This week, my public relations class had the honor of receiving a guest lecture from Dr. Karen Freberg about social media campaign strategy. Social media campaigns are essential for almost every brand today, so keeping up with the latest research and trends will help ensure that your work is as successful as possible. Below, I outline three essential strategies she discussed and provide examples of each.
1. Pick the right partnerships.
Partnerships with other brands, be it influencers, nonprofits or companies, can lead to unprecedented success for both entities. Beyond classic partnerships like those between sporting brands and athletes (think Michael Jordan and Nike), more out-of-the-box endeavors can be incredible for the right brand. For example, Kanye West is not an athlete, yet his partnership with Adidas allowed the latter to go from being known as a soccer shoe company to a lifestyle brand.
Not all partnerships need to revolutionize a brand’s image to be successful; the recent “Fortnite x Avengers: Infinity War” campaign brought together the massive audiences of each for the benefit of both. I’m sure I’m not the only Marvel fan who downloaded Fortnite for the limited-time Thanos game mode, and I can imagine plenty of gamers went and saw Infinity War who might not have otherwise.
These are just some well-known examples, but partnerships can benefit your brand regardless of its size. If you see an opportunity, reach out—you never know what will happen!
2. Learn from your competitors.
On social media, every brand competes for recognition and engagement. Keep track of successful and unsuccessful campaigns you see, and implement those findings in your future social media endeavors. It may be particularly helpful to look at brands similar to yours, but looking outside of your industry can also be insightful. For example, if Pepsi gets slammed for creating an insensitive ad with Kendall Jenner, it may be a sign that any similar messaging will be unpopular, even if your company sells smartphones.
3. Use social media listening and monitoring.
Before Wednesday, I thought listening and monitoring on social media were effectively the same. This is not the case, and they each serve a unique and important purpose in social media campaigns. Listening involves proactively finding online trends to capitalize on that don’t directly relate to your brand. For example, when there was a blackout at 2013’s Super Bowl, Oreo quickly caught on and tweeted this:
Conversely, social media monitoring is more systematic and reactive, generally involving systems that observe mentions of your brand and its hashtags. While social media listening is about finding new opportunities, monitoring is more tied to tracking your current objectives. Both are integral to social media endeavors, and properly utilizing each will help you stay on top of your brand’s presence in the social media landscape.
Finally, I want to extend a huge thanks to Dr. Freberg for visiting our class. I highly recommend that you check out her Twitter and her blog; I’m sure you’ll learn something new and useful!
Jozef Standow’s Blog 
One thought on “3 Strategies for Successful Social Media Campaigns”