Want your social media campaign to be a success? Do your research

There are thousands of social media channels available to us all. From blogging to Facebook, all of these channels are not created equally and for the same purpose. Just because a certain social media channel works well for some businesses, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work for you.

Everywhere you look online you will find videos, images and the latest infographics about all the various social media statistics regarding the best social media channels. Some facts about social media:

• Facebook isn’t big… it is massive. The members on this popular social network is close to the third biggest country on earth.
• Twitter has over 150 million members.
• Google+ has more than 170 million members.
• The new kid on the block, Pinterest has over 10 million members.

These stats are really impressive, but just because there is a big hoo-ha about the figures doesn’t mean the audience you are trying to reach are using these platforms. Your social media campaign should never start with the technology — it should always start with the people you are trying to reach.

So how do you start looking further than the impressive statistics of social media? Research, strategise and plan where, when, who, and how your customers are interacting online and then you can select the best channel out of your research.

Let’s say you are a small business that sells golf clothing online. You have done all your research and you know exactly that your targeted demographic is woman between the ages of 25 and 34. If you are in the USA, UK, Australia, Japan or another big country in Europe, you are in luck. You can use the tool of Forrester’s Social Technographics to determine, where, when, and how your clients are busy using the internet.

The tool shows that most women between the ages of 25 and 34 are using the internet predominately as spectators and sometimes as joiners and critics. They are not creators, so they are primarily using online forums and Facebook. They rarely post tweets and they most likely don’t know anything about Google+.

So what can you do to start building brand awareness through social media for that demographic?

• Create an optimized Facebook fan page to build your presence by sharing interesting and relevant content.
• Create a YouTube channel to highlight your products.
• Follow online discussions on various niche golf related forums.
• Create competitions with prizes will also be a good approach.

By looking at the data that the Forrester tool provides, this theoretical campaign would probably be more effective if the business uses the channels mentioned above to reach the audience, rather than others like Twitter. Social media changes every day and it is very important to remember that your success with social media will come through researching and recognizing what your clients are doing online. Understanding the market you would like to reach through evaluation and analysis will help you build the most effective digital marketing strategy possible.