Nowadays, social media’s power, influence, and clout is no longer up for debate.

As social media’s popularity as a marketing strategy has been established, we have seen a significant increase in effective and clever ways it is used in marketing campaigns.

If you are in the throes of launching your own social media campaign, below are 4 key components you should keep in mind to ensure massive success:

Come up with a carefully developed plan.

Successful and effective social media components begin with a plan that is carefully developed and created.

The plan should be tailored to the specific campaign you want to run.

In addition, it is also vital that it complements your overall social media strategy.

In other words, your goals should not be conflicting and if you already have a campaign going on, it should be a continuation of the existing social style and voice of your brand.

To create a social media campaign plan that is both comprehensive and effective, begin with thorough research.

In addition, you also need to perform a thorough analysis of the existing social media followers across the social networks you have a presence in and identify areas you need to improve on.

Keep in mind that different social networks have been designed for different purposes so it is recommended that you pick the network that will best suit your needs.

For instance, if you want to target millennials, you can never go wrong with Facebook and Instagram.

If you want to target Baby Boomers or Gen Xers, you won’t find too many of them on Instagram so it’s important to know where to look.

Ensure you have goals that are clearly defined.

Prior to starting your social media campaign, consider it a must to clearly define goals you would like to achieve first.

Knowing what you want to achieve will make it a lot easier for you to analyze and measure your results.

If you want, you can have several goals with each part of the strategy serving different objectives.

As a general rule of thumb, make sure each goal is tailored for the needs of your business.

Consider doing cross-channel promotion.

Unless you’re a top brand with a really solid following, it would be safe to assume your campaign can use some help from other marketing channels for you to achieve the results you desire.

Often, the best social media campaigns are part and parcel of a marketing campaign that’s integrated, where social media efforts are supported on several other channels.

Promoting your brand across several other channels will allow you to enjoy two benefits—you will be able to remind your social media followers through other means and those who are not active on social media channels will be informed.

Your followers who know your brand are also likely to participate or engage with it when they see it on other channels.

When you are able to reach different people at varied time through different marketing channels, the more likely it is for your campaign to be successful.

Just be conscious of your timing and segmentation.

Be careful you don’t overwhelm your potential and existing customers with too much all at once.

Don’t forget to perform a thorough analysis of your campaign from time to time.

How is your social media campaign doing?

Were you able to reach the objectives you have set?

When analyzing your campaign’s success, you will appreciate identifying the key metrics associated with the desired goals from the onset because it will be easier to benchmark your campaign’s progress versus your starting point.

Apart from the objectives you’ve achieved, are there downstream metrics that have improved significantly?

Evaluate if there are lifetime value or engagement metrics that apply to your business that you’ve missed out.

Conclusion

Effective and successful social media campaigns should do more than increase your follower count.

Keep the above key components as the tenets of your social media campaigns and it would only be a matter of time until you achieve the goals you have in mind.