Social media is a major part of life these days. Whether you’re using it for personal reasons or business reasons, social media is just about everywhere. Not only that, but it’s extremely popular among almost every consumer market there is. In recent years, the online economy has skyrocketed. This is largely due to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic which pushed many more users online than ever before. Today, those numbers remain high as society will unlikely return to anything close to what it was before the pandemic. Because of the high number of users, modern start-ups absolutely have to account for a social media marketing strategy if they want a viable shot at breaking into just about any market.
There are a lot of different ways to utilize social media marketing, and there are a lot of different social media platforms from which organizations can choose to utilize. As such, having a few proven social media tactics in your back pocket can help you and your startup hit the ground running with successful social media marketing.
“Most startups don’t have big budgets for promotion. Not only is social media marketing cost-effective but it also allows you to reach a broader audience. If you know how to leverage social media, you can improve your customer support, boost sales, and increase your brand awareness.”
– Werner Geyser, Founder, Influencer Marketing Hub –
Different Social Medias Have Different Tactics
One of the first things to realize when getting started with social media marketing is that different social media have different marketing tactics. This is essential to learn and understand because it can make or break your social media campaigns. One of the most appealing aspects of social media marketing is that it can be extremely cost-effective. In fact, it can be 100% free.
That being said, paid ads and paid campaigns come with their own slew of benefits that make them well-worth-while, but for the start-up on a tight budget, social media platforms can be utilized without paying a single penny.
Whether you’re utilizing paid ads, or you’re sticking to the free features that social media offers, it’s important to tailor and customize the social media campaigns to the platform itself. Instagram, for instance, uses different tactics to boost and elevate posts than Twitter or Facebook. Crafting campaigns unique to the social media platform in use is essential to optimizing the campaign and seeing a high ROI on your social media marketing efforts. When done well, social media marketing boasts some of the highest ROIs in the game.
“Social media definitely helped us get off the ground. I mean it was one of our biggest tools for a while. Then as we scaled we could start running paid campaigns and branch out our marketing efforts. It all started with social, though.”
– Phillip Akhzar, CEO, Arka –
Understanding Where Your Audience Lives Online
When looking at the various social media platforms available, it can be additionally beneficial to do some target-audience research. Target audience research is a key marketing strategy in today’s digital economy. This is the process of tracking consumer data and buying patterns and using that data to build customized user profiles.
These customized user profiles offer brands precise insights into all sorts of consumer data metrics. Utilizing target-audience research, you can discover where the majority of your target audience spends their time online, and which social media platform they prefer. For instance, if your target audience is an older generation, Facebook will undoubtedly be the top platform your social media marketing will want to target. On the other hand, TikTok and Instagram are populated by a younger audience. Knowing where your target audience is will help your team nail their social media marketing campaigns.
“When we really started dedicating time and energy to target-audience research, we saw a huge boost in our social media marketing ROI. I mean, it was almost overnight, it was crazy. Follow the data. It won’t lead you wrong, that’s what I’ve learned.”
– Kevin Miller, Founder, Kevin Miller –
Creating High-Quality Content With Consistency
When it comes to utilizing social media platforms, the quality of content is almost just as important as the product or service being promoted. This plays into the theory and concept of content marketing as an overall strategy.
Content marketing is a specific style of marketing that aims to engage the consumer with content that is often non-sales-related. This content is designed to spark conversation, engagement, and connection with the target audience which leads to an emotional investment in the brand.
By consistently producing high-quality content, consumer engagement will increase, further boosting the value of your social media strategy.
“Paying content-creators a fair wage was one of the best business-decisions I’ve ever made. The difference is palpable, between what you get when you’re trying to pinch pennies to what you get when you just pay for quality and value. Our whole view on content-marketing changed.”
– Trey Ferro, CEO, Spot Pet Insurance –
Utilizing Technology
When it comes to any marketing strategy, the proper utilization of technology is going to be key. Target-audience research was already touched on a bit earlier, but that isn’t the only software that can be helpful in developing and executing social media marketing.
CMS programs that offer brands the ability to post, manage, and run campaigns across multiple social media platforms all from a central hub, make social media marketing a whole lot easier and a lot more manageable.
“If you’re just getting started with social media management, you should absolutely get a subscription to a high-quality CMS like HubSpot. Having a centralized program to manage all your social-media efforts is a game-changer.”
– Gigi Ji, Head of Brand and Business Development, Kokolu –
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most popular and effective forms of marketing that exist in our digital and virtual economy today. By utilizing social media marketing effectively, even the smallest of start up brands can become a booming industry-recognized name.
“Facebook has over two billion active users. Instagram’s audience is 800 million. Twitter’s followers are crossing 330 million marks, while LinkedIn is home to 500 million professionals today. Social media marketing for startups has now become more important than ever.”
– Tahha Ashraf, Digital Content Producer, Cloudways –
