A social media campaign brief is still a creative brief. The difference is that the work has to hold up in a feed, next to friends and news and a hundred other brands, and it has to come in a lot of shapes.
Below is a full example for a made-up company, written in the eleven sections of a one-page creative brief. The shaded notes are the places a social media campaign brief needs something a standard brief doesn't. If it's close to what you're working on, you can start from this example and change it.
Fernway plant care guarantee, paid and organic social
Fernway delivers houseplants in three cities. Most first orders are gifts, and repeat orders are low. Last spring they started replacing any plant that dies in the first 90 days, and almost nobody knows.
People are afraid they'll kill the plant, so they don't buy one for themselves.
Fernway stays a gift brand. Sales spike around Mother's Day and the holidays and go quiet the rest of the year, and the guarantee keeps costing money without bringing anyone in.
Renters in their late twenties and thirties who follow plant accounts and save the posts, but own one sad pothos. They scroll at night and on the train. They like the idea of plants more than the upkeep.
“I'd love more plants but I kill everything.”
“If it dies, they'll just send me another one. I can try.”
You can't really kill a Fernway plant, because we'll replace it.
Any plant that dies in the first 90 days is replaced for free, with no photos or forms. Every plant comes with a care card written for the light in your room. About 1 in 12 plants was replaced last year, so people really use it.
Guarantee terms linked in every paid post. No plant shown in direct sun unless it can take it. Logo only in the last frame of video.
Twelve feed posts and six Reels for organic over six weeks. Four paid video cuts in 9:16 and 4:5, each with a 6 second version. One creator partnership with three posts. Story frames for launch week.
Kickoff 5 October, first concepts 16 October, client review 20 October, shoot 28 October, live 9 November.
The One-Page Brief is free and there's no sign-up. It checks your brief for the usual problems, and you send it as a link so people can comment on the section they mean and approve it with their name.
Need it as a file?
The One-Page Strategy Kit has the creative brief, the messaging framework and the measurement plan as fillable PDFs and Word files, for when a client wants a document. It's $19.
Get the filesFrom the same desk
A weekly note on account planning for agency strategists. One thing that changed, the tension in it, and what I'd do Monday. The first part of every issue is free.
Written by Cody Simmonds. I also write The Rationale, a weekly note for agency strategists.