How Startups Can Maximize Social Media to Skyrocket Their Growth
As a startup entrepreneur, one of the things you need to know about social media sites is that you can use them to grow your business. According to statistics, there are over 4 billion social media users across the world. With that in mind, finding your target audience online and marketing your products or services to them is a must. You need to learn the right techniques and strategies so as to take full advantage of the various social media platforms. Here are some tips you might want to keep in mind:
1. Choose which social media channels you want to focus on
While there’s nothing wrong with claiming handles for your brand on different social media platforms, you really don’t have to manage and maintain each one. Ask startups who have tried to keep all their company accounts active and they’d readily tell you that it can be challenging, overwhelming, and time-consuming.
What you really want to do is to focus your efforts on the channels that yield the best results. Melinda Emerson, author of ‘How To Become A Social Media Ninja,’ even said in a Forbes feature that it’s advisable to just go with one.
“Find out where your target customer spends time online,” she pointed out. “Then pick one social platform and dominate on that one.”
That way, your brand will reach more people, your posts will get more traction, and you can come up with the best strategies for your marketing campaign.
2. Know your audience well
Your audience matters a lot – that’s why it’s extremely important that you know who they are. Going into specifics can benefit your marketing efforts so take time to do your research and gather as much information about your customers as possible, such as their age, gender, location, and more. You can use the analytics feature of popular social media management platforms to get a hold of these details.
With the needed data at hand, you can define your audience and even create customer profiles that could guide you as you try to make interesting content for your target demographic. You’ll know how to write your captions better if you have a clearer idea of who you’re trying to address. Are you trying to reach parents of preschool children? Or single adults, maybe? It all depends on the product or service you’re offering the market!
3. Consistently create content
After identifying your preferred special networking platforms and your audience, your next step is to create content – and you need to do it on a regular basis.
Consistency is the key when it comes to content creation. A little fact for you: most social media users wouldn’t bother following your brand’s page if your last post was from, say, four or five months ago. So it makes a big difference if you keep your accounts fresh and updated.
Switch between posting behind-the-scenes photos and customer reviews, infographics, and short videos, to everything else in between. Again, you can study your analytics to determine which posts are getting the most engagement among your followers. For an instance, if you’re creating content on Instagram, you can use Instagram analytics tools to measure the performance of your posts. At the end of the day, social media is all about engagement so your goal should always be to produce quality, relevant content.
4. Engage with your audience
As we just pointed out, audience engagement is a crucial part of the game. So don’t be afraid to interact with your followers. In addition to responding to private messages, you can also consider replying to comments or when people tag your brand in their social media posts. You may even share their photos or videos on your pages.
These simple things can help you develop a positive reputation online as you show people that your company isn’t just out there to sell products or services – you’re there to interact with your community.
5. Feel free to use emojis and hashtags
On that note, humanizing your brand is a great idea. Something as little as using appropriate emojis on your posts or comments will help people realize that they are interacting with humans, not machines.
In addition, utilizing relevant hashtags can help you get noticed by people searching for similar content. The trick here is to know which hashtags best match your brand. Also, try not to pepper your posts with too many hashtags as that could be mistaken by others as spamming and could eventually do more harm than good.
6. Provide excellent customer service
You may think you’ll get a lot of glowing reviews online once you start to use social media regularly. However, some customers will only contact you “when they’ve had unsatisfactory experiences with your products or services,” according to an Entrepreneur article.
So be ready to respond to negative feedback. Resolve concerns you encounter in a professional, respectful way. Fix issues by providing the best possible solutions. Remember that other people on social media are reading your public exchanges online – and a lot of them will decide whether to continue supporting your business or not depending on how you react to complaining customers.
7. Hire someone to handle your social media tasks
Startup business owners often wear multiple hats day in and day out. But you really don’t have to do it all. If you don’t think you have the energy or skill to maintain your social media channels, you might as well hire someone who can do all the work for you – such as a full-time employee or even a team of experts. Want to come up with great videos or attractive graphics? There are professionals out there who’ll gladly help you out. By tapping their talents, you can instead prioritize important matters that need your immediate attention.
Final thoughts
By implementing these effective social media methods, you will be able to make the most of your presence online and experience all the benefits that come with it. When done right, social media can really help improve your brand awareness plus you will be able to grow your website traffic, increase your SEO rankings, and, ultimately, boost your sales.
