Planning & Measuring Campaigns: Social Marketing Playbook

SOCIAL MARKETING
PLAYBOOK:
Planning &
Measuring
Campaigns
meltwater.com/social
SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around
to hear it, does it make a sound? If we agree to
measure sound as a human experience, then the
answer is ‘no’. The same can be said of social
marketing campaigns.
If you’re not being heard by

your audience, what hope do
you have of achieving your
objectives?
The most fundamental component of a
successful social marketing campaign is the
reaction of its target audience. Failing to make
use of — or drastically underutilizing — rich
data that can be gleaned from today’s densely
populated social media landscape is a significant
missed opportunity.
In this playbook we’ll take you through several

must know steps and processes for making sure
that you develop marketing campaigns that have
social media data at their core. We’ll go over
best practices for utilizing social data that can be
used in the planning, measuring, and follow up
stages of your campaigns.
2
01 Why a Social Media Campaign?
02 Setting the Right Goals
03 Paid Support for Campaigns: When Organic Isn’t Enough
04 Social Campaign Research 101
05 Social Campaign Launch Checklist
06 Your Campaign is Launched-Now What?
07 Reporting Outcomes
08 Advancing Your Campaign Strategies
09 In Conclusion
10 Sources
3
01 WHY A

SOCIAL MEDIA
CAMPAIGN?
Today, much of the world’s population
is using social media as a means of
communication and entertainment.
This vast and rapidly growing audience is gathered across a
handful of digital spaces, the proverbial forest, and your ability
to reach them depends entirely on your social media strategy.
In 2015, an estimated
179.7 million people

used a social network, and the number of worldwide
social media users is projected to grow to
2.5 billion by 2018 (eMarketer).
According to a 2016 Pew Survey,
65% of adults
used at least one social networking site, and for
adults aged 18 to 29,
the figure rose to 90%. 4
There are many

benefits to a social
media campaign:
Better brand recognition among a
wider audience, with social sharing
providing opportunities for organic
audience growth
Improved customer insight on a

platform where the audience provides
its point-ofview through comments
and other interactive behavior
Improved brand loyalty with

communication techniques tailored
to the desired audience
Better SEO, higher conversion rates,

and scalable marketing costs
Larger, more diverse and

wide-reaching communities
Opportunities to expand CSR efforts

to benefit harder-to-reach recipients
Reaching new groups of target

audiences and amplifying social
content through paid social media
Driving leads to
content marketing
5
The influence of social

media on customers and
potential customers is
substantial, widely
demonstrated, and
growing rapidly.
It is surpassing traditional media’s impact

on purchase decisions, brand loyalty and
customer service: The Drum reports that...
Facebook now influences
52%
of consumers’ online and offline purchases,
36%
up from
in 2014
According to AdAge, consumers’ socialmedia

habits now play almost as big a role in purchasing
decisions as television.
A strong social media strategy is becoming

fundamental for agencies and marketers, with
the share of marketing budgets spent on social
media expected to more than double over the
next five years, from 11 percent today to 24
percent by 2020 (CMO Survey).
6
Over
66%
of marketers currently report
lead generation benefits
from as little as...
6
hours
spent per week wiith social media
In addition, more than half with at least two years

invested in social media marketing report a gain of
new partnerships and improved sales.
Nevertheless, social media is still often regarded as

a “checkbox” item assigned to junior staff lacking
experience in developing effective strategies.
So what are the first steps to building a

social media strategy and campaigns
to execute that strategy?
7
02 SETTING THE RIGHT GOALS
First, decide what you want your social media campaign to accomplish:
Who
do you want to reach?
Where & When
should they do it?
What
do you want them to do?
Why
8
The backbone of any social media campaign is SMART goals.
An “act now, think later,” approach to incorporating social into existing marketing campaigns can work
against the marketer or agency experimenting with social for the first time. It is less effective than an approach
that takes into account the medium’s strengths and weaknesses, while also running the risk of leaving key
stakeholders without benchmarks against which to measure success or failure.
9
Before laying the groundwork

for any social campaign, social
marketers should ask themselves
a few key questions:
1. What are the organization’s business goals for

the month/quarter/year?
2. What messages, content and campaigns

have been created in the last six months to a
year? Which ones struggled? Which ones were
successful? Why?
3. Which audiences are marketing and sales

currently targeting?
4. What are our Key Performance indicators

(KPIs)? Brand awareness? Perception change?
Lead generation? A particular action - clicks,
engagement, requests for outreach or trials?
5. What does success look like to the client?
6. What does success look like to internal

stakeholders, such as sales or the executive
leadership team?
7. How are competitors measuring

their success?
10
Many marketers starting out with social
marketing make the same common mistake:
failing to see the forest for the trees.
They focus on objectives - measurable, specific targets -

without applying those to larger business goals.
LET’S CONSIDER A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE.

Pretend you’re a small consumer packaged goods (CPG) company looking
to introduce a new seasonal product.
The field team has done their work to set up product demos at grocery
stores, aisle displays, college campus giveaways and flyers at shopping malls.
It’s now the digital marketing team’s job to extend the product launch to
social media.
11
It can be tempting to opt for the low-hanging-fruit such
as shares, likes, and comments without considering the
bigger picture. However, doing so opens up potential for a
disconnect to develop between marketing departments.
Instead, consider focusing on:
Overarching brand strategy: Are you looking to

introduce the brand to new customers or to get new
customers interested in the product?
Executive point of view: What does success look like

to the executive team — better sales or greater brand
awareness?
Tactics to support strategies: What tactics are

approved — or already proven effective — to introduce
the products to new customers? Trials? Giveaways?
Desired action: What do you want your audience to do on

social? Tell their friends about you? Follow a call-to-action?
Click through to a partner site?
Once you’ve considered the above, you’ll be prepared to

define your goals and objectives.
Try to keep goals and objectives short — too many can

cloud the output, targeting, and reporting of a campaign
and distract from the results that matter. Three to five is
the sweet spot.
12
Ensure that Objectives are
Measurable
Key stakeholders will determine the campaign’s
success by its ability to reach quantifiable goals.
company names or product names in the caption.
Images may include full or partial brand logos,
products and/or contextual evidence.
MAKE SURE TO FIND A BALANCE BETWEEN THE

ASPIRATIONAL AND THE ATTAINABLE
You should choose objectives that are attainable, so

you don’t set up yourself for failure, but ones that
remain aspirational enough to push strategies.
OBJECTIVES GOALS
Increase • 500 free snack sign-ups
Awareness of from existing follower base
New Product • 1,000 social shares from
Among Existing existing follower base of
Customers new product announce-
ment
Increase Brand • 1,500 new social followers
Awareness Among in target audience groups
New Customers • Increase share of voice
(SOV) in target keywords
by 3%
13
03 PAID SUPPORT FOR

CAMPAIGNS:
WHEN ORGANIC
ISN’T ENOUGH
Brands are crowding social media with an
enormous amount of content.
The landscape is saturated, and certain social networking platforms now
deliberately deprioritize brand content in favor of posts by friends and
news organizations. In other words, your social campaign might be the
new Oreo Daily Twist … and still need a boost from paid support.
Faced with this new reality, the major social media platforms are now
best thought of as advertising platforms. This may represent a shift
for brands — but a beneficial one. Advertising through social channels
allows brands to cut through the clutter and reach consumers more
strategically. Social advertising also allows for an unprecedented amount
of focus and targeting, given how much users choose to share about
themselves on their social channels.
14
By definition, organic posts on social media
are untargeted – they’re seen by whoever
follows a particular user, and those eyeballs
don’t necessarily belong to your most valuable
audience.
Investing in
high-quality
content isn’t
cheap and with
paid support,
you are able to
better target your
audience -based
on criteria that
matters to you.
This ensures that your content isn’t going to
waste and is being seen by the right people for
your campaign goals.
15
Paid promotion not only ensures you’re reaching the right audience
with your content; it provides you with a wealth of information
on your campaign’s performance - information not available from
organic posts.
Campaigns can be measured and optimized based on traffic to site on a cost-per-click basis, engagement
on platform, completion of video, consumption, sharing, or lead generation/acquisition and sales. A smart
paid program helps you understand the market price for the results you want, and lets you optimize your
content program to deliver stronger results within your budget.
It is also the most impactful method of advertising that exists - In 2016, 74% of marketers
have areported using social ads - with 59% saying they’re effective, compared to print offline
promotion (used by 65% of surveyed marketers, but with only 46% reported effectiveness)
(Social Media Examiner).
16
It’s safe to say that paid support should
now be a part of nearly every social
campaign strategy.
However, the following types of campaigns may
benefit from it the most:
Resource intensive content: If a brand has invested i high-value

content - like videos, white papers, or microsites - that value should
be extended as far as possible. Remember the tree falling in the
woods with no one to hear it? That’s your pricey content without
paid support.
Increasing brand awareness: There is no more effective way of

increasing the number of eyes on your brand than paying for those
impressions with a targeted campaign.
Extending the life of earned media stories: If a brand has landed

an on-message, top-tier media hit, the publication will promote
it - for a day. But that effort in pitching, messaging and prepping
shouldn’t die in a news cycle, and with paid support on social - it
won’t.
Targeting a specific audience: Paid support can also allow you

to promote directly to one group rather than the entire web –
particularly useful for location-based targeting or campaigns
involving a sensitive issue or audience.
17
04 SOCIAL CAMPAIGN

RESEARCH 101
It’s not enough to have expert knowledge of the
brand you’re promoting to run a successful social
media campaign.
You need to understand the larger industry landscape, the interests and activities of
target audiences and current events.
COMPETITORS
First, research the campaigns your brand’s competitors have recently run and learn how they’ve
released similar products. Most often, competitive research should include:
• Evaluating which messages garner the most engagement (both positive and negative)
• Examining their share of voice within the industry
• Evaluating the differences between their brand messaging and your own
• Looking at the way competitors are covered in the media - are there reporters or outlets who
would be interested in your announcements as well?
18
AUDIENCE

Next, define your desired audience: what are the
strongest demographics to target based on your
product or announcement, taking age and audience
size into consideration?
Once you understand your audience and define their

habits, ask the following questions: what platforms and
hashtags do they use? What conversations do they have
on which topics? What kind of content motivates their
engagements? What trends do they follow?
This part isn’t easy to do manually - it’s time-consuming

and the results are narrower than those captured by
tools designed to monitor audience conversations. Tools
like Meltwater Social enable campaign managers to
respond to both paid and organic engagements in a single
dashboard in real-time. Meltwater Social can help pull key
insights together in the weeks leading up to a campaign.
RELEVANT EVENTS
Finally, explore existing events for a timely tie-in.
Are there upcoming industry events, conferences or

tradeshows, pop culture milestones or important holidays
to leverage for posts relevant to audiences’ interests? Are
there any pertinent announcements being made within your
industry you can expand upon and inform? If your audience is
speaking to a subject, you should be, too.
19
05 SOCIAL CAMPAIGN

LAUNCH CHECKLIST
You’ve set your goals and objectives. You know what’s going
on in the market. You’ve identified the right time, place and
message for your audience.
But before you launch, here’s a checklist ensuring you’re ready to go on launch day:
CREATIVE TESTING TRACKING STRINGS
BILLING TARGETING CHECKING EVENTS
20
CREATIVE

• Copy is drafted following each network’s character count requirement.
• Images are created in accordance with dimensions and specifications of each network.
• Material is reviewed and approved at least two business days before launch to ensure there is ample time to
set up the campaign.
TESTING
For a successful campaign, especially a brand’s first, test all messages, creative and targeting. Set up test posts with one
changed variable on each post to measure effectiveness of one piece of creative or copy versus another.
TRACKING STRINGS
If the campaign leads to particular web assets on your brand’s page, use an analytics system, such as Google Analytics
or Adobe Social, to set up tracking strings and measure end-to-end impact on the web destination.
BILLING
If your brand is launching its first paid campaign, many social networks require establishing a line of credit with them first.
This means that you will need to set up your billing account up to five business days before launch and you may not be
able to spend quickly. Check each social network’s guidelines so you are prepared.
TARGETING
Setting up targeting for paid campaigns can take a long time and reveal surprising facts. It could turn out that your
audience isn’t large enough or it will cost more per action than originally estimated. Set up the campaign targeting at
least two business days before campaign launch to make any changes necessary to meet overall goals.
CHECKING EVENTS
In our current climate, news of struggle, tragedy and unexpected occurrences happen every day. For brands, the wrong
pre-scheduled social post going live at the wrong timecan garner negative publicity and impact the success of a
campaign. Before pressing “launch,” check to make sure your campaign isn’t accidentally running alongside atragic news
event and casting a poor light on your brand’s reputation.
21
06 YOUR CAMPAIGN IS

LAUNCHED - NOW WHAT?
Once your campaign is launched, the work isn’t over -
in fact, it’s just beginning.
Here are five steps to optimize your campaign while it runs:
1. BE PRESENT
No matter the goals and objectives of your campaign, audiences and user groups engaging with
content should be heard and engaged. If your audiences respond to content, acknowledge their
responses by “liking” their comments as appropriate, or responding with an on-brand message.
Tools like Meltwater Social and its Paid Social Analytics features enable campaign managers to
respond to both paid and organic engagements in a single dashboard in real-time.
2. DON’T ENGAGE WITH TROLLS

If your campaign receives negative feedback, you do not need to respond to everyone.
Responding can provoke negativity, no matter how diplomatic your response. A best
practice is to only respond to negative commentary that directly goes against your brand values
or is factually false about your brand, rather than passive opinions. Also, do not delete negative
responses — this will rarely go unnoticed and gives the trolls a valid complaint to air.
22
3. FOLLOW THE 1% RULE
Social networks vary, as do goals and objectives, but a
general rule to follow is to shoot for at least 1% click-
through or engagement on posts. As with other forms
of marketing — like direct mail — 1% of an audience
shows that messages are resonating and that your
targeting is accurate.
4. DITCH THE UNSUCCESSFUL

If a message, creative, or target isn’t leading to the
results you’re after, stop it in its tracks. Allocate those
resources to a more successful post in the campaign
— don’t waste budget or audience attention on posts
that aren’t working.
5. KEEP IT FRESH
Did you notice a new trend occur during your
campaign that you could leverage? Have your results
plateaued? Adjust as you go. Create additional
graphics, alter your targeting and try new social
campaign layouts. Campaigns have a lifespan—it’s the
social marketer’s job to make it a long one.
23
07 REPORTING

OUTCOMES
Your budget has run

out, your product or
announcement has
made the rounds and
now you have a lot of
data for reporting.
But those numbers mean little without
context, especially for those who don’t live and
breathe social media. How do you tell your key
stakeholders what happened?
24
Below is a report template that keeps information concise, action-focused,

provides baselines and will help stakeholders comprehend the relevance and
importance of campaign results.
GOALS & Reiterate the goals and objectives originally formulated at the beginning of the
OBJECTIVES campaign to remind readers what you were trying to accomplish.
Write this portion last. Look through all other sections and highlight key learnings
EXECUTIVE
and success factors tied to goals and objectives. Keep this section to 150 words or less
SUMMARY
as many readers will only make it this far.
WHO Who: Who was this campaign targeting?

WHAT What: What was the strategic framework for the campaign?
WHEN When: What was your campaign timeline?
WHERE Where: Which social networks did this campaign live on?
WHY How: Here, briefly break down your campaign’s strategy. Include specific variations of
HOW content tested, number of posts and diversity of creative.
TOP PERFORMING This section is important for informing future social campaigns, as well as other
CREATIVE & marketing campaigns. Here, choose 3-5 of the top performing posts and include
screenshots with a few bullet points on why they succeeded.
TARGETING
No campaign is perfect. Out of the challenges that may have occurred, identify a
few in 1-2 sentences, making sure to include:
KEY
LEARNINGS • What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• What will be done differently in the next campaign?
25
Once a report is
completed, circulate
the results to
stakeholders (sales,
customer service,
etc.) who can act
on them.
Follow up with
departments to ensure
the insights from reports
are being implemented
and used as a lens
through which they work.
Key learnings are only
useful when effectively
being put to action.
26
08 ADVANCING YOUR

CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES
For Agencies
Helping run a successful brand campaign can uncover insights into customer groups and
trends, which can showcase your agency’s capabilities within the creative, digital, paid
and traditional PR space. It can ensure that client recommendations are well researched
and exceed competitors’ work.
A solid social campaign will strengthen client relationships as the agency becomes a trusted advisor,
generating new business opportunities based on the expertise demonstrated in the campaign.
Using social tools helps you identify the right targets for your message, driving massive lifts in
engagement over other targeting methods, and helps develop a specialized agency department of
well-resourced experts for use across clients and accounts.
Additionally, it broadens the scope of social media use beyond campaign planning, as clients
impressed with your social media capabilities will come to you for their other needs, such as visual
analytics or social customer relationship management.
27
For Marketers
Proven campaign results can lead to additional
resources and budget for future social campaigns
and build strong relationships with industry
influencers, who may then become product
advocates and invaluable consultants. Successful
campaigns also gather critical insights on
competitors and audiences, which can be used by
other departments within your company.
Furthermore, understanding your audience landscape

and the types of messaging and creative that resonates
best with them, helps to inform future marketing
plans and content. Once you’ve earned the trust
of management and senior staff, you can continue
pushing boundaries, exploring new features and
functions on social and finding new, exciting ways to
entice and converse with your key audiences.
28
09 IN CONCLUSION

The Data is Clear
The world is using social media in overwhelming numbers, and strong social media
campaigns have proven impact. When brands skip social media activations - specifically
ones with paid support - they do so at their own peril.
And while so many marketers consider the task of running campaigns difficult, tools exist to
simplify the process and dramatically optimize the results.
Whether you want to listen to customers, monitor competitor activity, curate

user-generated content, or manage your brand’s publishing, Meltwater Social
empowers users to transform social media data into actionable and
strategic business opportunities.
A strong social campaign is essential and with the correct tools, it ensures that when your
campaign launches, it will make the sound you need.
For more information on what Meltwater can do to help you with planning and measuring your
social media campaigns, please visit meltwater.com/social.
29
10 SOURCES CITED

Infographic: Who’s Really Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram in 2015
eMarketer, January 2015.
News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016

Jeffrey Gottfried and Elisa Shearer, Pew Survey, May 2016.
Facebook Influences over Half of Shoppers Says DigitasLBi’s Connected Commerce Report
John McCarthy, The Drum, April 2015.
What the Changing Role of Social-Media Influence Means for Brands

Jennifer Sikora, Advertising Age, March 2015.
The CMO Survey Report

Deloitte, American Marketing Association and Duke Fuqua School of Business, February 2016.
2016 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

Michael A. Stelzner, Social Media Examiner, May 2016.
30

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SOCIAL MARKETING

If you’re not being heard by

In this playbook we’ll take you through several

02 Setting the Right Goals

03 Paid Support for Campaigns: When Organic Isn’t Enough

04 Social Campaign Research 101

05 Social Campaign Launch Checklist

06 Your Campaign is Launched-Now What?

08 Advancing Your Campaign Strategies

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

179.7 million people

According to a 2016 Pew Survey,

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

Improved customer insight on a

Improved brand loyalty with

Better SEO, higher conversion rates,

Larger, more diverse and

Opportunities to expand CSR efforts

Reaching new groups of target

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

It is surpassing traditional media’s impact

Facebook now influences

According to AdAge, consumers’ socialmedia

A strong social media strategy is becoming

In addition, more than half with at least two years

Nevertheless, social media is still often regarded as

So what are the first steps to building a

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

1. What are the organization’s business goals for

2. What messages, content and campaigns

3. Which audiences are marketing and sales

4. What are our Key Performance indicators

5. What does success look like to the client?

6. What does success look like to internal

7. How are competitors measuring

They focus on objectives - measurable, specific targets -

LET’S CONSIDER A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE.

Overarching brand strategy: Are you looking to

Executive point of view: What does success look like

Tactics to support strategies: What tactics are

Desired action: What do you want your audience to do on

Once you’ve considered the above, you’ll be prepared to

Try to keep goals and objectives short — too many can

MAKE SURE TO FIND A BALANCE BETWEEN THE

You should choose objectives that are attainable, so

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

Resource intensive content: If a brand has invested i high-value

Increasing brand awareness: There is no more effective way of

Extending the life of earned media stories: If a brand has landed

Targeting a specific audience: Paid support can also allow you

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

Once you understand your audience and define their

This part isn’t easy to do manually - it’s time-consuming

Finally, explore existing events for a timely tie-in.

Are there upcoming industry events, conferences or

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

CREATIVE TESTING TRACKING STRINGS

BILLING TARGETING CHECKING EVENTS

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

SOCIAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK: PLANNING & MEASURING CAMPAIGNS

Here are five steps to optimize your campaign while it runs: