Throughout this summer, I have been working on creating a social pitch for the CW Network. The CW was a joint venture between CBS and WarnerBrothers. Its most notable shows include Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, and Riverdale. The network has created countless shows aimed at young adults. Despite their strong catalog of content, their social presence remains rather tame. They mainly utilize promotional content on all of their platforms. As social noise continues to increase, brands need to adapt their content to stand out for their target market. After conducting research, I deduced the strongest plan for the CW was to work on adding more creative and trending content. This is especially integral as many of their shows are new due to their recent merger.
To create the strongest pitch possible, this process was broken down into multiple steps. I started by researching the network with an emphasis on its history, audience, current postings, and competition. This helped me develop a S.W.O.T analysis and set me off on the next steps. I then spent a lot of time deciphering the “big idea.” This took a while because I had trouble figuring out the main goal. In the end, I realized the style of content was hindering their engagement ability. Plus, awareness is one of their biggest weaknesses at the moment. As a result, creating trending content will lead to reaching a wider audience.
The next step was creating content. I spent time making a social calendar with example posts. These included organic and paid opportunities. This was helpful because it required me to think of all the tools available on social networks. Instagram alone has stories, reels, and main feeds. These options allow for more creativity and problem-solving. Then I spent time understanding paid advertising. The CW has had simple social ads in the past and that was something I wanted to alter in the campaign.
The final step was creating the pitch. I had to look over the past few weeks of work, and condense the most integral pieces. It was hard to not include all my work, but this step helped ensure the pitch was concise and effective.
It was more difficult than I’d expected to pick an influencer partnership. I spend a lot of time on social media and expected lots of influencers to match my needs. However, I needed individuals who created content for our target market, had an interest in the CW’s shows, and had a unique content angle. Influencer marketing is incredibly important and it was a good reminder that this step takes time and strategy.
This process was very enlightening because it showcased the strategy and workload that are involved in a social campaign. I had to understand the network’s strengths and weaknesses to create an ideal pitch. Plus, creating the content took lots of time due to the number of posts needed to remain active. Despite the large workload, I loved every second of this project. It helped solidify my interest in digital marketing. I love creating strategy ideas and concepts and can not wait until it is my full-time profession.