6 Essential Social Media Tips for Startups
Here is a fun fact that will get you thinking: 40% of people are spending more time socializing through social media channels when compared to face-to-face communication. When you consider that fact from a business owner’s or a marketer’s point of view, there is only one conclusion to make: social media marketing is not an option; it’s a priority!
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and other social media channels are an extremely important aspect of every marketing strategy focused on creating brand awareness and gaining the loyalty of the target audience.
Social media platforms are especially important for startups working with limited budgets. However, not everyone knows how to use their full potential. It’s important to have a social media marketing strategy that will drive your business forward.
We have 6 essential tips that help startups benefit from social media channels.
Define the Goals of Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Before you get any further, you need to identify the goals you want to achieve with the promotional activities.
Are you trying to create leads and increase the brand awareness? One of your goals is to attract a greater number of customers and deserve their loyalty. You can achieve those goals by distributing high-quality content and updates through the right channels, but first you need to identify the purpose for your efforts.
Once you have a list of precise long-term goals, you can start working towards their achievement.
Create the Social Media Marketing Strategy
Planning is an extremely important aspect of your overall campaign. Many startup owners make the mistake of “going with the flow”. They create Facebook and Twitter profiles for their businesses, but they limit their activity to posting random updates.
“Only a clarified strategy will lead you to great popularity on social media channels,” – says Rose Roberts, a social media marketing specialist at EduGeeksClub.com. “It’s important to choose the right approach and plan every step in accordance with the goals you set. My recommendation is to go for a straightforward, less formal interaction. Social media channels are all about the freedom of expression. No matter what the niche of your business is, your potential customers will always appreciate direct, clear answers to their questions.”
Choose the Right Network for Your Business
Where can you find your audience? If you own a yoga resort, for example, and you want to promote it via social media, then Instagram and Tumblr will be the essential tools in your marketing campaign. If, on the other hand, you started a B2B company, then you have to focus your efforts on LinkedIn. If you have a younger target audience, then you should definitely consider including Snapchat as a tool that appeals to that group.
Before you can start promoting the startup on social media, you need to conduct a thorough research to find out where your target customers hang out. Monitor their activities in different communities, so you will know what kind of content to produce and how to promote it in order to attract a greater audience.
Engage Your Audience!
Many business owners and marketers make the same mistake: they perceive social media platforms as channels for one-way communication. They forget the most important aspect of the strategy: interaction.
You can make your marketing campaign much more effective if you start launching quizzes, surveys, and polls. You’ll get the feedback you need, so you will know how to drive your marketing efforts forward. You should also consider creating contests. Social media users are always interested in freebies, so you’ll get many new likes and share if you give away some of your products or services.
Keep in mind that visual content is much more attractive than plain status updates. Create nice infographics, share cool images and memes, and create videos to benefit from Facebook’s autoplay feature.
Experiment!
Of course you need a strategy, but that doesn’t mean you will leave no space for flexibility. You don’t have to wait for the campaign to come to a dead end before you start trying new things. There are different types of content you can share on social media, so experiment with the format to find out if your audience prefers infographics, videos, images, comics, photos, or lengthy status updates.
Meridith Valiando Rojas, the co-founder and CEO of DigiTour Media, has a nice piece of advice to share: “Mistakes will not end your business. If you are nimble and willing to listen to constructive criticism you can excel by learning and evolving.”
Automate Part of Your Activities
There is no way to leave out the element of interaction, but you can definitely automate some of your activities on social media. For example, it’s important to share the posts during the time when the activity of your target audience reaches its peak on a particular network.
You may notice that your followers use Twitter in the morning, Facebook during the day, and Instagram during the evenings. You need to monitor their activity in order to reveal a pattern. Then, you will share the planned posts when you get the greatest chance of attracting more audience.
That doesn’t mean you’ll need to spend most of the day waiting for the right moment to post on different channels. You can invest one hour of your day to schedule the posts with Buffer or a similar tool, which will automatically post the right update on the right channel, at the right time. Then, you’ll only need to monitor the responses and interact with your followers as necessary.
Social Media Marketing Will Lead Your Startup to Success
The mere fact that millions of people are using these channels is enough to explain why you need to use them. If Twitter was a country, it would be the 12th most populated country in the world. There is no excuse for failing to use the full potential of social media platforms; they can help you create brand awareness and drive your startup to success.