Easy methods to Plan a Successful Cross-Platform Marketing campaign: Ideas and Examples

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In case your model has accounts on a number of social media accounts, your job entails juggling metrics, audiences, and targets particular to every platform. Making sense of all of it and sustaining an energetic, on-brand presence throughout networks could be a problem.

Questioning easy methods to flip a bunch of scattered social media put up concepts right into a cohesive, highly effective cross-platform marketing campaign that leverages the very best alternatives of every platform? You’ve come to the suitable place!

What’s a cross-platform marketing campaign?

Cross-platform campaigns are social media campaigns run throughout a number of platforms. They meet your viewers the place they’re at with messaging tailor-made to every platform that generates consciousness, curiosity and conversions.

By creating authentic content material aligned with the spirit of every platform, your advertising turns into a seamless omnichannel expertise as an alternative of “that advert feeling” individuals are keen to flee from. Moreover, tailoring your marketing campaign to every platform’s posting specs means you’ll have the very best likelihood of your viewers truly partaking with you.

What are the advantages of cross-platform campaigns?

Moreover retaining you from wanting a idiot when Twitter cuts off your 400 phrase LinkedIn masterpiece mid-sentence at 280 characters, there are various advantages to cross-platform campaigns:

  • Totally different platforms go well with completely different targets. For examples, you is perhaps constructing consciousness on Instagram and Twitter, however changing from Fb adverts.
  • Some platforms are visible, some are text-based. A cross-platform technique ensures your content material is smart the place it’s posted.
  • They yield better attain than single-platform campaigns, or “copy and paste” campaigns (recycling the identical captions and pictures, even when they’re not optimized for that platform’s specs).
  • Constant branding builds loyalty and belief.

9 suggestions for planning a profitable cross-platform marketing campaign

1. Have a plan

In case your present promoting marketing campaign technique consists of, “Promote new product launch,” then we have to have a chat.

Be sure that each marketing campaign plan you place collectively contains S.M.A.R.T. targets, viewers analysis, who’s doing what and deadlines for posting. Use our free cross-platform marketing campaign template to make sure you’re beginning off robust.

2. Set platform-specific targets

OK, past the marketing campaign’s targets, set targets for every of the platforms you’ll be utilizing, too.

A few of these targets will movement naturally since sure platforms are geared towards particular targets.

  • Instagram: Inventive visible content material, like Reels and Tales, to advertise engagement and discovery.
  • Pinterest: Product and shopping-focused visuals to drive conversions.
  • LinkedIn: B2B-focused advertising campaigns and model constructing.
  • Fb: …Letting your grandma know. (Okay, okay, kidding.)
  • And so forth, for all of the platforms in your marketing campaign.

In fact, every platform can have a number of targets. For instance, you need to use Pinterest for each model consciousness and driving conversions. However typically talking, set one or two targets per platform to concentrate on.

3. Say no to repeat paste

It’s advantageous to repeat a key phrase all through your marketing campaign however you positively wish to keep away from utilizing the identical word-for-word copy and visuals throughout a number of channels.

That defeats the aim of a “multi-platform marketing campaign,” proper?

Every social media platform is completely different, from what number of characters or hashtags you get to make use of to how nicely sure varieties of content material carry out. Optimize your content material for every platform’s put up specs and goal demographic.

Plus, insider data folks all the time say, like “hyperlink in bio” on Instagram or the most recent dance development on TikTok. These phrases solely make sense on the platform they’re meant to be on, like on this short-but-sweet occasion announcement from Peter McKinnon.

4. Be out there to speak

Don’t put up and ghost!

Social media is a two-way road. Your clients anticipate to have the ability to discuss to you. Actually, 64% of them would moderately message you than name a 1-800 quantity for assist.

Reply to feedback and direct messages rapidly to reply buyer questions and encourage engagement.

Don’t panic: Hootsuite Inbox makes managing your feedback and DMs throughout all platforms fast and painless. By compiling all of your notifications in a single place, you may rapidly reply to your followers and be certain you’re not lacking something.

Better part? You’ll be able to assign responses to group members or see solely feedback needing a reply. Your social media managers can work effectively collectively.

Along with responding on social media, make it straightforward for patrons to ask questions rapidly pre- or post-purchase out of your web site.

Stay chat apps are nice for each your web site and throughout social channels, like Fb Messenger. Instruments like Heyday can use both AI-powered reside chat to maintain prices down, or allow your (human) customer support reps to speak with clients for the very best service.

Curlsmith live chat

In case your group might be dealing with chats, Heyday organizes messages and permits you to assign them to particular folks or archive previous threads. This fashion all clients obtain fast replies.

Heyday platform

5. Use paid and natural methods collectively

Identical to the way you wouldn’t financial institution your total marketing campaign on one social community, you wouldn’t rely solely on natural site visitors, proper?

That doesn’t imply it’s best to hit the “promote” button on each put up to spice up it as an advert. Not all the things wants an amplified attain with a finances behind it. But when your natural posts aren’t getting a lot traction, attempt boosting a number of greater than regular to see if that brings up your views and engagement.

Alternatively, if an natural put up is actually taking off, why not give it an additional push by selling it?

Take into consideration what it’s best to promote versus what you shouldn’t.

For acquisition adverts, concentrate on one key message — like this bag’s adaptability — and even higher in the event you can add one thing eye-catching, like distinctive design or on this case, video.

Urth camera bag

You may make the method of dealing with natural and paid social posts facet by facet with the suitable instruments.

Hootsuite Social Promoting makes it doable to create, schedule, and evaluate natural and paid content material, simply pull actionable analytics and construct customized reviews to show the ROI of all your posts — from one straightforward to make use of dashboard.

With a unified overview of all social media exercise, you may act quick to make data-informed changes to reside campaigns (and get essentially the most out of your finances). For instance, if an advert is doing nicely on Fb, you may modify advert spend throughout different platforms to assist it. On the identical be aware, if a marketing campaign is flopping, you may pause it and redistribute the finances, all with out leaving your Hootsuite dashboard.

6. Optimize your profiles for gross sales

Typically, your content material goes to direct folks to a touchdown web page or your web site to take an motion: Signing up for an occasion, making a purchase order, and many others.

However not each put up must push folks offsite.

Whereas social commerce is nothing new, individuals are shopping for issues immediately from social media extra yearly. The pandemic has solely served to bolster this, with social media purchases predicted to develop 30% yearly by 2026.

value of social commerce sales worldwide

Supply: Statista

To optimize your profiles for social commerce, attempt:

Including a name to motion in your bio and hyperlink space

Instagram places your bio and hyperlink entrance and middle. However, like most different platforms, you solely get one hyperlink so make it rely.

Add a name to motion in your bio and both change your hyperlink to be related to your present marketing campaign or posts, or direct that hyperlink to a web page containing a number of hyperlinks. Make it clear why customers ought to click on the hyperlink and what they’ll get out of it.

Hootsuite Instagram call to action

On Fb, you may customise an motion button to characteristic in your profile.

Facebook action button

For software program firms, that’s typically a “Signal Up” button, however there are many to select from, resembling on-line reserving hyperlinks, sending an e-mail, calling and extra.

call to action button options

Together with search phrases in your title or username

Relying in your firm title, this may increasingly not make sense. However attempt to embrace a key phrase about what you do both in your username or the title area in your profile.

Instagram makes use of these fields in search, so this will help you get found. For instance, right here’s what looking for “furnishings” brings up:

furniture Instagram search

Some manufacturers have the phrase of their username, resembling @wazofurniture, others of their profile, resembling @qlivingfurniture.

Many different social platforms function their search the identical method, resembling Fb and Pinterest.

Getting verified

Many platforms use a blue checkmark to indicate the model or individual is the true deal. That helps construct belief and signifies that customers have discovered the suitable profile (versus a faux or unofficial model).

Hootsuite verified account

Every platform has their very own guidelines however in the event you meet the necessities for every of your networks, apply for verification.

7. Observe your analytics

Monitoring outcomes is vital for any marketing campaign nevertheless it’s important with cross-platform campaigns. It’s essential tie all the things collectively to kind a cohesive image of how the marketing campaign went and what you would change subsequent time.

Appears like making an attempt to tape collectively a shredded doc, proper? You gotta discover all of the reviews, match them up, evaluate efficiency…

Not in the event you use a social media analytics software. For instance, Hootsuite Analytics does all that for you.

All it’s a must to do is log in and Hootsuite Analytics is there, compiling all of your social media platforms into one easy-to-understand, cross-platform and absolutely customizable report.

graphic showing the Hootsuite Analytics dashboard with both paid and organic social metrics

And, going a step additional than simply the numbers, Hootsuite Influence places all of it in perspective. It measures the true ROI of your social media advertising — natural and paid — and interprets that into actionable statistics, visible knowledge and insights which are straightforward to share with stakeholders.

8. Add UTM tags to your hyperlinks

UTM tags go hand-in-hand with analytics monitoring. UTM tags are simply small textual content codes you add to hyperlink URLs to outline the supply of site visitors.

These are particularly useful for cross-platform campaigns to determine the place the vast majority of your leads got here from and what varieties of content material drove essentially the most site visitors.

For instance, if my purpose is to transform folks on a touchdown web page, then I’m most likely linking to that from:

  • E mail advertising
  • Fb
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • + different social channels
  • My web site

And I may even be linking to it from:

  • Affiliate companions
  • Free content material websites, resembling Medium or Quora
  • Paid adverts

Including a singular UTM tag to every of the hyperlinks I exploit on these platforms will let me observe, with certainty, the place customers got here from to my touchdown web page. You’ll be able to create UTM tags without cost with instruments like Google’s Marketing campaign URL Builder.

In terms of social media posts, right here’s easy methods to add UTM tags simply in Hootsuite:

9. Schedule your content material

Final however positively not least, for a cross-platform marketing campaign to work (or any marketing campaign, actually), you might want to plan and schedule your content material upfront.

I imply, it’s only a sensible factor to do, however planning forward will even:

  • Guarantee your posts complement one another throughout platforms (e.g. you’re not asserting a brand new product on just one channel whereas forgetting the others, and many others).
  • Remove errors.
  • Release your group’s time to answer feedback, be taught TikTok dances, create extra content material and all the things else besides worrying about what to put up subsequent.
  • Create a constant posting schedule to maintain engagement excessive.

Are you able to guess what I’m gonna say subsequent?

Yeah, Hootsuite can schedule your stuff. We’ve mentioned that already. However what it’s possible you’ll not know is Hootsuite also can let you know the greatest time to publish, based mostly in your distinctive viewers stats:

Hootsuite Best Time to Publish to boost engagement

3 inspiring cross-platform social media marketing campaign examples

1. Flip Down for Wheel of Time

When you could not have as large a finances as Amazon, you gotta admire the storytelling energy behind their marketing campaign for his or her new present, The Wheel of Time. It launched with an enormous cross-platform marketing campaign consisting of all of the natural fundamentals — social media, owned media, and many others — plus paid adverts that made a splash.

The present is all about an immersive fantasy world, so what higher option to lure folks into it than by actually luring them into it? Amazon put up this wild 3D billboard in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

Sure, it’s leaping out of the billboard as a result of… magic.

Along with this advertising technique to have interaction the general public, Amazon additionally stored in thoughts the hardcore followers of the e-book sequence the present is predicated on. Amazon engaged smaller creators throughout the present e-book fandom to construct pleasure amongst their core target market, together with creating an official after-show livestream.

The Dusty Wheel Talk Show

These considerate executions have been paired with all of the fundamentals like in-app Prime Video adverts, retargeting adverts, partaking natural social content material and extra.

What did all this get Amazon? Solely the largest launch for Amazon Prime ever, the #1 present on this planet and over 1.16 billion streamed minutes within the first 3 days of the premiere alone. A minimum of 50,000 of these have been me, although, for certain.

2. Bringing nostalgia into the longer term

Coca-Cola has included Santa Claus of their vacation marketing campaign branding for many years. Their 2021 vacation marketing campaign touched on that sense of nostalgia throughout a time the world appeared to want an escape essentially the most, as the worldwide pandemic stretched to nearly two years lengthy.

Fortunately, Wi-Fi has now reached the North Pole, as Coca-Cola supplied not solely a heartwarming marketing campaign concerning the magic of Christmas, but additionally reside, customized greetings from Santa himself, due to a partnership with Cameo.

The marketing campaign efficiently carried out a tough purpose: Giving their clients what they really need — connection and the magic of the season — in a method that mixed the very best of their branding with new media.

3. Guinness completely captures a second in time

A white cat laying on a waste bin. A canvas grocery cart. A washer frothing. What do this stuff have in frequent?

Guinness learn a lot of their clients’ minds when placing collectively this marketing campaign titled #LooksLikeGuinness, that includes artistic imagery of issues that remind us, in coloration and form, of the long-lasting beer.

Pubs throughout the UK opened again up in Could 2021 after an intensive lockdown. Guinness knew their loyal buyer base missed hitting the pub for a pint with associates and ran with the concept. You recognize whenever you’re excited about one thing and begin to see it all over the place? The advert was easy and captured that feeling nicely, ending on a hopeful be aware of, “Good issues come to those that wait.”

The model took it multi-platform by asking followers to share images of issues that reminded them of Guinness with the hashtag #LooksLikeGuinness.

The outcome? Guinness was the most-talked-about model on social media throughout the week pubs reopened and earned a 350% greater engagement price than the usual benchmark.

Preserve your finger on the heartbeat of all of your cross-platform campaigns with Hootsuite’s distinctive instruments, together with Inbox for engagement administration and Influence to simply measure the ROI of your natural and paid social media campaigns. Get crackin’ in your subsequent progress marketing campaign with a free trial of Hootsuite.

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