In the current business environment, start-ups have no choice but to use social media as a platform to grow their brands.

Social media is fast taking over traditional promotion channels as the preferred marketing platform. Many businesses have realized that they can reap more perks by advertising their work on several social media avenues. This has helped elevate countless ventures to higher levels in terms of brand recognition and revenue collection.

While this may sound enticing, you cannot jump on the social media bandwagon blindly. Truth is many business people have no clue how to run successful social media campaigns.

Social media campaigns for startups

In a world full of useful internet marketing ideas, you have to be very careful about the information you opt to adapt for your new growing business. Most startups naturally do not have too many resources at their disposal for marketing. This leaves little or no room for mistakes.

Thankfully, marketers who know how to take advantage of social media need not spend a fortune. They end up with worthwhile results at a fraction of the cost. To help you experience this as well, we will unveil some of the secrets you can work with to develop an effective social media campaigns for your startup. 

1. Build strong social media pages

Social media has the power to attract throngs of people who may end up being your loyal clients. Before you think of engaging with clients on these avenues, always start by putting in place a solid brand promotion plan. This should clearly state your objectives, goals, and mission. Once this is in place, it will become easier to take on the adventure in the murky social media marketing waters.

Because multiple social platforms exist, you need to take time and identify the ones that resonate with your brand. You do not have to be on every social network for your campaign to work. Your target market should guide you on the best sites to explore.

Once you have identified the sites you can comfortably work with spend some quality time on it. This will allow you to know what it is all about. It will also give you an idea of what is acceptable when it comes to crafting your profiles so that it can appeal to as many people as possible on the social site. 

2. Come up with ‘bomb’ content

There is no way your marketing plan on social media will work if you only feature “bogus” content for lack of a better word. You must come up with attractive content that will grab and hold the attention of your target audience. Do not put out content that is not creative, visually engaging, relevant, data-driven, and shareable. This is what will get people interested, setting you apart from the competition. It is all about generating leads by enticing potential clients to click and act on your ads.

To assist with consistency, you can develop a content calendar. This will help you plan and schedule for content so that your market hears from you frequently. Worth noting is that you also need to know the best times to post so you can reach more people.

3. Talk to your audience

This is crucial for any business that is on social media. This is because it helps you bond with your clients on a more personal level. Engaging your followers/ fans helps you build a valuable community. These are the same people who can help you get the message out there about your entity. Here you can also identify a couple of brand ambassadors to work with to make sure more people get to know about your brand.

To achieve this, you should post interesting stuff that will motivate the reader/viewers to take proper action. It can be anything from a funny video, graphic, poll, or image that encourages people to tag others. When people have a positive experience with a brand, they will most likely purchase from you and encourage their friends and relatives to do so as well. While doing this it may be inevitable to come across some negative remarks. It is not the time to ignore the comments or let them get to you. Come up with positive responses to these negative comments trying to resolve the issue in the most diplomatic manner possible.

4. Collect timely feedback

One of the most important steps in your social media marketing strategy should be to collect feedback in a timely fashion. You can do this by monitoring discussions that your clients hold. This will tell you how they perceive your brand. Use these opinions wisely to enhance your approach. You can also use these to solve problems fast to save face in case of product issues.

Additionally, you can also offer immediate feedback and real-time customer service on your social media pages. This is a move that is known to generate higher conversion rates and better revenue steering your business in the right direction. 

5. Check out your competitors’ moves

If other companies are dealing with similar products or services to yours, you need to know what they are doing on social media. Stalking their pages can save you a lot of headache. You will quickly discover what is working and what needs to stay out of your marketing plans. While at it, you can also discover some loopholes that they may not be covering. This will allow you to be one step ahead so that you can enjoy the fruits of your campaigns without going through too much.

6. Be aware of what’s trending

When it comes to social media for startups, you do not want to be the marketer who is always out of the loop. Sites like Twitter and Facebook go the extra mile to offer members comprehensive insights on the top trends. Incorporate this into your marketing plan if it complements your brand. This implies that you should not force anything or even attempt to go overboard with the trending topics since it can backfire on you. Here you also have an option of personalizing hashtags if you do not want to capitalize on the trending ones. In line with this, you must also keep up on the changes that different social media platforms avail. This will help you do a better job at promoting your campaigns so that they always have the desired effect.

7. Track data

One of the mistakes that marketers make is working so hard at promoting a brand without gauging their performance. Do not fall into this trap. You must always check your social metrics. It will give you a true picture of how much views, impressions, reach, and engagement, and impressions your content is getting. Regularly tracking these metrics will help you have a better understanding of the content that your audience appreciates. This way you can steer clear of the content that seems to do no good for your brand. 

Final thoughts

Social media numbers don't lie. Popular sites like Twitter have more than 300,000 million members, whereas LinkedIn has over 500 million professionals. Instagram has an audience of 800 million plus, while Facebook tops with around 2 billion active users. Using these sites right can see you transition from a struggling startup to an internationally recognized brand. 

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