5 Steps for Planning a Paid Social Campaign

Paid social campaigns are a popular way to reach audiences in places where they are spending time online, such as on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. In fact, 72 percent of B2B marketers who use paid digital channels say that they are using paid social.

While the premise of paid social seems simple enough, it requires more than just putting money behind sponsored posts. There are a number of steps involved in doing it properly and it definitely requires some deliberate thought in terms of who your audience is, where to best reach them, and what the intended call to action of the post should be. For instance, are you hoping to get likes and shares, gain social followers, or is a click-through to a landing page or website your ultimate goal?

Following are some considerations when planning a paid social campaign:

Define Your Goals 

Define your goals ahead of time and make sure that the paid social campaign aligns with them. These goals should be specific, attainable, and measurable.

Establish a Budget

Obviously, it’s important to know how much you plan to spend on any paid social campaign. Every social channel is different, and each offers different ways to establish and set costs (such as bidding and pay-per-click) as well as different ways to post. For example, LinkedIn offers sponsored content that appears directly in feeds, message ads through LinkedIn messaging, and more.

Know Your Audience

We talked recently about the importance of constructing buyer personas in order to better understand your prospects in terms of their demographics, business pain points, decision-making processes, and hesitations. Keep this composite picture of your typical customer top of mind when creating social content to ensure that it appeals to your audience. An effective buyer persona should also illuminate the social channels your audience uses most so that you can focus your efforts there.

Always Be Testing

Throughout the campaign, keep a constant eye on your analytics to understand who is interacting with your content, in what way, and at what time of day. This way, you are continuously learning about your audience and what best resonates with them so you can fine-tune future posts to more effectively spend your budget.

Plan Ahead

Building awareness using paid social is a bit of a “long game” that requires regularity. This is why your strategy should include the creation of and adherence to a content calendar. Without it, other tasks will inevitably get in the way and your campaign could lose any momentum it has gained.

As you can see, planning out a paid social campaign requires more than just creating content, but it can be worth the effort. For instance, 52 percent of all online brand discovery takes place in social feeds. Paid social is one of the best ways to reach your target prospect, especially during our current times when so many of us are online more and engaging with others digitally.

If you need help planning and executing a paid social campaign, including creating compelling content, we can help. Our team has developed and managed dozens of successful paid social campaigns for B2B tech and healthcare IT clients.