A guide to setting up and running a 14 day Social Networking campaign.

1. Setting up a Social Media Campaign – First Business Needs

2. Day One: Decide on your social campaign. What is the message you want to give. What is the offer that you are giving to your community. Ensure you have a goal, your message is clear, and that you know how long you are going to maintain the campaign. In this case we are working on a 14 day campaign for a specific result. Keep it short, clear and simple. Make sure your website is ready, your facebook, linkedin, twitter etc. are all set up,along with any other social platforms you use. Also ensure you have your email list ready. Make sure they all have the same message and that you are encouraging people to share their email with you.

3. Day Two: Share your offer across your platforms and email. Get your supporters to share across their platforms and get the message viral. Spend time making sure that you post this to your platforms at least 3 times this day and that you remind people you are doing so. If you got day one right, then you should be collecting emails from one place. Either your facebook page through ‘likes’ or your webpage. Use a tool such as Aweber to help you set this up automatically.

4. Day Three: Listen and respond to feedback. Spend time listening to your communities responses. See how many of them are sharing your message with others, how many of them are commenting on the message (good or bad), thank people for sharing or reply back to their comments. Even the bad stuff must be responded to. However respond in a positive manner. Not everyone is going to like what you say, and you need to persuade them that even if they don’t like it, they trust your integrity.

5. Day four: Engage with your audience. Post updates about your message. Let people know what others are saying. Update how many supporters you may have now, or recruits to the cause you have got. Consider setting a poll regarding the campaign, or asking specific questions to get people talking. You may want to post something that will create great debate amongst your followers. Post some pictures or videos that are appropriate to your campaign.

6. Day five: Remind people of your message, offer, campaign. Ask people to share their comments, thoughts etc. Make the reminder different from the original post. However keep the message clear. Remind people that the campaign is in day 5 and how close to your goal you are. Again respond to comments. Check which platform is creating the greatest buzz. If on Linkedin, ask great questions within appropriate groups, share these on twitter and facebook. Check how many people are ‘liking’ your facebook page or new connections you are making. Do not forget to respond to new connections personally.

7. Day six: Continue the conversation. Post new comments, new photo’s, maybe have a competition. Put up new video’s. If you have interviews of some of your client or customer group, post these up to. Keep the message going and keep your eye on the goal.

8. Day seven: Remind people you are halfway through the campaign. Update on results so far. Watch closely where your comments are coming from, where the conversations are taking place and record these. Urge people to participate in your campaign and not to miss out on any offer you may have.

9. Day eight: Spend today urging your supporters to share the message and to set up conversations with their followers. Spread the message again across your platforms, and again change the delivery slightly.

10. Day nine: Carry on your engagement. Continue to thank people for participating. Keep on posting and re-tweeting. Keep discussions going on Linkedin and remember to remind people why you are having this discussion. Aim to respond to as many comments as possible today.

11. Day ten: Keep on checking and responding to feedback. Keep an eye on your targets and again measusre where your comments are coming from and which postings create the greatest conversation.

12. Day eleven: Upload a video thanking everyone for participating in your campaign. Remind them that you are nearing the end of this campaign and if you have an offer, that this will soon end. Keep engaging, keep posting and keep measuring.

13. Day twelve: Prepare your default landing page. You are now getting to the end of your campaign, however you want to continue collecting emails. Set you welcome page as a default landing page, and ensure that this has a form for people to share their contact details with you. Keep it professional and branded with the rest of your marketing. Encourage people to like you.

14. Day thirteen: So today you need to remind people that you only have 1 day left. If you need to urge people to help you gain your target then do so. Email people to remind them that the campaign ends tommorow.

15. Day Fourteen: Thank everyone for participating. Urge them to continue to support you. Evalute your results so that you have a clear map of where your supporters are coming from. Use this information for planning your next campaign.

16. Finaly: The campaign may be over, however your relationship with your supports is not. Continue to engage and create trust with the people who follow you.

17. For more help: [email_address] www.communityengagement.co.uk www.3rdsectortoolbox.com