Setting social media strategies for start-ups

At The Marketing Eye we work with a lot of start-up companies and businesses in the early years of trading and, as a result, we have become accustomed to setting those early-stage marketing strategies.

At The Marketing Eye we work with a lot of start-up companies and businesses in the early years of trading and, as a result, we have become accustomed to setting those early-stage marketing strategies that get them out of the starting blocks and on the road to growth.

For many, social media is a phenomenon that they either can’t see the point of or, if they are keen, don’t know where they’d start to harness its power.

There is no doubt that social media is a cost-effective medium that needs to be a part of everyone’s plan. Although we will tell you that you must have a social presence, it is much more than just being on Twitter or Instagram. It’s about having a strategy that will help you improve brand awareness, generate leads and ultimately result in customer acquisition. Find out where we’d start:

1. Build (or improve) relevant social media profiles

The important word in there is relevant - there’s no point being on a social platform that your target market isn’t present on too. Before creating your social media profiles, establish your objectives and goals and then pick the social networks that meet those needs. You don’t need to be on every channel to be visible and successful! Even if you pick one and do it well, its better than running multiple accounts badly.

Fully populate your chosen networks with business details, high-resolution profile pictures, and cover photos, and that should be the first phase complete.

If you’ve already got social accounts set up, we’d recommend you work through each one and update details with improved wording and imagery if necessary. Don’t forget to look through performance statistics and audience demographics to understand what is working and where content changes and network swaps may be needed.

2. Set a content strategy

Before you begin posting, create a content strategy and distribution plan to focus your activity from the beginning. Start by thinking about your target audience and what content you think they’d like to see and encourage engagement. What types of content work best on each platform and how often are you planning on posting? These are all questions that your content strategy should answer and result in a successful social campaign.

Not sure what to post? We’ve already got 20 ‘go to’ social media post ideas for you to try out, get them here.

3. Stay engaged

Social media should be an open dialogue and encouraging conversations is a great way to build a community of brand loyalists. Post an interesting piece of content that encourages people to take action, it can be an image, video or twitter poll, just make sure it’s something people will feel the urge to engage with. This offers you the opportunity to respond to comments, answer queries and ask questions – remember you’ll never stop learning about your audience and what they want.

4. Go live

Social media has continued to develop in recent years propelling us towards a fast-food style approach to consuming information. Live video offers that instant approach, providing a quick and simple way of demonstrating brand culture. Although this kind of content doesn’t crop up all the time, when you have the opportunity, we’d recommend you take it.

Live video will give you the option to answer customer queries and ask questions in real time, as well as provide behind the scenes snippets of content that everyone can enjoy.

5. Cross-channel activity

If you think each marketing channel should remain separate, then you’re wrong. Bringing channels like email and social together will make marketing efforts smarter and more consistent.

Placing social media icons in emails will help generate more reach and ultimately custom – an email dedicated to promoting your social activity is never a bad way of boosting follower numbers either! Encouraging prospects to engage via multiple channels will give you a better chance of your message being taken on board and result in a positive action.

We believe having a social media strategy is essential if you want to outperform your competition. You need to create better content than they do and engage with your community consistently. Trialing various types of content and display methods will help you develop a winning formula that works for your brand and your audience.

If you’d like help with your social media activity, get in touch.