According to The Infinite Dial 2015, a study by Edison Research and Triton Digital, researchers found that 49% of the public are familiar with the term podcasting and 33% have listened to podcasts. In addition, with almost two thirds (65 percent) of users of the service, Facebook is the most frequently used social media channel.
As podcasting becomes more popular, social media can be used as a catalyst to help your podcast grow. Running a social media campaign is much more than just an organic reach.
As part of your digital marketing strategy, social media campaigns can produce results beyond normal limitations. Gains like brand awareness, website traffic, and podcast subscriptions are just a few additional by-products.
A social media campaign doesn’t start when you send a tweet. As Spreaker’s podcasters understand, trends drive the efforts of the most successful brands. Depending on the scope of your campaign, you might want to spend days or even weeks just planning.
Ready to start your social media campaign? Learn with these four steps:
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Develop specific campaign goals
How you prepare for your social media campaign determines its success.
“It always starts with [answering the questions]: What are you trying to achieve? And what are your business goals? “Said Kevin Bobowski, vice president of marketing at Offerpop, an engagement marketing platform that manages user-generated content.
“The other thing is, who are you trying to reach? Are they existing customers, are they prospects, or are they people you’ve never heard of? “
Set specific goals for your campaign. These goals should relate to the mission and goals of your overarching podcast related to social media.
In order for you to track progress, they need to be measurable goals. Because honestly, if things don’t go well during the campaign, you want the opportunity to quickly shift your focus. So choose your metrics or KPIs and a social media management tool to keep track of the data.
Create a clear timeline for your campaign, start and end dates, and a schedule for sending each social media message. Similar to your social media strategy, decide where to get the best bang for your buck.
Identify your target audience. This allows you to market news based on the demographics and psychographics of your audience. Select the social networks where promotional material is well received.
Here are some ideas for your social media campaign:
Source: HootSuite
Take Action: Define the purpose of your social media campaign.
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Create actionable content
Create content that is compelling and up-to-date. Develop content that fits into these three categories:
- Useful: How will people use your content? Will it help them save time or money? Will it teach them something new?
- Food for thought: Have people think about it with an interesting tidbit or a pearl of wisdom.
- Humorous: laughter is golden. Be funny but avoid any vulgar humor.
Think a lot about what you want to promote. You need the ability to reach out and connect with people through the social media channels. If you can’t do that, it doesn’t matter how great your content is – no one will read, listen, or care.
Offer a clear call to action. As you compose messages, tell people what to do. Don’t just post a link. Also instruct them to click the link.
Get creative. Give away your content and encourage people to take action. Offer a free download or bonus materials. People like to feel compelled to do something.
Make your content available on a regular basis. Just like podcasting, a social media campaign requires a commitment to a schedule and audience.
To make sure you meet the commitment, it is helpful to have a content calendar. Plan the social media content in advance. In this way, you can use content across media and optimize resources.
Here is a free customizable template that can get you started:
Source: Moz
Take Action: Create three social media messages for your campaign.
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Engage your audience early and often
Build anticipation in your audience to effectively promote your social media campaign. In advance of your campaign, reach out to your current podcast listeners to request their participation in the campaign.
Send emails or mention the campaign in multiple episodes. Make use of your partnerships too. Get your Spreaker podcasters to join the campaign.
Monitor and respond to your audience. Be active and present on your social media profiles. You can even set up notifications on your phone. So if someone comments on your Facebook post, you can reply quickly.
Social media works with healthy dialogue. Let potential subscribers know about your podcast.
Let’s look at some examples of good engagement:
PRE-LAUNCH & LAUNCH
Get your followers excited. Prepare the prerequisites for starting a new social media campaign.
Source: Simply Zesty
DURING THE CAMPAIGN
Keep your campaign supporters motivated with frequent updates. Share information about the progress of your campaign and interact with people.
Source: @Tweetacoffee
POSTAL CAMPAIGN
Get involved with fans after the campaign. If you’ve hosted a competition, post photos of the winner.
Source: #AmazingBabyRescueMe
Take Action: Develop a strategy to get people to act.
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Assess the impact of the campaign
Social media is measured in two ways: ongoing analytics and campaign-driven metrics. With your analyzes, you can track the overall activity of your social media accounts over a certain period of time. Your campaign-driven metrics will help you understand the impact of your targeted marketing initiatives.
Measuring conversions shows the number of visitors who actually took action based on your social media messages. To track conversions, you need to turn to third-party services like Google Analytics. Conversion metrics can include:
- Registration to download content
- Online sales
- Email subscription
- Podcast Subscriptions
Make sure you link back to your website with each post. This will monitor the activity of your website, including where the visitors came from.
Check your analytics report to see what worked and what didn’t. By evaluating the results, you will know how to do better. Perhaps your early morning posts got more engagement while late afternoon news didn’t do as well. Use this knowledge to adjust your tactics for the next campaign.
Take action: Select conversion metrics that are important to the success of your podcast.
Expand your podcast today
Social media has the potential to grow your podcast. Whether you’re looking to increase podcast subscriptions or just get people to act, create a plan to reach your audience and track your progress.
Selected image source: photographer Jack Moreh
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