Success in marketing can be attributed to many things, none more so than planning. Every successful advertising campaign involves captivating creative work and the right media plan—the creative content attracts and holds your audience’s attention, delivering the desired message, and the media plan connects that message to the right people.

Before establishing your campaign plan, here are a few things to consider when determining your audience.

  • What platforms are your audiences using? Identify the different social circles that exist within their networks. 
  • Are you targeting a persona or a behaviour? The more applicable your services or products are to more people, the harder it can be to carve out a persona. Focus on common behaviours or interests, as opposed to demographics. 
  • Are you fostering a relationship with your audience? Customer service can shine through by developing a consistent system for sharing user-generated content and adding extra emphasis on brand love. Rewarding users who are frequent engagers turns them into brand ambassadors. 
  • Further develop your list of brand ambassadors using a variety of tactics, helping to disseminate your message and brand values through employee advocacy or influencer marketing. 
  • How far down the marketing funnel are you target audiences? Depending on where they fall, the message and creative should always align. 
  • Are you going too big? Quality connections on a smaller targeted scale are often what matter most.

Back to Basics

When it comes to social media planning, the medium is made up of people as well as their networks, so how can marketers develop a plan to tap into these expanded social circles and accompanying interests? Buying social media ads takes the traditional media route to connect with potential customers. Using a variety of detailed targeting criteria, marketers can serve ups ads that reach their specific desired audiences. 

Optimizing for social

When it comes to social media planning, the medium is made up of people as well as their networks, so Traditional media planning doesn’t work well in the social space, as demonstrated by the often-lower conversion rates of Facebook ads. While Facebook ads work well for specific industries, it’s important to understand not just your target audience, but the segments and hyper-targeted groups within your audience. This allows us to engage with the right people, an efficient way to increase conversion rates and drive ROI.

Benefits of social media planning

Remember:    

  • A successful social media advertising campaign starts by creating strong content around a marketing message. An effective social media plan is then needed to help connect that message with its intended audience. 
  • Social media shouldn’t be siloed and separated from the rest of your marketing efforts. It should always be a robust and integrated part of your marketing and system plans.