A social media brief is a document that possesses all the details necessary to lead a successful social media marketing campaign. No matter if you are an agency, a freelancer, or an employed social media manager, building one and using it to guide your efforts will help your work more effectively.
Many professionals in the marketing space believe that this document contains only information about the creative direction, and although that’s true, a social media brief is much more than that.
It is a way to collect information from the agency and the efficient client. It’s a place where everyone that is involved in the project can go and check. It’s a method of communication between the social media manager and the client (their employee or a company) that is clear and transparent.
So, if you are in the line when it comes to writing a creative brief for your next social media campaign, remember that it may take a couple of hours but you will be saving hours, improving the stakeholders’ experience, and drastically increasing the chances of success.
After working side by side with several marketing agencies and freelancers, we’ve found that the ones who utilize briefs experience several benefits compared to the ones that don’t:
Writing a social media content brief can be intimidating if you don’t have a template. Fortunately, we’ve built one in HolaBrief (test it here) that you can customize to fit your needs and requirements.
For the ones that want to do it by themselves, here’s an outline we’ve tested time and time again. Be sure to include every element to be sure that your briefs are comprehensive enough.
First and foremost, your social media creative brief should start with a brief explanation of the company and the project. The goal of this section is to give everyone an introduction so that they are on the same page. Some questions you can include are:
Nobody gets into social media without expecting something in return. No matter if it’s a paid ads campaign, a whole multi-channel effort, or a single post, you should write down what your client is trying to accomplish.
Are they trying to increase brand awareness? Do they want an active profile to accompany their Instagram Ads efforts? Do they want to achieve 5.000 followers on TikTok within 3 months? Whatever it is, write it down so, in the future, you know if your strategy was successful or not.
Social media is full of different subgroups and cultures that live together in the same ecosystem. That’s why it’s important to define who your target audience is and who you are trying to reach. Without getting clear on this aspect, your efforts will never have the effectiveness needed because if you are trying to appeal to everyone, you’ll end up doing a mediocre job.
Build your client’s customer persona as specifically as possible. Where do they live? How old are they? How do they communicate? Where do they spend time on? Who is their favorite influencer? All of these questions (and more) will help you create content that they love.
You can use this interactive exercise by creating an HolaBrief account for free!
A social media campaign, for it to be effective, needs to know what are the 3 to 5 key messages it is trying to communicate. It may be to educate consumers, sell them, foster a community, or even raise awareness in some aspect. Write those down and guide your social media campaign around them.
Another element that should be included in your social media design brief is the brand’s tone of voice and style. Does the client want a more serious feel or is trying to be daring and funny? Which social media account do they enjoy and want to be similar to? These answers will help the designer decide which colors, fonts, and visual style fit the tone of voice better.
Finally, the technical requirements. This section of the brief includes questions like:
Yes, they might be a bit boring to complete but this information is key if you want happy clients and a social media marketing campaign that is in line with what they are looking for.
Of course, a good example should incorporate following the outline mentioned above and the three characteristics in the section What Makes a Perfect Web Design Brief Document. Any less puts you at risk of designing a social media campaign on a shaky foundation and making ineffective posts, to say the least.
If you want to check out a good social media brief sample that you can customize to your needs and requirements, join up for a HolaBrief account and use our template for free. An example of what you will get is as follows:
It takes a lot of work to create a social media creative brief from scratch, and we know it perfectly well. There is also a chance that you might fail to add something crucial, which could affect how well your project performs.
We developed HolaBrief and generated tried-and-true templates for you to use and adapt particularly for this purpose. Simply pick one, edit it by adding or removing exercises, and email it to your client for completion. Try it for free here!
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