An effective way to engage your audience on social media is to create social campaigns. These come in a variety of forms such as contests, special offers and sweepstakes.

Below are some tips on creating a successful social media campaign.

1. Have measurable goals

The first question to ask when it comes to planning your campaigns is, “What are my goals?” You might have a general idea why you should create a campaign, but it’s essential to identify specific goals so that you can assign a measurable value, also known as a key performance indicator (KPI), to help determine the success of your campaign.

If your goal is to raise brand awareness about your product on Facebook, then your KPI might be the number of comments, shares, and likes.

On the other hand, if you want to drive more traffic to your website, then you might want to track how many users are coming to your site from different social channels.

2. Create a theme

Once you’ve figure out what you are going to promote and how you are going to promote it, try to associate your promotion with a theme. It could be something that is seasonal or something that relates to a milestone, such as a grand opening or an anniversary. A great way to brand your campaign is to use hashtags (#) for all of your campaign related posts.

TIP: Decide which social platforms to use based on the nature of your campaign and your audience.

3. Have a set timeline

The length of your campaign depends on a number of factors including your goals, the size of your fan-base, your campaign type, and how many campaigns you intend to run.

Contests that require more time, such as photo and video contests, may span the course of over a month, whereas shorter contests, such as regular sweepstakes, typically take up no longer than two or three weeks.

4. Create buzz with incentives

Get your customers excited about your campaign(s) by offering incentives. It doesn’t have to be anything pricey or something that you don’t have. For instance, you can ask customers to share your promotion on their social media page for a discount. Or you can give away some of your services and products, which also helps promote them.

Sometimes even giving your customers free publicity (for example, featuring their photo on your social media page) is enough to engage your audience. These types of shout-outs are highly shareable, but it’s important to ask for permission first before you share.

And remember to tie everything to your theme!

Are you ready to promote your business on social media?

Social platforms are an effective and inexpensive way to reach and engage with customers to help your business grow. If you need more advice on going social, have a look at some of the related articles below. As well, Yellow Pages offers Facebook services that includes setting up and maintaining your page.