Around the globe, people spend billions of hours scrolling through social media feeds like TikTok and watching long-form videos on YouTube to pass the time. Social media platforms are free to use, and anyone can post original content, leading to an incredible opportunity for marketers. That is, with the right strategy, you can run a social media campaign and market to a worldwide audience at little to no cost.
This guide will outline a step-by-step process for running a successful organic social media campaign. Use these practical tips and real-world examples to help you achieve your marketing objectives.
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1. Define clear campaign goals & KPIs
To achieve the desired results from your campaign, you’ll need to create a path to the end. This means setting clear campaign and business goals, along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll use to measure your progress.
One of the most efficient ways to set up goals for a social media campaign is by using SMART goals. This acronym divides into five parts:
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Specific:
Know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.
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Measurable:
Aim for totals that you can track throughout your campaign.
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Achievable:
Be realistic about what you’re setting out to accomplish.
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Relevant:
Make sure the goal aligns with the campaign’s broader objectives.
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Time-bound:
Create a definite deadline for reaching the goal.
If you’re centering your campaign on building brand awareness because of an upcoming product launch, you might design a SMART goal that looks like this:
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Specific:
Use hashtags on Instagram Reels to reach new audiences.
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Measurable:
Increase overall reach by 50%.
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Achievable:
Post 4 Instagram Reels per week.
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Relevant:
Spread awareness about the new product.
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Time-bound:
Reach the objective in six weeks.
Choosing the right KPIs
KPIs are equally important. They help you measure progress and make adjustments if you’re off track. Some key social media analytics to measure include:
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Reach:
How many unique users viewed your content
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Impressions:
How many times users viewed your content overall, including multiple views from the same person
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Engagement rate:
The percentage of individuals who saw your content and interacted with it
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Click-through Rate (CTR):
The percentage of people who saw your content and clicked on it
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Video views:
The number of times people watched your video
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Watch time:
The average amount of time users watched your video
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Likes:
How many individuals tapped the Like button
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Shares:
How many users shared your content with their network
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Saves:
How many users saved your content to view again later
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Comments:
Public responses to your content
For best results, make sure your campaign goals align with your business’s overall objectives. For example, a brand that needs more exposure may focus on a platform like TikTok, where the content has a higher probability of going viral. A different business that wants to generate more leads and conversions might create Instagram content aimed at getting users to visit their profile page and click on the link in their bio.
2. Identify & research your target audience
With your goals determined, it’s time to make sure your message reaches the target audience. Your marketing team should already have an idea of the prospects you’re going after. Social media campaigns and analytics can help narrow down your audience to a niche group that responds to the campaign.
In each platform’s analytics, you’ll see the age range, gender, locations, preferred language, and device used by users interested in your content.
Knowing what your audience wants and what they will engage with is easier when you use social listening. Social listening tracks conversations happening all over the internet, providing you with insights and data to help with decision-making.
‘s social listening tool can help you quickly determine what your audience wants, allowing you to confidently make adjustments to your campaign as it progresses.
4. Plan and schedule your content ahead of time
Preparation is key to social media campaign success. Building a consistent schedule with a social media content calendar not only allows your fanbase to anticipate when you’ll post something new, but it also positively affects the algorithm. Taking advantage of content calendar templates can significantly help with organization and save resources during the campaign. ‘s social media content calendar will help visually plan, schedule, and publish posts on multiple platforms.
To help streamline your planning even more, use a social media scheduler. These social media publishing tools help you create content and set times to publish it. Using ‘s social media scheduler to automate your posts, you can take some of the stress out of your campaign.
also has a tool to tell you the best times to post your content so it reaches your target audience when they’re most receptive. For example, if you want to know the best time to post on Instagram or even how often to post on Instagram, analyzes six months’ worth of your data to tell you exactly when to put out new content.
5. Craft compelling organic content & messaging
The most important part of your social media campaign is your content. Content that isn’t interesting or doesn’t convey your message well will derail all of your previous efforts.
There are different types of organic content you can create to fit certain needs. Here are some examples:
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Instagram stories:
Content that disappears after 24 hours
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Short-form videos:
Short vertical videos that remain on your profile
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Carousels:
Posts that have multiple images for users to swipe through
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Long-form videos:
Landscape videos that can last minutes or hours
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Polls:
Interactive content allowing users to vote on an issue
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Live streams:
Real-time videos broadcast to an audience
Whether you have the option to write social media captions or a YouTube description, giving some context to your content can aid the algorithm in getting it to the right people. Try ‘s AI caption writer or check out these Instagram caption ideas, which will save you time and take some of the pressure off when writing impactful captions for your content.
8. Optimize and adapt your organic campaign
The data you gather can help you create an organic campaign performance report to analyze social media campaign effectiveness and better prepare for future operations. It can also aid you in making strategic adjustments to optimize your current strategy.
For example, content posted at a specific time of day tends to receive more engagement. Including specific hashtags in your caption can give you a broader reach. Making key changes as you go is an excellent recipe for success.
With social listening, you can also track how your audience perceives your message. DMs, comments, mentions, and replies can clue you into challenges and issues important to users.
Catching complaints and negative feedback early will allow you to pivot and salvage your efforts. If the sentiment is positive and your fanbase grows, consider fine-tuning your goals and scaling the campaign to have a bigger impact.
9. Post-campaign wrap-up and learnings
Once you’ve released all your content, it’s time to look at how you did. Use the data and reports to see how your KPIs compare to your original goals. If certain metrics underachieved, take note of them and brainstorm what might’ve caused this and how you can improve it next time.
For example, if you run an Instagram campaign and the engagement rate didn’t meet its mark, you can dig deeper. Some reels and stories may have received far less engagement than others, dragging down the metric. Comparing and contrasting the differences between the successful and unsuccessful posts can help you plan better for the next campaign.
Share your results with your team and stakeholders and remain open-minded to their feedback. Oftentimes, you can repurpose the material from your original campaign to create new content and further improve your branding.
