Social media takeovers are a great way to expand your brand to new audiences. Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are idea for social media takeovers. One key in having a successful takeover is planning, so I’ve put together this guide to help you execute first successful takeover.

Step One: Don’t curse, or curse a lot.

Laying some ground rules for the takeover’er should be your first step. Ideally, you would implement the same rules that your employee’s would follow. Remember, just because you are giving access to someone that may or may not be an employee, doesn’t mean it’s a free for all. It’s still representing your brand. Spell these rules out, on paper, and make them sign an agreement if needed. The last thing you want is a takeover featuring a bunch of drunken rants, or maybe you do want that.

In addition to the rules, build some content strategy. If you are using someone that has a talent, like playing the guitar, tell them to write a song about your business and sing it during the takeover. Build your content into their personality. Don’t let your brand disappear, give it a twist.

Step Two: Password is Password

Don’t give out your actual account password for the takeover, change it! Think about using something unique to the user taking over. Maybe a name and number combo. Change it for them, and once done, change it back.

Step Three: Market the Takeover

If you are doing a kick ass job with your marketing, and if you have been listening to This is Marketing Podcast, you have no excuse not to be, your audience should be dialed in with the type of content you are posting. Furthermore, if you are posting the content yourself, they are familiar with you – your face, voice and personality. Don’t surprise them with a new face. Let them know the takeover is coming. Give them dates and information about the person taking over. Why they were chosen, and what to expect – don’t give away the farm on it though!

Step Four: Sharing is Caring

During the takeover, your goal is to give added value to your followers by using another person, but encourage that person to bring in their audiences as well. Converting audiences to your own is one of the major benefits to social media takeovers. Tell your user to promote them taking over your channel to their fans, and let them come over. Be ready for a jump in views and likes, and don’t be pissed off because you never get that engagement – it’s suppose to happen this way. On the flip side, encourage your user to promote themselves and their channels. Cross pollinate user bases!

Step Five: Data Dump

You know I always bring it back to data. Benchmark your data before, during and after the takeover. Determine what content worked, what didn’t to make adjustments in the future. After we let takeovers happen at the University on our platforms, we adjusted each one moving forward and the results were more engagement. Use the data the platforms gave you!

If you have any questions about social media takeovers, I’d love to hear from you! You can find me on twitter @rossmorrone and Instagram @thisismarketing. Thanks for reading!