Sun Tzu surmised that every battle is won before it is fought. But the truth of that sentiment is proved in the creating and executing a successful social media campaign. Like any other aspect of your business, success comes with planning and participation. Engage with the community you’ve already created while looking to attract new residents and future advocates.
All battles are won in the planning, not the fighting!
That’s right. Plan ahead and get out early. Collaborate with your PR and social media team to know when and where the fire will be hot. If you have booked media opportunities in advance, try to pair them up with page takeovers with social calls to action join your community. The earlier someone joins the community the greater the opportunity to reach their friends with your message. The faster you can build your community the greater your message can be amplified to generate more video views, more shared links, and more comments for the remainder of your campaign.
Get ready to deploy your arsenal of digital media!
Faceoff with Facebook! Facebook’s sponsored ads are without a doubt the fastest path to growing your Facebook community. Utilize their Sponsored stories whenever possible and work with your social media team leverage their sponsored events to garner new fans to your offline events.
Be seen, be heard! YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google, so a promoted video search strategy is essential to providing users with quick access to your videos. They can then share these videos across other social media platforms.
Dominate online. Online banner ads should also be high on your list. Working with Google and YouTube, you can easily target categories and channels which compliment your social media campaign and align with your target demographic.
Get “search” working for you. Paying for brand terms via paid search will provide your community with direct access to the social media elements of your campaign.
Use “display” as a show of force. While online banners are often used for branding or promotions, it should not be overlooked with for social media. During the early stages of social media, online banners can be used as teasers. In addition, there’s also the opportunity to go think outside the ad box and include social media elements directly into the your ads. This allows your community to bypass a website visit with social sharing options via rich media.
Go mobile go. It’s hard not to include mobile as part of your social media strategy as most users of social media platforms are more active on mobile devices.
“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.” – Sun Tzu
Here ends the lesson. So remember, have a strategy, follow a plan, and soon enough in the digital world you will prove to be a master in The Art of Social Media.
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