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Hello my name is Paul Wilson from PRwilson Media. A very warm welcome to - Engage - How
to run an effective social media campaign
As you can see from the graphic, this is the final part of a three stage video training
course. Configure, Build and Engage. Please go to our website at www.prwilsonmedia.com
and there you'll find as you scroll down, the video "3 steps to social media success"
- please watch this for a brief summary of what's included in the overall course.
Now if you have already put into practice the guidance from the first two parts of this
course, you are in a prime position, ready to engage your audience. For me the real magic
of social media lies in its ability to connect communities, bringing people and groups who
share a common interest together, regardless of where they are physically located.
Let me begin by telling you the story of a local fundraising event that went global through
the power of social media - the very event in fact that convinced me to take up a new
career as a full time social media consultant.
For more than 23 years, the Rotary club of Grantham has held a Swimarathon event raising
over £600,000 for local charities.
Inspired by London Olympic year 2012, we set out to share the magic of our event with Rotary
Clubs around the world.
I had the absolute honour of leading a vigorous 10 month Facebook and Twitter campaign using
videos pictures, regular updates, getting support from clubs and sporting celebrities
across the world. Despite the obvious timezone and language barriers we were able to keep
everyone fully engaged and up to date through social media.
Then on Saturday 25th February 2012 at 12 noon Greenwich Mean Time, more than 4500 people
including Paralympic and Olympic stars lined up in simultaneous events organised by more
than 100 clubs in 23 countries. this pictures shows participants from just about every corner
of the globe - Grantham, India where it was afternoon, Pakistan where it was early evening
Australia where it was 10 oclock at night, the USA where in parts it was 4 in the morning
, South Africa , Mexico and Tenerife.
They all swam in the exact same hour, whatever the local time of day, and took part in what
was officially recorded by Guinness World Records as the biggest global simultaneous
charity swimming event in history.
Worldwide fundraising from this now annual event which has just completed its 2nd year
has already exceeded $200,000 for "End Polio Now", and it has greatly increased global
awareness of Rotary International's 28 year campaign to eradicate Polio. Perhaps the most
remarkable aspect of an event involving over 10,000 people, is the fact that virtually
all of this was organised and co-ordinated by just 1 club in the UK and by a core team
of just 3 people, and that not one penny of the clubs money was spent on publicity.
The great news is that the techniques I am about to share with you are very much a repeatable
model- the same principles apply whether its for a small local gathering or a major community
event.
Planning is essential and careful consideration is required in order to deliver real results.
Before embarking on any social media campaign it is very important to set well defined and
realistic targets from the outset. There are a number of key questions that need to be
addressed before you can get underway.
1. What is your primary objective?
Are you looking to increase awareness of your existing product(s) or service(s)? Are you
aiming to attract new customers / generate new business? Are you planning for a specific
event? If so, is that an established event or is it something new?
These are the kind of questions you need to consider
2) Campaign Duration
You need to determine how long you will run the campaign for, and how much time you can
allocate to run it on a weekly basis. Be prepared to adjust this during periods of peak audience
interaction (for example when you are live reporting during an actual event)
Note: If it's a specific event already scheduled in the Calendar should be fairly straightforward
- as a basic rule of thumb to generate sufficient interest and support in an event is to start
a minimum of 6 weeks before the deadline date.
The 3rd consideration is your Target Audience size
Make sure that you set easily measurable targets such as number of new followers on twitter
or number of Likes for your Facebook page and make sure you track them carefully
4) Existing social media set up Do you already have existing Facebook / Twitter
accounts that you can make use of or do you need to create new ones? You need to select
appropriate names for your Facebook Page and Twitter accounts and make sure you have a
logo or picture ready to use.
5) Website integration
Finally Website integration - Do you have an existing website or does one need to be
set up from scratch? Can the links to the social media accounts be added to the website?
I would say a functional website is an absolutely essential ingredient for social media campaigns.
When you generate interest through social media, its so important to be able to direct
users to where they can find more information and detail. I'd like to share with you an
example of just how useful a well constructed website can be. This is www.gravityfields.co.uk.
Now in 2012 there was a very special brand new multi-event science and arts festival
dedicated to Grantham's most famous son Sir Isaac Newton. I had the honour of leading
the social media campaign for the festival and I was greatly helped by this fantastically
well presented website. Here you can see on the right hand side science, arts family heritage.
You could search by different categories depending on your needs . If you were looking for family
events that you could take part in , if you were looking for Professors talking about
the latest innovations in science, you could find exactly what you wanted to and it was
easy to share different messages on different days and keep things fresh on the social media
campaign front.
So do try and make sure that you have a website in place before you start - it could even
be something as simple as a free to set up Blog such as Wordpress or blogspot which could
be developed into a website further down the track.