Manage a Social Media Campaign in HubSpot

Set up a HubSpot CRM to track a social media campaign end to end.

Introduction

30 Second Summary

Social media campaigns have a lot of moving pieces. Creators need briefs, posts need deadlines, and details get buried across email threads and group chats.

In this project, you will set up HubSpot CRM from scratch to manage a social media campaign for "Greenleaf Co.," a fictional eco-friendly brand. You will organize contacts, track content deliverables through a custom pipeline, and build a dashboard that shows campaign progress at a glance.

What You'll Build

Picture opening your CRM and seeing every Instagram post, blog article, and TikTok video flowing through production stages on a visual board, with a dashboard ready to show a manager exactly how the campaign is tracking.

By the end of this project, you'll have:

A custom deal pipeline with campaign-specific stages (Briefing, Content Creation, Review, Scheduled, Published) where you can drag content pieces between stages and see exactly where every deliverable stands.
A contact database with company associations, job titles, and relationship notes so you can click into any stakeholder and see their full context at a glance.
A reporting dashboard that answers "how is the campaign going?" with real data you can present to a manager or screenshot for job applications.
Secret Mission: Create segmented contact lists to target different stakeholder groups with the right messages.

Are there any prerequisites?

No prerequisites are needed. This project walks you through everything from creating your free HubSpot account to building your first dashboard.

Before We Start

Before you dive in, take a moment to lock in what you are about to build and why it matters.

By the end of this project, you will have a fully configured HubSpot CRM that manages a social media campaign for a fictional eco-friendly brand called Greenleaf Co. That means organized contacts, a custom deal pipeline tracking every content deliverable, tasks with deadlines, and a reporting dashboard you can present to a manager.

Set Up Your HubSpot Account

Your campaign info currently lives nowhere. Before you can organize contacts, track deliverables, or report on progress, you need a central workspace to put it all in.

HubSpot CRM gives you that workspace for free. In this step, you will create your account, configure it for the Greenleaf Co. campaign, and confirm the key areas are ready to use.

In this step, get ready to:

Create a free HubSpot CRM account.
Complete the onboarding prompts with your campaign details.
Confirm the main CRM areas load and are ready to populate.

Create your free HubSpot account

Open your web browser and go to hubspot.com.
Click Get started free on the homepage.
Sign up using your name and email address.
You can also use Google login or Apple ID if you prefer.

After creating your account, you are automatically logged in and land on the HubSpot dashboard.

What is HubSpot CRM?

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool stores all your contacts, companies, and deals in one place. It tracks every interaction so nothing falls through the cracks.

HubSpot's free tier includes up to 1,000 contacts, 10 dashboards, and 1 deal pipeline. No credit card is required and there is no time limit on your free access.

Complete the onboarding prompts

HubSpot walks you through a series of setup questions when you first create an account. The exact prompts may vary, but look for the key fields below.

When prompted for a company name, enter Greenleaf Co. (this is the fictional brand you are managing a campaign for).
Set your time zone to your local time zone.
Answer any remaining onboarding questions HubSpot presents with reasonable values.
After completing onboarding, confirm you land on the HubSpot dashboard.

Seeing different onboarding questions?

HubSpot occasionally updates its onboarding flow. The key fields to look for are company name and time zone. If you see additional prompts about team size, industry, or goals, answer them with any reasonable values. They do not affect this project.

Help me get through HubSpot's onboarding prompts.

Confirm your CRM workspace is ready

Your account is created and configured. Now confirm that the three main areas you will use throughout this project all load correctly.

Before you navigate, take a guess. What do you expect to see on the Contacts page right now?

In the top navigation bar, click CRM.
Click Contacts.
Confirm the page loads with an empty contact list.

The Contacts page is completely empty. No contacts exist yet because you have not added any.

Click CRM in the top navigation bar again.
Click Deals.
Confirm the Deals page loads with no deals listed.

The Deals page is also empty. You will create campaign deliverables here in a later step.

Click Reporting in the top navigation bar. If you do not see Reporting directly, click More first to find it.
Click Dashboards.
Confirm a default dashboard loads on the page.

Every area you just visited is empty or showing defaults. This blank canvas is what you will fill over the next steps with contacts, deals, and reports for the Greenleaf Co. campaign.

Can't find CRM or Reporting in the navigation?

HubSpot's top navigation bar groups items differently depending on your screen size and account setup. If you do not see CRM or Reporting as top-level menu items, click More at the end of the navigation bar. You will find them in the expanded menu.

Help me find CRM and Reporting in HubSpot's navigation.

Your HubSpot workspace is set up and ready. Next up, you will start filling it with the contacts and companies behind your campaign.

Build Your Contact Database

Your HubSpot account is set up and ready to go. Now it is time to fill it with the people and organizations behind your Greenleaf Co. campaign.

A social media campaign involves stakeholders scattered across emails, DMs, and spreadsheets. Content creators, brand partners, and clients all need to be tracked in one place. Without a central database, details slip through the cracks and follow-ups get missed.

In this step, get ready to:

Create company records for the organizations involved in your campaign.
Add contact records with job titles, emails, and company associations.
Enrich key contacts with notes about their campaign roles.

Create your company records

Every campaign involves multiple organizations. Your brand, the agencies you work with, and your partners each need their own record in the CRM.

Navigate to CRM > Companies in the top navigation bar.
Click Create company in the upper right.
In the right panel, enter Greenleaf Co. in the Company name field.
Enter greenleafco.com in the Company domain name field.
Click Create at the bottom of the panel to save the record.

You should see Greenleaf Co. appear in your companies list.

Click Create company again to add your second company.
Enter Bright Spark Media in the Company name field.
Enter brightsparkmedia.com in the Company domain name field.
Click Create.
Repeat the same process for EcoVibe Influencers with domain ecovibeinfluencers.com.

You should now see all three companies listed on your Companies page: Greenleaf Co., Bright Spark Media, and EcoVibe Influencers.

Why track companies separately?

Company records let you group contacts by organization. When you associate a contact with a company, you can quickly see everyone from that organization and track all related deals in one place.

Think of companies as folders that keep your contacts organized. A single glance at the Bright Spark Media record shows you every creator and designer working on your campaign.

Don't see your companies?

Make sure you clicked Create at the bottom of the panel after entering each company's details. If you closed the panel without clicking Create, the record was not saved.

Help me find my missing company records.

Create contact records with key properties

Each person involved in the campaign needs their own contact record. You will fill in properties like job title and email, then link each contact to the company they belong to.

Navigate to CRM > Contacts in the top navigation bar.
Click Create contact in the upper right.
In the right panel, enter Maya as the First name and Chen as the Last name.
Enter maya@brightsparkmedia.com in the Email field.
Set the Job title to Content Creator.
Set the Lifecycle stage dropdown to Lead.
In the Associate contact with section, search for and select Bright Spark Media.
Click Create contact at the bottom of the panel.

Maya Chen now appears in your contacts list, linked to Bright Spark Media.

What is a lifecycle stage?

A lifecycle stage describes where a person sits in your business relationship. HubSpot offers stages like Subscriber, Lead, Customer, and Evangelist.

For this project, setting contacts to Lead keeps things simple. In a real campaign you might use different stages for clients versus freelancers.

Create the remaining contacts using the same steps. Click Create contact for each one, fill in their details, and associate them with the correct company.

Campaign contacts to create

Use these details for the rest of your contacts. Set each one's Lifecycle stage to Lead.

James Rivera, Brand Manager, james@greenleafco.com, associated with Greenleaf Co.
Aisha Patel, Social Media Strategist, aisha@greenleafco.com, associated with Greenleaf Co.
Tom Fischer, Account Executive, tom@ecovibeinfluencers.com, associated with EcoVibe Influencers.
Priya Sharma, Influencer Relations Manager, priya@ecovibeinfluencers.com, associated with EcoVibe Influencers.
Liam Brooks, Graphic Designer, liam@brightsparkmedia.com, associated with Bright Spark Media.

After creating all contacts, navigate back to CRM > Contacts. You should see 6 contacts listed, each showing their associated company in the table.

Contact not showing an associated company?

If a contact's company column is blank, you may have skipped the Associate contact with section when creating the contact. To fix this, click the contact's name to open their record, then look for the Companies card in the right sidebar and click + Add to search for and select the correct company.

Help me associate a contact with a company in HubSpot.

Add context with notes

Properties like job title tell you what someone does. Notes tell you how they work. Real coordinators track communication preferences, timezones, and project context directly on the contact record.

Click on Maya Chen in your contacts list to open her record.
At the top of the left sidebar, click the Note icon (it looks like a small document).
Type a note like: Lead content creator for Instagram. Prefers visual briefs over written ones. Timezone: PST.
Click Save note.

The note now appears on Maya's activity timeline. Anyone viewing her record can see this context instantly.

Open James Rivera's record and add a note like: Primary brand stakeholder. Approves all content before publishing. Available Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm EST.
Open Tom Fischer's record and add a note like: Main point of contact for influencer bookings. Responds fastest via email. Manages 3 influencers for our campaign.

Before you verify your work, think about what you expect to see when you click into one of these contacts. What information should be visible at a glance?

Navigate back to CRM > Contacts and click on any contact you added a note to.

You should see their associated company in the right sidebar, their job title and email in the left sidebar, and the note you wrote on their activity timeline in the middle column.

Why do notes matter in a CRM?

An email thread tells you what was said. A note tells you what to remember. When you hand off a contact to a teammate or pick up a relationship months later, notes are the fastest way to get up to speed.

This is exactly the kind of detail managers look for when they evaluate how well a coordinator manages relationships.

Don't see the Note icon?

The note, email, call, task, and meeting icons appear at the top of the left sidebar on any record page. If the Note icon is not visible, click the More button (three dots) and select Reorder activity buttons to make sure it is enabled.

Help me find the Note icon on my HubSpot contact record.

Your contact database is loaded and organized. Next up, you will create deals to track each content deliverable in your campaign and discover why the default pipeline stages are not going to work.

Track Campaign Deliverables as Deals

Your contact database is built. You have companies, contacts, and relationship notes all organized inside HubSpot. Now it is time to track what those people are actually working on: the campaign deliverables themselves.

Each content piece in your campaign is a deliverable that needs tracking. An Instagram post, a blog article, a TikTok video. In HubSpot, you can represent each of these as a deal, which gives you a visual board to see where every piece stands at a glance. But you are about to discover a problem with the default setup.

In this step, get ready to:

Create deal records for each campaign deliverable.
View your deals on a visual board and try moving them between stages.
Discover a problem with the default pipeline setup.

Create your campaign deliverables as deals

A deal in a CRM usually represents a potential sale. Here, you are repurposing deals to represent campaign deliverables. Each deal is one content piece that moves through stages of production.

In the top navigation bar, click CRM.
Click Deals.

Your deals page is empty right now. Time to fill it with your first campaign deliverable.

Click Create deal in the upper right corner.
Enter Instagram Product Launch Post in the Deal name field.
Scroll down to the Associated company section, then search for and select Greenleaf Co..
In the Associated contact section, search for and select the contact who would own this deliverable (for example, your content creator).
Click Create.

Your first deal appears in the list. One deliverable tracked.

Why use deals for content deliverables?

Deals come with a built-in board view that lets you drag items between stages. This makes them perfect for tracking anything that moves through a workflow, not just sales.

Real coordinator roles use deal pipelines to track projects, campaigns, and deliverables. The skill transfers directly.

Now create four more deals following the same process. For each one, click Create deal, enter the deal name, and associate it with a relevant contact and company.

Create a deal named Blog: Sustainability Guide.
Create a deal named TikTok Unboxing Video.
Create a deal named LinkedIn Company Spotlight.
Create a deal named Instagram Story: Behind the Scenes.

Pick contacts that fit the deliverable

Associate each deal with a contact whose job title makes sense for that content piece. For example, assign the TikTok video to a content creator and the LinkedIn spotlight to a brand manager.

After creating all five deals, you should see all of them listed on your Deals page.

Don't see all five deals?

Make sure you clicked Create (not just closed the panel) after filling in each deal. If a deal is missing, click Create deal and create the missing one.

help me find my missing deal in HubSpot

Drag deals across the board view

HubSpot has two ways to view your deals: a table list and a board view. The board view shows deals as cards organized into columns by stage, like a kanban board.

Look for the view toggle near the top of your deals page.
Click the Board view icon to switch from the table to the board.

Your deals appear as cards grouped under stage columns. Before you interact with the board, pause and think about what stages you would need to track a piece of content from concept to publication. What column headers would you expect to see for managing Instagram posts and blog articles?

Read the column headers across the top of the board.
Drag one of your deals (for example, Instagram Product Launch Post) from one stage column to another.

The drag-and-drop works. But read those stage names again: Appointment scheduled, Qualified to buy, Presentation scheduled, Decision maker bought-in, Contract sent. These are stages for a B2B sales process.

They have nothing to do with tracking where a blog post or TikTok video is in production.

See why the default stages fall short

You now have campaign deliverables sitting in stages designed for closing sales deals. A manager asking "which content pieces are in review?" cannot get that answer from this board. There is no "Review" stage. There is no "Content Creation" stage. There is no "Published" stage.

This mismatch is exactly the problem you will fix in the next step.

Why not just ignore the stage names?

Stage names are not just labels. They define how you filter, report, and communicate progress. If your stages say "Qualified to buy" but your deliverable is actually in content review, every report and every conversation about the board becomes confusing.

Accurate stages are the foundation of useful CRM data.

Your deliverables are in HubSpot, but the pipeline is speaking a different language. Next up, you will customize those stages to match how social media content actually moves from idea to publication.

Customize Your Pipeline and Add Tasks

In the last step, you created campaign deliverables as deals and saw them land in stages like "Appointment scheduled" and "Decision maker bought-in." Those stage names are built for a B2B sales process, not a social media campaign.

A manager asking "which content pieces are in review?" cannot get that answer from a board labeled with sales jargon. You need stages that match how social media content actually moves from idea to publication. You also need tasks with deadlines so nothing slips through the cracks.

In this step, get ready to:

Rename the default pipeline stages to match a campaign workflow.
Move your existing deals to the correct custom stages.
Create tasks with due dates attached to your deals.

Customize the deal pipeline stages

HubSpot's pipeline customization lets you rename, add, and remove stages so the board reflects your actual workflow. You will transform the default sales stages into a content production workflow.

Click the Settings icon (gear icon) in the top navigation bar.
In the left sidebar, click Objects, then select Deals.
Click the Pipelines tab.
Select the default Sales Pipeline from the dropdown.

You should see a list of the default stages: Appointment scheduled, Qualified to buy, Presentation scheduled, Decision maker bought-in, Contract sent, Closed won, and Closed lost.

Rename the existing stages to match your campaign workflow. Change the stage names to:
Remove any extra stages you do not need (such as Closed won).
Keep Closed lost and rename it to Cancelled.
Click Save.

Why rename the pipeline instead of creating a new one?

HubSpot's free tier includes only 1 deal pipeline. Renaming the existing one is the only option, and it is actually the smarter move. Your deals stay attached to the pipeline, and you just relabel the stages they move through.

Navigate back to CRM > Deals and switch to the board view. You should now see your five custom columns: Briefing, Content Creation, Review, Scheduled, and Published.

Still seeing the old stage names?

Make sure you clicked Save on the Pipelines settings page before navigating away. If the old names persist, go back to Settings > Objects > Deals > Pipelines and confirm your changes are saved.

Need more help? Help me troubleshoot my pipeline stage names not updating.

Move your deals to the correct custom stages

Your deals are still clustered in whichever stage they landed in when HubSpot remapped the old names. Time to drag each card to the stage that actually reflects where that deliverable stands in production.

In the CRM > Deals board view, drag the Blog: Sustainability Guide card to the Briefing stage.
Drag the Instagram Product Launch Post card to the Content Creation stage.
Drag the TikTok Unboxing Video card to the Review stage.
Drag the remaining deals (LinkedIn Company Spotlight and Instagram Story: Behind the Scenes) to whichever stage makes sense for their status.

Take a step back and look at your board. A quick glance now tells you exactly where every deliverable stands. That is the power of a customized pipeline.

Multi-select cards for faster moves

Hold Ctrl (Windows) and click multiple deal cards to select them at once, then drag the group to a new stage.

Create tasks with due dates attached to deals

A pipeline shows you where things stand. Tasks show you what needs to happen next and when. Every campaign deliverable has a deadline, and tasks are how a coordinator tracks them without letting anything slip.

In the board view, click the name of the Blog: Sustainability Guide deal to open its record.
In the left panel of the deal record, click the Task icon.
In the task editor, enter the title: Send creative brief to content creator.
Set the Due date to a date a few days from today (for example, Aug 22).
Click Create.

The task now appears on the deal's timeline. This is exactly how a real coordinator tracks follow-ups inside a CRM.

What are tasks in HubSpot?

Tasks are to-do items that you can associate with specific records like contacts, companies, or deals. Each task has a title, a due date, and an owner.

When a task is attached to a deal, it shows up on that deal's timeline. It also shows up in your central tasks view so you can see all your deadlines in one place.

Now repeat this process for 2-3 more deals. Open each deal record, click the Task icon, and create a task. Use titles like:

Before you check your work, predict: where do you think all of these tasks will appear together in HubSpot?

Navigate to CRM > Tasks to see all of your tasks listed with their due dates.

You should see 3-4 tasks with titles, due dates, and associated deals. This is your campaign's to-do list. A coordinator checks this view every morning to know what needs attention.

Don't see your tasks listed?

Make sure you clicked Create after entering each task's details. If you navigated away from the task editor without clicking Create, the task was not saved.

Also check the Assignee filter at the top of the tasks page. The default view shows tasks assigned to you. If you assigned a task to someone else, it might be filtered out.

Still stuck? Help me figure out why my tasks are not showing up in the CRM > Tasks view.

Your pipeline now speaks campaign language, and every deliverable has a deadline attached to it. Next up, you will build a reporting dashboard so you can answer "how is the campaign going?" with real data.

Build a Campaign Reporting Dashboard

Your pipeline stages match your campaign workflow, and every deliverable has tasks with deadlines keeping things on track. The next challenge is answering the question every manager will ask: "how is the campaign going?"

A verbal update is not going to cut it. In this step, you will build a dashboard in HubSpot that answers that question with visual reports pulled straight from your CRM data.

In this step, get ready to:

Create a new reporting dashboard in HubSpot.
Add standard library reports showing deal stage distribution and activity.
Review the dashboard as a campaign health snapshot you could present to a manager.

Create a new dashboard

In the top navigation bar, click Reporting.
Click Dashboards.
In the upper right, click Create dashboard.
Select New Dashboard to start with a blank dashboard.
In the right panel, enter Greenleaf Campaign Tracker as the dashboard name.
Set access to Private to owner.
In the bottom right, click Create dashboard.

Your new empty dashboard appears, ready for reports.

Don't see Reporting in the top navigation?

On some HubSpot accounts, Reporting is tucked inside the More menu in the top navigation bar. Click More first, then select Reporting and Dashboards from there.

Help me find Reporting in my HubSpot navigation.

Add reports from the report library

HubSpot includes a library of standard reports you can add to any dashboard. You will pick reports that show how your deals are distributed across pipeline stages and how deal activity is trending.

On your new dashboard, click Add content.
Select Report.
A right side panel opens showing available reports. Browse or search for deal-related reports.
Hover over a report that shows deal stage distribution (look for something like a deals-by-stage breakdown) and click + Add to add it to your dashboard.
Add one or two more deal-related reports that show deal activity or deal counts. Aim for 2-3 reports total.

Your dashboard now displays reports populated with data from the deals you created earlier.

What do these reports show?

A deal stage distribution report breaks down how many deals sit in each pipeline stage. On your dashboard, you should see your deliverables spread across Briefing, Content Creation, Review, and the other stages you set up.

Deal activity reports show recent changes to your deals. Together, these reports give a quick snapshot of campaign progress that you can present to a stakeholder in seconds.

The free tier includes 10 dashboards with up to 50 reports per dashboard, so you have plenty of room to experiment.

Reports showing no data?

If a report appears empty, make sure you created deals in Step 3 and associated them with contacts and companies. Reports pull from the records in your CRM, so no records means no data.

Help me figure out why my dashboard reports are empty.

Review your dashboard as a campaign snapshot

Before you study the reports, think about what you expect to see. How many of your deals should be in Content Creation? How many in Review? How many in Briefing?

Look at your deal stage distribution report and count the deals in each stage.
Confirm the distribution matches what you set up: for example, your Instagram Product Launch Post in Content Creation, your Blog: Sustainability Guide in Briefing, and your TikTok Unboxing Video in Review.
Check that the deal activity report reflects the deals you created and moved in earlier steps.

Why does this matter for your career?

Your dashboard now answers the key questions a manager would ask. How many deliverables are in each stage? What has been completed? What is still in progress? This is the exact kind of reporting project coordinators and social media coordinators do weekly.

This dashboard is also a portfolio piece. You can screenshot it for job applications to show you know how to use a CRM for campaign reporting.

Secret mission

Create Segmented Contact Lists for Targeted Outreach

Not every campaign message goes to every contact. Content creators need creative briefs, clients need progress updates, and partners need completely different information. Can you create targeted segments to reach the right people with the right message?

Clean Up Your Resources

This project runs entirely on HubSpot's free tier, so there are no ongoing costs or cloud bills to worry about. Decide whether to keep your data in HubSpot or delete it entirely.

Resources you used:

1 HubSpot free account with all CRM data stored in HubSpot's cloud.
3 company records, 6-8 contact records, 5 deal records, and 3-4 tasks.
1 customized deal pipeline (Briefing, Content Creation, Review, Scheduled, Published).
1 Greenleaf Campaign Tracker dashboard with reports.
2 active contact segments (Content Creators, Greenleaf Internal Team).

Keep everything running

No action needed. Your HubSpot account and all CRM data stay accessible for free. Choose this if you want to keep experimenting or take screenshots of your work for job applications.

Log in to HubSpot periodically to keep your account active. Free accounts are deactivated after 120 days of inactivity.
After deactivation, you have a 90-day window to reactivate before your data is permanently removed.

Pause - I'll come back to this later

HubSpot's free tier has no running processes or ongoing costs, so there is nothing to shut down or pause. Your data stays safe in the cloud as long as your account remains active.

Log in at least once every 120 days to prevent automatic deactivation.
After deactivation, you have 90 days to reactivate before your data is permanently removed.

Delete - I don't want to use this again

Remove all project resources by deleting individual records or your entire HubSpot account.

To delete individual CRM records while keeping your account:

Navigate to each CRM section (CRM > Contacts, CRM > Companies, CRM > Deals).
In the table view, select the checkboxes next to the records you want to delete.
At the top of the table, click Delete.
In the dialog box, enter the number of records to delete, then click Delete to confirm.
Repeat for each CRM section until all project records are removed.

To delete your entire HubSpot account and all data:

Click your account name in the top right corner, then click Account & Billing.
Click the Delete Account tab.
Click Delete account.
Enter your Hub ID to confirm the deletion, then click Yes, delete to permanently delete your account.

Nice Work!

You just built a fully functioning CRM from scratch to manage a social media campaign end to end. This is the exact kind of hands-on experience that project coordinator and social media coordinator job postings ask for.

You've learned how to:

Build a contact database with company associations, stakeholder details, and relationship notes that keep every campaign player organized in one place.
Customize a deal pipeline to track campaign deliverables through stages that match a real content workflow, from Briefing through Published, with tasks and deadlines to keep everything on track.
Build a reporting dashboard that answers "how is the campaign going?" with real data you can present to a manager or screenshot for a job application.
Secret Mission: Created segmented contact lists to target different stakeholder groups with the right messages.

Ready to quiz yourself?