Written by ContentPowered.com
When it comes to ranking highly in Google search results and actively capturing the attention of social media users, today’s website owners have few options better than a traditional “drip” campaign. The whole ideal of a drip campaign is that social media updates will be posted at specific intervals, and scheduled in advance. As a result, a site’s fans will see a series of relevant updates at consistent times across several days, weeks, or even months.
The predictability of such a campaign gives companies a way to reliably interact with their target audience on an ongoing basis, while the serial nature of such updates allows business to captivate customer interest by drawing out stories, highlighting a product over a series of posts, or incrementally introducing customers to a new brand, marketing campaign, or routine.
Setting up such a campaign is generally pretty easy with today’s social media websites. Because drop marketing originated in email communications over a decade ago, applying the tactic to social media follows much the same thought process. There are some quirks for each social media site, but these are easy to accommodate and some of them even reveal themselves as a major benefit when creating and scheduling engaging new posts. Here’s a look at the ten steps needed to create the most successful social media drip marketing campaign.
The most important part of the process involves planning the actual posts that will be shared with a company’s customers and loyal social media followers. Some companies find that they can break up their potential social media posts into as many as ten or even 20 different posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other networks. Some companies only want to post a handful of updates over the same period of time. Before actually scheduling a drip campaign, determine the ideal number of updates to convey the company’s message while consistently engaging customers.
2. Write the Content and Market it to the Target Demographic
With the ideal number of drip-style social media updates in mind, it’s time to start writing the copy that will make each of these updates engaging for the target demographic. If this series of updates targets younger male users of Facebook, who might be considering one of the company’s new product lines, write posts that appropriately engage the audience with great cultural references and appropriate keywords. Much of this stage might depend on company analytics and past successes catering to a given demographic on Facebook and Twitter, or even through contextual Google advertisements and targeted landing pages.
With the content written, it’s time to determine when each update should be posted and how often the company should share these updates with prospective buyers and interested members of the target demographic. Much of this will depend on the nature of social media engagement itself, which doesn’t necessarily depend on the target demographic’s age, gender, location, and other aspects.
3. Determine the Appropriate Days and Times to Schedule Drip Updates
The important thing to remember about drip updates is that they typically build on one another, creating a storyline that engages customers over the course of several days, weeks, or months. In order to appropriately reach the widest possible social media audience, marketers will have to make sure that they’re scheduling each social media post for the proper time. There are generally some key rules to remember when scheduling posts that will make them relevant no matter the unique aspects of the target demographic:
- People most often read their social feeds early in the morning or during their lunch breaks. The lowest period of social media engagement is typically after dinner. For this reason, scheduled drip updates should be posted early in the morning and no later than noon.
- Social media updates are more likely to be seen Monday through Thursday than they are on Friday or weekend days. Simply put, most people are just not near the computer on weekend afternoons. Their work hours, however, permit them time to peruse social feeds between tasks.
4. With the Ideal Time in Mind, It’s Time to Consider Update Frequency
Drip marketing is primarily concerned with incremental, consistent, and scheduled posting of many updates about a company product or initiative. At its most basic, such a campaign could be used to post updates once per day, or once per week, in order to target the demographic. Is that the best way of getting things done? Maybe, but there are plenty of arguments for scheduling several drip posts a day based on the social feed being used. Consider the following:
- Twitter users are more likely than Facebook users to check their feed many times a day, driven largely by shorter messages that make themselves an ideal target of the world’s growing smartphone user base.
- Facebook users typically conduct a “morning check” and an “afternoon check” of their social media feeds. This might present opportunities for multiple drip-style updates throughout the day.
The most successful drip campaigns have been implemented by companies who understand the unique nature of each social feed and how it affects the ideal frequency of new posts. Most companies experience success with up to two Facebook updates in a single day, while Twitter lends itself to a drip frequency of up to four different posts each day.
5. Choose a Proper Scheduling Software Solution, if Necessary
For those companies targeting only Facebook users, it might be possible to go without a third-party status update scheduling tool. Companies who operate their own Facebook page can actually schedule all of their updates by clicking on the small clock icon found next to the “Post” button when writing a new status post for followers. It’s possible to choose a future date and time for this post, which will go into the page’s activity log. There, scheduled posts can be reviewed, edited, and even rescheduled if the company adjusts its approach in the middle of the drip campaign.
Things are not as easy when using services like LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter. None of these services offers intuitive, or even integrated, scheduling services. Instead, marketing professionals will need to use third-party solutions like BundlePost and others to schedule posts. The good news is that many of these solutions will engage in “simul-posting.” Users can input their status update just once, and it will be posted to all selected services at the same time without further intervention.
6. Go Beyond Text and Pair Each Update with Pictures and Graphics
The Internet’s favorite acronym in the social media era might be “TLDNR,” which stands for “Too long, did not read.” No company wants their message to be ignored simply because it’s all text, no image, and no excitement. Try hard to pair the vast majority of drip-style marketing updates with a relevant image or engaging graphic. Use these images to drive the company’s point home, and to make sure that posts are more visible in Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn social feeds. With a proven record of making posts more likely to go viral, images are an essential consideration.
7. Study the Campaign’s Analytics Data for Each Drip-Fed Post on Social Sites
It’s not good enough to pre-write posts and schedule them for a future date, and then simply walk away from the campaign as it engages automatically with followers. Instead, company marketers must make sure they’re following the analytics of each post. Is the campaign a hit? Are users engaged? If they are, that’s great news and the company should continue apace. If not, it might be time to make mid-drip adjustments that can correct any oversights or missteps.
8. Coordinate Long-Form Website Content with the Social Drip
Once the drip campaign gets going, and its success is proven through great analytics reports, it’s time to help drive up conversion rates and revenue by pairing incremental drip messages with informative blog posts or company landing pages. By doing this, companies will go beyond the brief social media message and add real value to their drip-fed marketing strategy.
9. Read, Listen, and Respond to Comments on Social Posts
Users are bound to like, share, and comment when they see a company’s ongoing series of drip-style social media posts. That’s a really good thing: The more users engage, the more likely they are to buy. Companies need to do their part to encourage those conversions by monitoring for comments, replying when it’s necessary, and building lasting relationships with interested users.
10. Nurture New Customer Relationships
With the drip campaign succeeding and users really taking to the company’s message, it’s time to make sure that each new buyer or fan sticks around for the long haul. That might mean communicating more personally with users via email, catering to them with promotional codes and discounts, or interacting outside of social sites to provide them with a well-rounded experience. With these relationships ongoing, new drip campaigns can be made in the future that build on past successes rather easily.
Ten Steps and Endless Rewards for Responsive Marketers
It takes just 10 thoughtful steps to engage with interested customers via a social media drip campaign. The rewards are endless: Better SEO, deeper customer relationships, higher sales numbers, and a better chance at future marketing success. By logically going through the process discussed above, social media marketers can experience real success through consistent, thoughtful, drip-style scheduling of new updates on social media sites.
Chris McGeoch
says:Thank you for this! Will have to try it out with one of my clients soon
esornoso
says:Thank you, Chris. Let me know if you have any other questions.