simple and promote just one message throughout all different platforms. By repeatedly sharing the same message across your campaign, your audience will hear the same thing over and over which will enable them to remember the message- and that’s exactly what we want.
Always remember that repeating your message builds familiarity which in turn fosters trust between the audience and the brand.
Balance your promotional and non-promotional content
Constantly pushing promotional content can make your audience feel pressured into becoming a customer. However, balancing promotional and non-promotional content will make your followers perceive you as being helpful and want to engage more with you.
- Create a Unique Hashtag for your Campaign
Most big social media campaigns use a hashtag that’s the same on all platforms. Hashtags help your team track interactions and make it easy for your followers to join in. Your hashtag should be unique and easy to remember.
Have you seen the popular Snickers campaign? Well, Snickers has a popular campaign called “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry”. They show people getting angry or acting strangely because they’re hungry. When they eat a Snickers bar, they go back to normal.
Their campaign hashtag is #EatASnickers. It’s simple, easy to remember, and tells people what to do. This hashtag is also their ad tagline, making their campaign consistent.
- Automate Content using scheduling tools
Creating interesting content and engaging with your followers takes time, but you can schedule your campaign posts in advance to avoid doing it live.
Tools like Hootsuite, Crowdfire, and CoSchedule let marketers plan posts ahead of time. You can schedule text, photos, videos, hashtags, and more. Some of these tools also offer analytics to help you see which scheduled posts are successful and which ones might need changes.
A Final Note
Social Media has taken the world by storm. Trends keep changing but Social media is here to stay. The power and reach of Social media is beyond our imagination.
Earlier, a merchant’s marketplace was just her city or town and now with the arrival of social media, his or her marketplace is the entire world! How wonderful is that? When used wisely with the right tactics, social media can be your secret wingman to set up your business for success by driving sales, increasing website traffic, and building a community of loyal customers.
Therefore, use social media to its full advantage and watch your hard work pay off. Get creative and see where it takes you!
If you are new to content marketing and digital marketing, we are here to help. We are CDA Academy, the First and Largest Agency-based Digital Marketing Institute in Kerala and India’s best live online digital marketing program providers. Book a session with us to learn more about digital marketing course in Kochi and Calicut.
Author Info
Neha Elizabeth, Freelance Digital Marketing Expert in Kochi | One of the Students of CDA Digital Marketing Institute Kochi.
