Social Media Campaign vs. Social Media Strategy
March 10, 2008
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Over the last day or two, it struck me that a lot of social media marketers haven’t consciously considered the difference between a social media strategy and a social media campaign. Understanding the distinction is the key to long-term success in this space.
As a social media agency, we get asked for both, or we get asked for one by folks that need the other. So what’s the difference?
- Social media strategy: A social media strategy should always come before a social media campaign. Ideally, it should come at least six months before the social media campaign. In it, you re-evaluate your internal assets and begin to (a) analyze and (b) engage with the community, but you don’t “ask” for anything in return yet. We did this first for Ignite, and it pays huge dividends.
- Social media campaign: A social media campaign derives from a social media strategy. The major difference here is that now you (a) understand the audience that cares about your subject and where they gather, (b) you’ve given quality information away and developed followers, and (c) you now have measurable goals. Now you’re activating people and trying to “get” something.
Too often, though people wait to start considering social media until the have a campaign, they need to achieve set goals and they need them now. The problem with that is that they don’t have a social media base from which they can act. So we have to start by building a platform from which they can speak. Then we have to re-assess what they have to offer that is of genuine interest to a certain set of the population. Then we… Well you get the idea…
The problem is that all of that takes time. Time to create, but even more so time for Google to find it, index it… Time for people to find it, care about it, share it.
Are there individual things you can do quickly with social media? Sure. But if you want a full social media campaign in the next year, you probably want to work on your social media strategy now–right now…
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12 Responses to “Social Media Campaign vs. Social Media Strategy”
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It’s amazing to me how common “sensical” so much of life really is. When you spell something out like you did here, it makes so much sense. You have to take the time to build the relationships before you can reap the rewards, but we all want what we want, and we want it NOW! And unfortunately society encourages us to EXPECT that we should be able to HAVE it now, especially in the online world. Alas, though, true relationship building takes time, as you suggested.
NIce post Jim, quick question though about this statement:
“As a social media agency, we get asked for both, or we get asked for one by folks that need the other.”
For those who ask for the “social media campaign,” but need strategy first, do you decline until you can perform your “social media strategy?”
@DJLitten It depends, DJ. I had a prospect who needed engagement and they needed it now. I thought that would be tough to be successful doing and (while there were some things they could’ve done), it was one of the reasons I turned it down.
For others, I might try to find a way to build over here while doing some engagement over there at the same time–always knowing that “how” you do it is as important as “what” you do.
So if there’s a non-obnoxious, non-spam way to start engagement, I might try, as long as the client was willing to offer something of value simultaneously. It’s not ideal, but the rarely do we find ideal situations.
~Jim
I am sorry to say but there is a lot of typing here and not much writing. If there is a point, I fail to see it.
@Joe, oh, how you flatter me. hee hee… Seems like either (a) I explained myself poorly or (b) you’re not far enough down your path to see where the two split.
Could be either one… In case it’s (a), I did go back and add a sentence to the campaign part. Maybe that helps.
This is a good post as it makes the basic point that you can’t expect to truly leverage social media without laying some ground-work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to answer the question - “Can’t we just Digg the story and get a lot of traffic?”
[…] the ROI of that, or do you really want to measure it all? This is also one of the most important differences between a social media campaign and a social media strategy. In a campaign you measure $ while devising a strategy you set other, more important goals that are […]
Great post. Like in any marketing campaign, you must evaluate your situation and come up with a strategy before beginning to plan your campaign. Great post!
I’m agree with erica dewolf
We must evaluate our situation n strategy before plan our capaign
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