The survival of startups is more difficult as compared to that of the big company brands. There is a constant need of finding out new ways of keeping the name of your startup on the radar of all potential customers. Now a good social media marketing strategy comes to your defense here.

As you are aware, social media is now quickly becoming one of the most important and necessary aspects of digital marketing for small, as well as big companies. Apart from being highly cost effective, social media marketing is also one of the easiest ways of reaching your customers. And if you are not already using this profitable source, you really are missing out on this incredible marketing opportunity.

It’s always important for a business to adapt to the changing trends. In order to survive in the competitive market, a business either can have a unique selling point, which proofs it against any competition, or it must accept and improvise with the flow. Dejecting change or adaption has proven to be terminal.

According to Maxim Roslyakov, Vice President, SEMrush, it is no longer possible to focus purely on physical stores. With the rise in competition, loyalty can still not be expected even with discounted in-store prices.  Nowadays the competition is about bringing the convenience not just to the customer’s doorstep, but also to his fingertips.

According to US retail expert and Forrester Research Retail Analyst Sucharita Kodali, “the web is cannibalizing the stores, and that has been going on for 20 years. But some traditional retailers push back and say, ‘why should I invest in the web if it will cannibalize my store?” However, she says that digital is the cost of business, and the answer cannot be to ignore digital thinking altogether.

To be at your A-game, you first need to accept the new business environment and not let the online presence be ignored any longer. It requires a significant amount of investment, along with a well-planned marketing strategy to lead you to success.

Now if you have decided to grow your business with the help of social media, you will need to figure out some of the basic things and come up with a good digital marketing scheme.  Stepping into social media can be pretty overwhelming at first. There is no dearth of content on the internet. Then with such a plethora of options available to the customer, how do you attract a potential client to your content? Well, we are here with some basic tips to help you formulate your startup social media marketing strategy.

As we all know digital marketing is the future and there’s no denying of the same. So it only makes sense if you take this step the right way. To start with you should always focus on finding the primary, basic objectives, and strengths of your business. Here are 15 social media marketing tips for startups.

1. Understand the need

It’s important that you visualise and analyse in-depth the need of stepping into the world of social media. Understand the objective behind the step. Set your goals so that you exactly know, what you wish to achieve. What exactly do you wish to accomplish for your startup by way of your presence on social media? Whether it is to have a better engagement with your customers or to use it as a portal for advertisements, knowing what you need will always keep your focus towards achieving your goal.

2. Choose your forum

Every day the number of social media platforms is increasing profusely. However, it’s not suggested or wise to step into social media with the aim of establishing your brand on each platform. Think small at the beginning, look for what is suitable for your brand, and then target it.

So, focus your time and energy towards one direction – achieve it, conquer it, and then look for expansion. Analyse your targeted group, and see on which platform is their presence the maximum.

3. Identify your audience

It is important to focus your resources towards the group of audience that you wish to target the most. Because it only makes sense to deliver the content to those people who might actually be interested in it, than the ones to whom it does not make any sense at all.

For example, if your brand is more suitable for the working class, then platforms like LinkedIn can be great for your social media presence. However, if it is popular among youngsters then perhaps Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or Facebook make more sense. For startups predominantly focused on art and craft supplies, Pinterest would be a definite yes.

Limiting your sample size will give you more time to actually formulate strategies and focus on results.

4. Appealing username

A brand or username which people can barely pronounce or spell will be of no use when we talk of marketing. It can be anything starting from your brand name, to its slogan, or its moto. The only way to test it can be, to see if your handle is recognisable by people across all other social brands. You can also choose to put emphasis on a certain aspect of your brand while choosing the username. Witty slogans are yet another popular choice among the millennial.

5. Have your own marketing team

A dedicated set of people who can manage the marketing funds, and come up with creative strategies is an important component of building a good startup social media presence. This all-star team must comprise of good content creators, as well as, digital and graphic designers and content analysts. They need to be well equipped with the technical knowledge of these forums. It depends upon them to create good content that not just reaches the correct clients, but also is appealing enough for them to feel attracted to it.

Even though you might consider yourself to be able to handle social media marketing on your own. However, it is still advisable to have a separate team for the same. Once you start your business, you will find that there’s hardly any time left to pay attention to your startup’s social media accounts, and you don’t want to lose your foot in this field.

6. Set your rate and pace right

Probably the guiding principle of being successful at social media marketing is to maintain consistency with quality. This will be basically mean to keep your audience engaged. As we know, social media today has become a huge part of our lifestyle. Now, to become a part of this lifestyle you need to be there in your customers’ day to day activities. If you’re into product sales, it makes sense to have a post go up daily about your products. However, if you’re into something like travel blogging, its okay to upload quality write-ups, say once or twice a week.

In the hurry of uploading content, you must not upload posts just for the sake of it. That will not only annoy the viewers but will also drive them away. Another example will be to go according to your platform. For sites like YouTube, one video per week will be advisable, however for forums like Instagram or Facebook, where people spend time on a daily basis, you can upload a post per day. When we speak of Twitter, which is known for its volume, there is no harm in uploading many more than a couple of tweets per day.

7. Humanise with your story

Technology and digitalisation may have made it easier for us to communicate with each other, but it still misses out on all the feelings and emotions. The audience will connect more with the people and the stories behind the brand, than with the products of the brand. Tell them how your daily life at the office is, tell them the story of your product, what goes into making it with love. A brand’s story is way better than a sales pitch.

It always excites the readers to know about the journey of the struggles of the brands. It helps them in connecting with you. Your one turn into the personal life of your brand and office can attract way more clients towards your social media than what a paid advertisement can do.

8. Depict consistency

Content on your social media handles or the post must be interconnected with each other. It must appear to be like a storytelling entry. Confusion and haphazardness in your content anywhere will destroy your vibe and will make your followers disengaged with your brand. The flow of your startup’s social media content must appear to be like storytelling. To some extent, it also portrays your commitment to your brand and the objective behind it.

9. Engage with your audience

Connecting with your audience on a personal level is another key to attaining success in the field of social media marketing. A ‘thank you’ for every word of appreciation, a reply for every query, and a like for every comment – these are the basic ways of engaging with your audience.

Nowadays the concept of going live with people on social media is another very popular option. A lot of influencers and content makers choose to go ‘live’ to randomly pick up their followers and have a video session with them. This way you can keep your audience enthusiastic and excited about connecting with you on a public platform.

Another marketing idea can be of asking your clients for feedback online. It can be in the form of pictures of the trial or simple review via photos and videos. They can then share the feedback and tag your handle, which further gets shared with their friends.

10. Treat each platform uniquely

When we talk about various social media platforms, we need to understand that they all are different in their own very ways. For example, while Twitter is great for quick, daily updates, Facebook and YouTube are platforms wherein you can engage with your audience at a greater level. While Instagram is mostly known for its high-quality visuals, LinkedIn is more of a business-oriented platform.

Now it only makes sense, if you understand the purpose behind each of such platforms, and then use them to the fullest. It will be foolish if one was to deliver common content across platforms. That shall agitate the viewers as they will see the same content not once but multiple times over different platforms.

11. Golden Rule – Link & Tag

Once you have established your presence via various social media accounts, you need to focus on linking all of them together. The only purpose behind it is to bring back your clients to your content regularly. Having a good number of followers on various platforms is also a symbol of your prosperity and popularity among people. Now even though we consider this to be the golden rule, it should not be stretched to an extent wherein your followers start getting spammed. That will surely drive them away.

For example, if you want to advertise your blog, you can put a good picture of the same on Instagram and share the link for the same over Facebook and Twitter. This way your content is linked to each other; however, please make sure that it is not too repetitive.

Providing direct links to the products available on your site, is another common way of linking. That saves them the energy of going through your website, to find the one product that they were interested in. Tag your team members, introduce them.

12. Have a common dashboard to synchronise

Handling multiple social accounts cannot be everybody’s cup of tea. It needs a lot of analysis and time at hand to make sure that every account is functioning in a balanced manner. No important notification, progress, or downfall can be missed. Hence, there will be a need to have some kind of mechanism to handle all your social media efforts. We advise to invest in some good application like Hootsuite, SproutSocial or SocialPilot, that will provide you with a centralised dashboard, to keep an eye over every social media account.

Such applications enable you to view your social media logistics over a single screen. Apart from these, there are various other applications available online. You must research for the same, and see which kind of investment is the most viable one for you.

13. Create connections

As much as it is important to reach the right customers over social media to promote your startup, it is also important to get your brand to reach the right kind of influencers. Today, there are influencers in the field of fashion, makeup, cosmetics, cookery, healthcare activities, art, and craft. You name it and there they are. An endorsement from one of such influencers, can make your brand extremely popular among their followers. Their word of mouth surely travels faster than any other.

While platforms like Instagram and Twitter can be ideal to identify these influencers and create connections with them, Facebook can be used for connecting more with the local communities.

14. Don’t be afraid to be creative

While the social media marketing tips for startups mentioned above might convince you to be very analytical and focused, it’s also very important to experiment and be creative. You must be open to strange and crazy ideas. Branch out, find new strategies – viewers love new trends and ideas. This is what will make your social media stand out. It keeps the viewers engaged and makes this method of marketing fun. Go that extra mile and organise fun giveaways, have new contests to attract people to win free samples of your products.

15. Keep a track of the results

It’s essential to look back upon your effort, to evaluate the results. At the beginning of the article we asked you to set your goals before embracing this journey. After establishing your presence, analyse if your hard work was able to reap you any results. If the results are good, you will know that your strategy worked, and if not, it tells you that you need to take perhaps a different approach.

To conclude, social media is a whole new world on its own. It’s a world where you can experiment as much as you want and yet you will not be using it to its fullest capacity. It’s the today and tomorrow of the digital world of business.

With Socinova’s managed social media marketing services, you’ll have one less thing to worry about. Today, social media is one of the biggest outreach platforms available. Just let our experts create high-quality content including graphics, curated links, videos, etc. for your business and you’ll see the magic for yourself. We have over 6 years of experience and we have managed over 1000 clients worldwide. All the content that Socinova will design for you will be 100% unique and relevant to your business. In addition to this, you’ll have on-going support from us to help you with all types of social media related issues that your business might have. Our services include:

• Social media accounts setup 
• Content sharing on a daily basis
• Creating Videos
• Advertising your business or products on Facebook
• Writing blogs for your business
• Analyzing your social media presence
• We also provide top-quality digital marketing services for first time business owners!

We’re efficient, cost effective and transparent. With a trained in-house team, we’re here for you 24/7. Our aim is to help you not only attract more customers via social media, but also retain them. Try it for yourself and it’s a guarantee that you won’t be disappointed!