#1 Show authenticity 💯
As the rise in influencer marketing has shown over the past few years, people aren’t that interested in hearing from marketing teams anymore. Whether it’s a glowing testimonial or an honest review, your audience wants to hear about your brand, products and services from people just like them. A great way to incorporate this authenticity into your campaigns is through user generated content.
From retweeting a happy customer that pops up in the inbox, to asking for suggestions using the question sticker on Instagram stories or taking topics from discussions in your Facebook group, the content generated by the individuals who interact with your brand can be a gold mine for insight, information and inspiration for your next campaign!
#2 Build advocacy ❤️
Knowing your network is essential if you want to harness the power of your advocates. Take the time to identify and understand the different groups of stakeholders that interact with your brand and keep their interests, values and content preferences in mind when planning your campaigns. By sharing your messaging in a way that your stakeholders relate with, you’re more likely to encourage engagement and interaction.
You can even take things to the next level and amplify advocacy through the use of campaign specific hashtags. Not only will this enable your advocates to easily show off their love for your brand with pride, but it will also help to bring your community together in the digital world, no matter where they are! Plus, with a whole load of activity using your hashtag, your posts will be more powerful and attractive in the eyes of the algorithms, helping you to get far more organic reach than you’d be able to achieve alone. Be sure to set up monitoring streams for your hashtag too, so you can keep track when and how it’s used – getting involved in the conversations you want to and resharing the posts you want the world to see!
#3 Connect personally 🤝
When focusing on digital campaigns, it’s easy to forget the power of physical materials that people can actually hold in their hands. By incorporating something tangible into your campaign, you can bring the real and virtual world together. Sure, it can take a lot of time, effort and (sometimes) budget to pull these things off, but the return on investment can be astounding – especially if you really personalise your approach.
So, whether you’re a higher education institution sending congratulations letters to new students on A levels results day, an FMCG company sending branded merchandise to super fans on their birthdays (a la Britvic!) or a restaurant providing a surprise dessert to a couple on their anniversary, providing a unique gift or experience, can really help your customers to feel connected to your brand (bonus if it can be shot and shared on social!). Not only does it feel good to make someone’s day, but when the person captures the moment and shares it with the world, it provides an opportunity to capitalise on the activity, bringing your campaign to life!
We all know there’s more to great social media marketing campaigns than authenticity, advocacy and personalisation alone, but these are three key things that some of the social media greats have seen work really well for them. Why not take these techniques and tweak them for your brand to see what effect they have on your next campaign? And if you and your team have your own tips, tricks and techniques that make your social campaigns a success, share them with the Orlo herd by tagging @HelloOrlo in your posts – we’d love to hear your thoughts!
