3. Designing a Social Media Campaign
Download pdf of Designing a Social Media Campaign
While social media is important to implement as a regular activity that can help your station reach its ongoing goals, it is also valuable to create discrete campaigns aimed at achieving specific goals. Developing and deploying campaigns can also be a good way to spur new collaboration among departments and to take your social media activity to the next level. Social media should be considered in the same way you approach any other communications campaign. It should be implemented in a logical, step-by-step process:
- 3.1 Campaign Outline
- 3.2 Staffing and Roles
- 3.3 Tactics and Tools
- 3.4 Implementation
- 3.5 Measurement
- A blank template can be found here.
3.1 Campaign Outline
Start by outlining the basic elements of your campaign.
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
Goals |
What do we want to achieve? |
Audience |
Who are we targeting? What is the demographic? Where are they funded? Which social media groups are relevant to the audience we want to target (FB groups, Twitter lists, Twitter hashtags, forums, blog communities, etc.)? |
Story |
How does this campaign start? Where does it go? How does it finish? What is the core message you are promoting? How are you planning on responding to engagement? |
Schedule |
What is your timeline for the campaign? What are the major milestones in your campaign? (launch, check-ins, core content creation, content deployment) |
Tools |
What are the social media tools, rich media tools, editorial tools, and non-digital tools we will use? See Directory of Tools for more info. |
Measurement |
How will we measure success? What are the tangible metrics we will look at, such as Facebook Likes, Comments, Retweets, mentions, views, membership, event attendance, etc.? What are the intangible metrics, such as increased awareness about station or topic, credibility, etc.? see Measurement section for more info. |
3.2 Staffing and Roles
A social media campaign should involve staff members in the station beyond just the person posting updates to your Facebook Page. When designing your social media campaign, try to involve multiple departments in campaign design, implementation, and measurement.
Below are examples of potential staff members and their responsibilities:
| Staff Member | Department | Responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
Social Media Manager |
Communications |
|
Engagement Manager |
Community Engagement |
|
Membership Director |
Membership |
|
Program Director |
Programming |
|
News Director |
Editorial |
|
Online Editor |
Web Management |
|
3.3 Tactics and Tools
Once you have defined the campaign parameters and the people you will involve in the campaign, identify the tools and tactics you will use to engage your audience, distribute your content, and achieve your goals.
It is important to define your tools and tactics after you have properly defined your goals and roles, and not before. For example, you should not start by saying “we want to find a way to use the Facebook Page in a social media campaign.” You should first begin by framing the campaign, and following that, determine which tools and platforms will help you best achieve your goals. Ask yourself which platforms you will use, and why will they will help. Though a Facebook Page may be a useful tool for most campaigns, it may not be for all. You should approach all tactics and tools in this manner.
Below are examples in a sample tactics and tools worksheet. A blank template can be found here.
tactics.png)
3.4 Implementation
During the implementation phase, you should be executing each step, tracking the engagement, reacting, and monitoring.
Implementation.png)
