Ultimate Guide to Running A Social Media Campaign (with Examples)

Around the globe, people spend billions of hours scrolling through social media feeds like TikTok and watching long-form videos on YouTube to pass the time. Social media platforms are free to use, and anyone can post original content, leading to an incredible opportunity for marketers. That is, with the right strategy, you can run a social media campaign and market to a worldwide audience at little to no cost.

This guide will outline a step-by-step process for running a successful organic social media campaign. Use these practical tips and real-world examples to help you achieve your marketing objectives.

Ready to go global without blowing your budget? Use Later to plan, publish, and scale your organic social campaigns with ease. Start your free trial today.

What is a social media campaign?

Social media marketing campaigns involve engaging a target audience by posting content on one or several platforms to expand brand awareness, drive traffic, promote your values, or generate leads and conversions. These campaigns involve a coordinated effort from team members to create content and strategically post it to achieve specific business objectives.

Because social media is free to use, brands can create organic campaigns. Organic campaigns don't use paid ads. Instead, they gain steam when users like posts, leave comments, send direct messages (DMs), and share content with their networks.

Successful social media campaigns require big-time commitments. Rushing into a campaign without proper planning can result in missed opportunities and negatively affect return on investment (ROI). Following these nine steps can help you gain traction and find success with your marketing efforts.

1. Define clear campaign goals & KPIs

To achieve the desired results from your campaign, you'll need to create a path to the end. This means setting clear campaign and business goals, along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) you'll use to measure your progress.

One of the most efficient ways to set up goals for a social media campaign is by using SMART goals. This acronym divides into five parts:

• Specific:

  Know exactly what you're trying to accomplish.

• Measurable:

  Aim for totals that you can track throughout your campaign.

• Achievable:

  Be realistic about what you're setting out to accomplish.

• Relevant:

  Make sure the goal aligns with the campaign's broader objectives.

• Time-bound:

  Create a definite deadline for reaching the goal.

If you're centering your campaign on building brand awareness because of an upcoming product launch, you might design a SMART goal that looks like this:

• Specific:

  Use hashtags on Instagram Reels to reach new audiences.

• Measurable:

  Increase overall reach by 50%.

• Achievable:

  Post 4 Instagram Reels per week.

• Relevant:

  Spread awareness about the new product.

• Time-bound:

  Reach the objective in six weeks.

Choosing the right KPIs

KPIs are equally important. They help you measure progress and make adjustments if you're off track. Some key social media analytics to measure include:

• Reach:

  How many unique users viewed your content

• Impressions:

  How many times users viewed your content overall, including multiple views from the same person

• Engagement rate:

  The percentage of individuals who saw your content and interacted with it

• Click-through Rate (CTR):

  The percentage of people who saw your content and clicked on it

• Video views:

  The number of times people watched your video

• Watch time:

  The average amount of time users watched your video

• Likes:

  How many individuals tapped the Like button

• Shares:

  How many users shared your content with their network

• Saves:

  How many users saved your content to view again later

• Comments:

  Public responses to your content

For best results, make sure your campaign goals align with your business's overall objectives. For example, a brand that needs more exposure may focus on a platform like TikTok, where the content has a higher probability of going viral. A different business that wants to generate more leads and conversions might create Instagram content aimed at getting users to visit their profile page and click on the link in their bio.

2. Identify & research your target audience

With your goals determined, it's time to make sure your message reaches the target audience. Your marketing team should already have an idea of the prospects you're going after. Social media campaigns and analytics can help narrow down your audience to a niche group that responds to the campaign.

In each platform's analytics, you'll see the age range, gender, locations, preferred language, and device used by users interested in your content.

Knowing what your audience wants and what they will engage with is easier when you use social listening. Social listening tracks conversations happening all over the internet, providing you with insights and data to help with decision-making.

Later's social listening tool can help you quickly determine what your audience wants, allowing you to confidently make adjustments to your campaign as it progresses.

3. Choose the right social media platforms for organic reach

With so many social media platforms, you'll need to figure out which works best with your objectives. If you haven't decided on a social media platform or use multiple channels for your campaigns, take the time to learn about each one. Here are some advantages of the most popular platforms:

• TikTok:

  Great for viral brand exposure

• Instagram:

  Provides many opportunities for engagement

• Facebook:

  Useful for forming communities

• Threads:

  Allows for long public conversations

• LinkedIn:

  The place for professional thought leadership

• YouTube:

  Delivers long-form videos

• X:

  Give real-time commentary on live events

The right social media platform seamlessly connects your target audience to your campaign goals. For example, boosting sales for a fitness-tracking app would pair well with YouTube fitness influencers who will pitch a 30-second ad during a workout video.

Increasing exposure to the airline's destinations may work well as an Instagram Reel showcasing stunning views.

4. Plan and schedule your content ahead of time
Preparation is key to social media campaign success. Building a consistent schedule with a social media content calendar not only allows your fanbase to anticipate when you'll post something new, but it also positively affects the algorithm. Taking advantage of content calendar templates can significantly help with organization and save resources during the campaign. Later's social media content calendar will help visually plan, schedule, and publish posts on multiple platforms.

To help streamline your planning even more, use a social media scheduler. These social media publishing tools help you create content and set times to publish it. Using Later's social media scheduler to automate your posts, you can take some of the stress out of your campaign.

Later also has a tool to tell you the best times to post your content so it reaches your target audience when they're most receptive. For example, if you want to know the best time to post on Instagram or even how often to post on Instagram, Later analyzes six months' worth of your data to tell you exactly when to put out new content.

5. Craft compelling organic content & messaging

The most important part of your social media campaign is your content. Content that isn't interesting or doesn't convey your message well will derail all of your previous efforts.

There are different types of organic content you can create to fit certain needs. Here are some examples:

• Instagram stories:

  Content that disappears after 24 hours

• Short-form videos:

  Short vertical videos that remain on your profile

• Carousels:

  Posts that have multiple images for users to swipe through

• Long-form videos:

  Landscape videos that can last minutes or hours

• Polls:

  Interactive content allowing users to vote on an issue

• Live streams:

  Real-time videos broadcast to an audience

Whether you have the option to write social media captions or a YouTube description, giving some context to your content can aid the algorithm in getting it to the right people. Try Later's AI caption writer or check out these Instagram caption ideas, which will save you time and take some of the pressure off when writing impactful captions for your content.

6. Launch your organic social media campaign

Before launching the campaign you've prepared, double-check your content and ensure that you have finalized all the images and videos you'll use. Proofread the captions to guarantee everything is of professional quality.

Include relevant hashtags by performing keyword research or using Later's hashtag suggestions tool so your content reaches the right audience.

Once the campaign begins, monitor your content and engage with users who interact with or express interest in your brand. Quickly reply to all comments, mentions, and DMs in your social media inbox. Don't lose steam as the campaign continues. Remain consistent and stay active and you'll see your efforts pay off.

7. Measuring and analyzing social media campaign effectiveness​

Once you begin posting content, pay attention to social media analytics. Keep track of reach, impressions, engagement rate, shares, saves, and profile visits. Accurate data allows you to make adjustments to keep your campaign on track and meet objectives.

Each social media platform has its own type of insights dashboard where you can view these metrics. Later's social media analytics tool allows you to see insights across several platforms in one place. You'll also be able to view extended historical data and detailed performance reports, gaining a deeper understanding of how to connect with your audience.

8. Optimize and adapt your organic campaign

The data you gather can help you create an organic campaign performance report to analyze social media campaign effectiveness and better prepare for future operations. It can also aid you in making strategic adjustments to optimize your current strategy.

For example, content posted at a specific time of day tends to receive more engagement. Including specific hashtags in your caption can give you a broader reach. Making key changes as you go is an excellent recipe for success.

With social listening, you can also track how your audience perceives your message. DMs, comments, mentions, and replies can clue you into challenges and issues important to users.

Catching complaints and negative feedback early will allow you to pivot and salvage your efforts. If the sentiment is positive and your fanbase grows, consider fine-tuning your goals and scaling the campaign to have a bigger impact.

9. Post-campaign wrap-up and learnings

Once you've released all your content, it's time to look at how you did. Use the data and reports to see how your KPIs compare to your original goals. If certain metrics underachieved, take note of them and brainstorm what might've caused this and how you can improve it next time.

For example, if you run an Instagram campaign and the engagement rate didn't meet its mark, you can dig deeper. Some reels and stories may have received far less engagement than others, dragging down the metric. Comparing and contrasting the differences between the successful and unsuccessful posts can help you plan better for the next campaign.

Share your results with your team and stakeholders and remain open-minded to their feedback. Oftentimes, you can repurpose the material from your original campaign to create new content and further improve your branding.

Get inspo from these 3 real-world social media campaign examples

Real-world examples of the best social media campaigns can both inspire and teach you how to run a successful operation.

1. Artifact Uprising, a premium photo printing service, has been building a community on Instagram that has amassed over 650k followers. Recently with the help of Later, it found success and increased its subscribers by 80k, and credits Later's social media tools with saving it hours per week and helping it find relevant hashtags to make its message reach more people.

2. A sustainability and mindful living company, Conscious Life & Style, began using Later to manage its social media channels to great effect. With three brands and multiple social media channels, Later was able to streamline all the company's needs through a single app, reducing work. The ability to create content, organize the calendar, and schedule posts has saved the company an average of 20 minutes per post and increased its follower growth by 61%.

3. STIL, a company that sells goods for productivity and women's empowerment, leveraged Later to attract more users to its website. Today, 70% of its web traffic stems from social media, amounting to 60% of sales. A significant reason for this is the improvement of organization and engagement through Later's social media tools.

Take advantage of Later for your next social media campaign

Well-run social media campaigns are all about taking the time to prepare and establish a winning set of steps. As a starting effort, define your goals, audience, and content strategy. By doing this, it will be easier to create the compelling content you need to spark interest across the internet for low to no cost.

To maximize your chances of success, use Later to plan and run your campaigns more efficiently. Later is a social media management platform that offers guidance and tools to help you reach your objectives. From content calendars to scheduling tools to in-depth analytics, Later can make your social campaign easier and more successful.

Interested in learning how Later can help your organic social media campaign? Visit our website to learn more and start a free trial.