You might not relate a social media campaign to a traditional ad campaign, but the two are more similar than you know. Think of routine content and engagement as brand awareness: great for pulling new audience members into the community. However, a continuous stream of company info and press releases will quickly bore your audience. A social media campaign, much like a traditional advertising print campaign introduces an exciting and new ad message that is on-brand and part of a larger strategy. 
Due to the social and fun atmosphere of social media, social networking platforms are well-poised to be a part of a campaign strategy. We at The Cyphers Agency love social media campaigns and have found them to be extremely effective, but only when used strategically and part of a larger plan. We run campaigns for many of our clients, including one just recently launched for Better Than Bouillon. We’ve built their social media presence from the ground up and campaigns are a big part of our strategy for the brand.
For this particular campaign, we listened to our audience. They had described Better Than Bouillon as the secret ingredient of their cooking — more than just a product for soups, broths and gravies. Our audience members use it for so much more and are proud of the recipes they’ve developed around our product. We wanted to capitalize on that idea and the concept of a “secret ingredient”. The “Secret Ingredient” campaign invites audience members to tell us their secret tip for using Better Than Bouillon and enter for a chance to win one of several prizes we are offering.
The concept is fairly simple, but it builds the idea that Better Than Bouillon is an essential part of any cook’s arsenal, the ace in the hole to make any dish taste good. Asking users for how they use Better than Bouillon gets our fans thinking creatively and provides us user-generated content that we can share to inspire different uses of the product. It’s on brand, thoughtful, part of a larger strategy and will keep our audience engaged.
The art of running a social media campaign is that it must be a part of a larger strategy with its own ad message. Doing giveaways, promotions and offers are great incentives to get your audience interested. However, you must have a strong foundation to build the campaign upon. It’s also a pretty good idea to hire professionals to do the strategizing, creative thinking and management for you. I think I know the name of an agency with a good AMAZING social media team somewhere around here…..
