How to create a Twitter campaign in 6 steps

Posted on May 6th, 2012. Written by Andrei.

Ok, let’s presume you don’t have a budget available. You start to make your own online presence. Not recommended, because it takes longer, results come slower, but…this is a solution too.

No, I’m not talking about promoted tweets. It’s all about some simple mechanisms, by which any Twitter user can build a short campaign on Twitter. Just follow these steps:

Step 1 – Twitter account

Although obviously you can’t do a campaign without having a twitter account, we must clarify some elements from the profile you need to create in this social network. The picture is very important – it should be as visible as possible in a small format, clear and airy. Nobody wants to talk to you if he/she doesn’t understand what you have in your avatar. Don’t forget the description, which has to be as clear as possible in 140 characters, the maximum allowed by Twitter. Also, include in the description the (short) vision or mission of your company, so that people know who they are dealing with. Your site will appear near the description, so you don’t need to give many details.

Step 2 – follow discussions and people

You don’t have to see what everyone writes. I highly recommend Twitter Advanced Search – you write two or three words related to your business, or to the products you offer. Think about which are the elements people have contact with the most and it’s the easiest to speak about. From here, establish one or two directions where your idea of campaign could go.

Step 3 – conceptualize

Summarize in a statement the campaign you have in mind. For example: At what do people think when they are #eating (campaign for someone in the food sector). Or what’s your favorite music while #driving? (a campaign for a radio, or a record label, etc.). In the phrase that defines your campaign, you must have a keyword, which gathers all the tweets around the campaign. That’s the hashtag, which is recommended to be short, easy to write and easy to integrate into sentences.

Step 4 – users with many followers

Twitter campaigns can’t be supported by advertising (at least not directly, on Twitter) and anyway, this article isn’t talking about this. For this, bet in touch with Twitter users who have many followers. They can help you with your campaign, by promoting your services/products.

Here you have two options:

1. Your campaign has also a social flavor – you can pick up people who believe in your cause and you don’t need to pay.
2. Your campaign is purely commercial – you pay.

Step 5 – follow and support

Your campaign, after you’ve secured a pro bono group or supporters (or paid), must be encouraged constantly on your account. Give reminders, push people to respond, ask questions, tweet funny stuff about your campaign. Be careful about the discussions on your topic and respond to every relevant tweet.

Follow your campaign using TweetDeck or directly on Twitter.com (by clicking on the hashtag).

Step 6 – measure, report and award

This step is very important – it shows you if your campaign was a success or not. Count how many tweets you have collected on your keyword, using Archivist. And see how many users have been caught by your campaign. Be sure to check that everything you promised during the campaign (follow-up, awards, articles) happened or will happen. You wouldn’t like to spoil its effect with a forgotten prize and users shouting that your campaign was a scam.

Beyond these 6 steps, each campaign can have its characteristics. This 6 are a minimum basis for a campaign.

Andrei

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