How to Implement a Smart Social Media Takeover in 7 Steps
A well-organized social media takeover can be a win-win situation for you and your employee. Viewers need their attention constantly drawn to your social media accounts, and takeovers are a great way to make things better!
This guide explores how your brand can benefit from a social media takeover. He will also show you how to make a takeover, step by step. We’ll also give you inspiration from other successful social media acquisitions.
Social media takeover is a form of influencer marketing. The brand allows someone to temporarily post content on the brand’s social media accounts. This person could be an influencer, a team member, or an industry expert. They can “hijack”your account and post content they create.
Influencers can give real insight into your brand. The audience craves this kind of relationship. Let’s take a look at the reasons why a takeover can boost your social media accounts.
Increase your brand awareness
Influencers often come with a highly engaged, niche audience. Their vote of confidence in your brand can go a long way in building trust. Acquisitions are a great way to attract new and relevant audiences to get to know your brand.
Unique points of view can resonate with different followers. Social media managers should always work to accommodate and accommodate different points of view. Takeovers can help fill gaps or raise certain voices. Absorption of social networks is a way to present new faces, ideas and experiences.
For example, Broadway Sacramento absorbed one of its ensemble actors. They shared a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to get ready to perform. Such capture can give the audience a new understanding of the rehearsal process.
Takeovers are also a great way to seize the moment for special events. Special events usually end with entertaining content that your brand and host can get creative with.
Model Mika Schneider created a video for the Vogue France YouTube channel talking about her modeling experience during Paris Fashion Week. Special events such as Paris Fashion Week attract a lot of attention. Micah Schneider’s video provides unique coverage relevant to Vogue subscribers.
Get new subscribers
Audience diversification is critical to your overall growth. But you need more than just followers.
Absorbing social media can help you get exactly the audience you want to reach: the people who need your product or service! By collaborating with relevant influencers, they will help introduce your brand to your ideal customers.
Create brand loyalty
Creating hype is much easier when you have trustworthy influencers on your side. People want authenticity, and acquisitions provide a real way to connect with your brand.
If you’re promoting a new product or service, an influencer takeover can reassure your audience of your credibility as a brand.
1. Define SMART goals
Social media takeovers are fun, but you need to align them with your marketing strategy. By creating a shared vision with your influencer, it will be easier for you to manage expectations from social media takeover.
A smart way to set goals is to use the SMART rubric:
- Specific: Be specific about your campaign metrics.
- Measurable: Describe the metrics you will use to track performance.
- Achievable: Be realistic. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
- Relevant: Make sure the takeover is linked to broader business goals.
- Time Limit: Set deadlines for your team and content calendar.
Creating SMART goals gives social media managers the tools they need to create a successful takeover campaign. So don’t skip this step!
2. Choose your network
Once you have determined your SMART goals, you can choose which social media platform is best for your takeover. Each platform has different content creation options, so it’s important to keep your audience in mind when choosing a network.
BuzzFeed Tasty decided to use TikTok to host a livestream promoting the company’s tableware. TikTok might have been a better option than Instagram if their target audience was GenZ rather than millennials.
@tasty Hint: Not brown! Link in bio to shop the #CookWithColor pans that Inga used in the recent LIVE! ? @ingatylam
Always target the network where your target audience is most likely to see your takeover. This will go a long way in creating a successful campaign.
3. Make a detailed action plan
The success of your takeover will depend on your plan of action. Without the proper structure, you and your influencer could end up on different pages about what is expected of an acquisition.
Here are some questions you should answer:
- When and how long will the takeover last?
- What kind of content is being created?
- What type of media will be shared? Will the influencer also write captions?
- Will the takeover include posts or stories?
- How many positions will the takeover include?
- Will the takeover contribute to the hashtag? Should it include other hashtags as well?
- Should the content include other elements such as polls or links?
While you’re at it, don’t forget to share your brand’s style guide on social media with an influencer. This can help prevent misaligned content from being created.
But make sure the influencer is still creating content in their own style and voice. After all, taking over social media is all about providing your audience with new and interesting content!
4. Find the right authors
Brands often partner with influencers when they plan to take over social media. And not in vain. Influencers often have a loyal following in a particular niche.
If you go this route, create a list of possible collaborators.
If you’re not sure who’s right for you, start by looking at the people who already follow you and share your brand with your followers. Thus, you can find several relevant and genuine influencers.
Once you find the influencers you want to partner with, start looking at their metrics. Yes, it matters how many followers they have. But also take a look at their past collaborations, niche, engagement rate, and the type of content they share.
Some influencers also have media kits that you can request. This can give you a more detailed view of their audience engagement, demographics, and fees.
But influencers are not the only way to seize power on social media.
Honestly, no one knows your brand as well as your employees, so they might be the perfect people to manage your accounts. Employees can quickly create and share takeovers on social media versus partnering with an influencer.
WebinarGeek hosts monthly employee takeovers on Instagram. For a whole week, employees write about work in WebinarGeek. The goal is to generate interest among potential employees to apply for a job in the company.
If you really want to get your creative juices flowing, your company’s mascot can take over. WebinarGeek also created an Instagram video of Business Booster Kiki, an office dog. No one can resist the cute animal!
5. Set permissions
Now we move on to the more technical part of capturing social media. While not the most exciting part of the takeover, social media managers need to set up permissions to post content. Brands have three options:
Pre-delivered content
In this scenario, influencers create and share content with you before it’s published. This gives you time to evaluate the content, make any necessary adjustments, and make sure it aligns with your campaign goals.
Managers often prefer pre-delivered content because it allows them to take over Instagram without revealing its password.
Pre-delivered content also makes it easy to schedule a capture on your calendar. (A tool like Hootsuite Planner lets you create posts in advance and schedule them for posting.)
Although this is the safest option, it has a significant drawback. Pre-delivered content prevents live interaction between the influencer and your audience.
Real-time discussions can be an important factor in your uptake, so this should be taken into account when planning your content.
Limited Permissions
Sometimes partial access to your social media accounts is the best way to make a takeover. Many social media platforms allow companies to grant a collaborator limited rights to manage and publish content.
Facebook allows pages to assign users to different roles. There are 6 different roles available.
For takeovers, you may want to consider giving the influencer the role of editor as this allows them to create posts. It also allows them to access Instagram. However, they can also view analytics that might be too much to access.
On Instagram, you can use the Instagram Collab feature to have the same post posted on both your page and the influencer’s page.
Another option is to share co-posting duties with your influencer to host a live stream on Instagram.
Misfits Market used the Instagram Collab feature with Kelly Mitchell to provide an informative red wine video.
TikTok does not offer any kind of restricted permissions to allow influencers to guest post. However, you can make TikTok live and invite them as a co-host.
Another option is to use your social media management platform. In Hootsuite, social media managers can add influencers as members and then assign specific permissions.
Limited permissions give the member the ability to upload content, but publishing it requires editor approval.
If you don’t need pre-approval, you can set editor permissions to give contributors the ability to post.
There is also an option to set permissions for members. For example, you may need to pre-approve posts, but you can allow comments and replies to posts without approval.
Passing a password
Obviously, there are some risks involved in giving your credentials to a third party. But sometimes, sharing a password is the only way for influencers to use the functionality of a social media platform.
If you use a password manager, you can securely send login credentials to another person—no emails needed. This reduces the risk of your password being compromised by third parties.
Once the capture is complete, you can revoke their access to their login credentials.
6. Promote takeover
It’s time to get people interested in your takeover. Building anticipation is an important step in getting your audience to want to test the takeover.
Depending on what you’ve agreed on, you can ask your influencer to tease content before and during the takeover on certain social platforms. Make sure they include your username and/or hashtag when they do so.
Photographer Peter Garritano recently opened the New Yorker Photo page on Instagram and shared some photos of his latest project.
He also promoted the takeover on his personal account. This ad maximized the number of people who became aware of the takeover before it happened.
Just because the takeover happens on Instagram doesn’t mean you should only promote it there! Use Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and any other channels that seem relevant to you to let your audience know.
The Aespa group announced on Twitter the takeover of SiriusXM radio station. Promoting their takeover on various social media platforms helped raise awareness for this upcoming event.
We take over @MusicOnTikTok Radio on @SiriusXM to play our favorite songs! Listen to our takeover here: https://t.co/Dc4bGntAc0 pic.twitter.com/sJHs5OZAIw
— aespa (@aespa_official) July 22, 2022
7. Track your progress
No social media takeover is complete without an analysis of their effectiveness. You’ll want to go back to the SMART goals you set earlier to determine which analytics will demonstrate the success of your campaign.
Most social media platforms offer built-in business analytics tools. However, they only offer basic rooms for a limited period of time.
Using an advanced analytics tool like Hootsuite Analytics makes it much easier to measure and report on the results of a takeover campaign.
Regardless of your success rates, Hootsuite can find the numbers you need to validate your success.
Obviously we’re a little biased. But Hootsuite has fancy analytics tools to help you figure out why the social media takeover was successful.
Finally, be sure to proudly show off your success to your boss!
Hootsuite can create custom reports to show you the real return on your takeover. These analytics can also provide valuable insight into what worked (and what didn’t). Learn from your posts and your next social media takeover will be even more effective.
That’s all! Your step-by-step guide to a successful social media takeover. If you need more influencer marketing tips, we’ve put together a complete guide to help you.
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