How to Run an SNS Activation: From Planning to Measuring Posts
This article was automatically translated from the Japanese original. Read the original in Japanese
An SNS activation proceeds in five steps: clarify the objective → design the experience → invite and cast guests → run the day-of operations → review and measure posts.
| Step | What to decide | Main people involved |
|---|---|---|
| Clarify the objective | Whether to widen awareness or deepen understanding of the brand | Client and internal decision-makers |
| Design the experience | What guests will experience, plus the space, the route, and the triggers for taking photos | Planning lead and venue |
| Invite and cast | Who to invite, and which influencers to ask to participate | Casting lead |
| Run the day-of operations | Program flow, guidance, and being present during shooting | On-site staff |
| Review and measure posts | Measuring posting rate, spread of mentions, and brand-name searches | Analytics lead |
Where do teams tend to stumble when clarifying the objective and designing the experience?
If you skip clarifying the objective and start by simply "creating a space for an experience," you end up without a clear standard for evaluation in later steps. For example, if the goal is to widen awareness but the experience is designed as an intensive one for a small group, the objective and the scale of the initiative don't match. In the experience design step, you need to decide the elements that will prompt posts before you decide on the space and route. For example, if you polish only a space that showcases the brand's world and then try to add photo-friendly spots or mechanisms that encourage posting afterward, you will have to rework the venue layout, which means doing the work twice. Even though clarifying the objective and designing the experience should be treated as separate steps, it helps to have the same person oversee both, which prevents gaps between the steps.
Where do teams tend to stumble when inviting and casting, and when running the day-of operations?
As covered in Inviting Influencers to Brand Events: The Process from Building the Guest List to Checking Posts, the invitation and casting step includes the entire sequence from building the guest list to checking posts. If you don't run this step in parallel with the experience design and leave it for later, the period between invitation and posting gets compressed, leaving no room to accommodate the influencers' schedules. In the day-of operations, reception design is a particularly common stumbling point. As covered in A Guide to Reception Design for Invitation-Only Events: Avoiding Lines Right After Doors Open, if a line forms right after the doors open, it leaves a poor first impression on attendees and affects their subsequent posts. When deciding how many people to invite in the invitation and casting step, also check the upper limit of guests the day-of operations can handle, which makes reception design easier.
What should you keep in mind when reviewing and measuring posts?
Rather than thinking about reviewing and measuring posts for the first time after the day-of operations have ended, you need to decide what to measure at the stage of clarifying the objective. If the metrics are decided later, you will find that measurement-oriented provisions could not be built into the venue design or the way invitations were made. The way you word prompts for posting may also involve the disclosure principles covered in What Is PR Labeling for Sponsored Collaboration Posts? The Basics of Stealth Marketing Regulation and Practical Patterns, so if you design a scheme that links posts to perks, check the disclosure rules in this step as well. Because the results you measure can also inform how you revisit the experience design and invitation approach next time, it is a practical tip to record them on the assumption that they will be used going forward, rather than treating a single run as the end.
What should you decide first?
- Be able to state the objective (widening awareness or deepening brand understanding) in one sentence
- While designing the experience, build the elements that prompt posts into the venue layout
- Start the invitation and casting step early, in parallel with the experience design
- Design the day-of reception and guidance flow on the assumption that no lines will form
- Decide what to measure before deciding the venue design and the way invitations are made
This approach applies to the whole process of SNS activation (activation designed to include the point where the experience is talked about on social media). We take inquiries covering everything from experience design to measurement on our service page.
Scope of This Article
This article covers how to run an SNS activation in five steps. It does not make judgments on individual venue floor plans or on how to determine specific invitation numbers. How to choose influencer candidates is also covered in a separate article.
Conclusion
An SNS activation is an approach in which five steps, from clarifying the objective to measuring posts, influence one another. If any step is put off, work tends to be duplicated in later steps. We believe that getting a view of the whole process at the outset is the foundation for a smooth design. Rather than moving through the steps one at a time in order, understanding early on what will be needed in later steps ultimately makes the whole process easier to run.