Here’s another one for your book of best social media campaigns. Ikea recently hosted an in-store sleepover in their Essex store for 100 lucky social media contest winners. (See video above.)
The campaign is clever and sure to earn the furniture company a collection of media mentions, but what’s especially compelling is the fact that Ikea didn’t need to hire a team of developers for some fancy Facebook app. This is a social media campaign executed through pure cleverness. Here’s how you can do the same for your company:
- Think About Your Assets – Your business might not have a huge team of coders, but you probably have something else people want. In Ikea’s case, this was a huge space full of furniture, beds, and much more. This might not have felt like an asset to the person who pays the electric bill, but when Ikea looked at what they already had in a new light they discovered a great opportunity.
- Create Your Wow Factor – After you’ve figured out what you’ve got that everyone in your target demographic wants, build a campaign around that asset that gives people the pleasure of exclusive access, recognition, free stuff, or something similar. In Ikea’s case this was a sleepover for 100 people, but your campaign could literally be anything.
- Build a Plan To Seed Your Campaign – Not every campaign or contest is perfect fit for every platform, so take a moment to determine where your program feels right. Visually stunning campaigns work well with Tumblr or Instagram while contests work well on Facebook. These are the kinds of basics you want to figure out before blindly throwing your social media campaign into the wind.
- Execute the Campaign – After you’ve decided how you want to share (and encourage others to share) your campaign, seed it amongst your community of fans and friends. Initiate your campaign at a time when you feel your community is paying the most attention (e.g. time of day and day of week0 and standby to see how people are reacting. This is an extremely crucial time to listen.
- Track Your Success – One of the best ways to improve upon your campaigns is to track your progress. What kinds of messages warranted the most likes or comments? Which actions brought you the most traffic to your website. Setup the tools required to track your progress and hone your campaigns to optimize your performance across social media channels. If you continue on this path you’re only going to get better.