You have a fantastic new product that your team has been working on, and it's finally time to tell the world. A product launch using social media can be very effective when approached strategically. Here are 7 steps to help your launch make a splash and be off to a successful start.
Step #1: Define the Goal
To launch any new product campaign, you need to determine your goal. A launch using social media is no different. Your goal could be to increase sales, build brand awareness, grow engagement in your community, expand your email list, or have more people visit your website or store.
Once you have a clearly defined goal for your social media campaign, you will be able to establish strategies to achieve your goal. This article will be using a new product launch for our client, Great Kids and a new online training course.
Step #2: Develop the Timeline
Timing is critical when launching a new product on social media, and you will want to set your schedule or timeline well in advance of your launch date. The new product launch date can act as your starting point. Building your timeline around it, allowing for 1-2 months in advance for planning, and 1 week to 1 month for launch is typical.
A basic launch schedule can look like this:
- Day 0-6: Pre-launch hype or teasers the week before launch
- Day 7: LAUNCH DAY!
- Day 8-14: Post-launch posts & activities
- Day 15-30+: Integration of your new product into your regular content schedule, keeping the focus on your new product.
Once you have set your timeline, it becomes easier to plan out your content, knowing how feasible delivery will be. This also allows for quick adjustments to be made if needed.
Step #3: Choose Social Media Channels
Step #4: Determine Creative Direction & Strategy
The creative direction of your product launch is what's going to make your campaign stand out and be seen on your social platforms. Having a consistent overall visual style and messaging is essential.
If you are running your own business, this could mean that you are responsible for coming up with the creative direction, managing the photoshoot, editing the content, and posting everything yourself – and that is a lot of work!
One of the areas where The Creative Company excels is ensuring your new product launch is a success, allowing you to focus on running your business.
Step #5: Develop Campaign Assets
With the overall strategy determined for your selected channels, it is time to create the actual assets for your new product launch on social media.
Examples of your campaign assets may consist of photos, videos, graphics, and animation.
When it comes to creating social media content for your new product launch, the number of assets will vary depending on the size of your business and whether the launch is for a digital or tangible product.
Step #6: Prepare & Schedule Your Social Media Posts Using a Content Calendar
With the overall strategy determined for your selected channels, it is time to create the actual assets for your new product launch on social media.
Examples of your campaign assets may consist of photos, videos, graphics, and animation.
When it comes to creating social media content for your new product launch, the number of assets will vary depending on the size of your business and whether the launch is for a digital or tangible product.
This stage of your campaign planning can be a bit complicated, so it's essential to find ways to streamline your tasks and make life a little easier. Some channels make scheduling posts quite simple with features, such as Facebook Business Suite (for both Facebook & Instagram).
Other fee-based scheduling applications, such as Hootesuite or Later, allow scheduling to more channels, but the monthly cost can be significant depending on the size of your business.
Step #7: Launch Day and beyond!
With your planned and scheduled content ready to go, the time to launch your new product, monitor the engagement, answer questions, and interact with your community is finally here!
Actions to consider:
- If using Instagram, you may need to change the link in your bio to a specific campaign landing page or use a trackable link.
- Be sure you spend enough time responding, engaging, and answering your followers' questions across all your platforms.
- If possible, on launch day, hosting a live Q&A on Instagram or Facebook can be a great way to engage and keep the conversation flowing about your product launch.
Post-Launch: Track and Measure Your Social Media Success
Be sure to revisit your goals for the launch and measure them. The success of your campaign may look different than another brand or business, but reviewing how your campaign measures up against your goals is time well spent.
This is also a great time to look at how your campaign performed overall and where you could improve for next time. You can gather insights about what your followers' prefer and what content resonated best with them, what format they liked most, and what channel performed best.