If you just started a new venture and are skeptical about social media marketing, this guide will help you with essential tips and tricks. A startup requires utmost care and attention because it is very delicate in its early stages.
One of the most crucial factors in determining the success and stability of a startup is marketing. After all, if the people have no idea about your venture, how will you flourish in the business industry?
How is social media marketing crucial for startups?
Social media marketing is a powerful tool in introducing your business to the entire world. If marketing statistics are analyzed carefully, they can help business holders in making good decisions.
By examining the data patterns, one can achieve good profits in business by leveraging these statistics’ output. Let’s look through the statistics highlighting the importance of social media for startups.
- According to webfx, nearly 74% of people utilize social media when deciding to buy something online.
- According to Hootsuite, nearly 92% of Instagram users followed a brand, clicked on websites, and made purchases after seeing the product or service on the platform.
- As per Statista, Facebook, with monthly active users of over 2.45 billion, is ideal for almost all sorts of businesses.
The above data reveals how social media marketing can make startups achieve success. Well! There is always room for some improvement. Every day some new trends or updates are coming on social media to promote your startups.
Here are some of the latest tips and tricks that will give a positive boost to your startups.
Good strategy: planning
The impact of social media in shaping business revenues and profits is unhidden. Many businesses are running their ventures through social media platforms themselves. It’s not an easy task for startups to start with social media initiatives. Basic steps in planning social media strategy for your startup included.
- Setting specific aims and goals. They should be achievable, relevant, and completed within time.
- Analyze your competitors thoroughly. Studying your opponents’ activities, which gives good knowledge of how to direct your social media strategy.
- Social media auditing. Many tools conduct an audit of your social media accounts, presenting a detailed analysis of your work done till present.
- Create a social media schedule. A well-organized schedule will help in posting the right content at the right time.
Choose your target social media platform
Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat top the widely used social media platforms. If your marketing strategy demands covering younger generations, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are your target platforms. If your business targets slightly adult audiences, Facebook and Twitter are the best options for you.
Assume you have a startup that deals in education or recruitment, then LinkedIn ads or Facebook, in particular, can be helpful for you. According to Statista, nearly 29.4% of Facebook users fall within the age group of 13 to 24 years. It is clear why Facebook is amongst the prime social media platforms for promoting your startup.
Identify your target audience
The use of social media analytics tools will come in handy in determining the type and other parameters related to your audience. These tools give you data related to the audience, such as type of content viewed, gender ratio, timing at which they are online, etc.
By compiling and interpreting these figures, you will know which consumer you need to target and at what time. Tools like Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Leadfeeder, ClickMeter, PingDom, etc., are some of the popular social media marketing tools that help interpret social media data and statistics.
Increase traffic within budget
As a startup, the cost is something that requires a constant check. You can’t afford to spend vast amounts on ads and promotions when your business venture is just growing. When planning your marketing strategy, it becomes crucial to save costs and limit expenditure.
Compared to other mediums, social media platforms are budget-friendly options to advertise and sell your products. Hard to believe, right! In addition, we have stats to prove this. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is a metric to measure the number of dollars used in advertising to reach 1,000 people.
For startups, the aim is to reach as many people as possible at the lowest cost. Did you know the CPM for social media is less than $3, whereas it is $57 for direct mail? Hence paid campaigns on social media are far more economical than other modes. Moreover, if you advertise using an organic approach, the cost will reduce to zero since you can even promote without spending a penny.
Other supportive tools
Besides social media marketing, some other tools and techniques can be harnessed to run your startup’s productive campaign.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): It plays a vital role in content and digital marketing. Choosing the exact keywords and phrases to be used at appropriate places in your content goes a long way in increasing your site’s rank during search results in Google.
- Re-posting content: After you have managed to capture enough traffic to your site through regular promotions, you retarget your content to your audience. As per statistics, the average click-through rate (CTR) of re-posting promotional content is 10 times higher than regular advertisements.
- Marketing via Email: The process of generating leads by promoting your products and services through the mail is referred to as email marketing. This is a futuristic approach since it is expected that the market will increase up to $9 billion by the year 2027.
Communication is everything
Social media allows direct communication with the audiences and is useful in creating trust with customers. The instant feedback that you receive here helps in enhancing your brand or product. The more you interact, the more organic growth your start-up will achieve.
A survey conducted by Hootsuite revealed that nearly 70% of users said it is essential for brands to boost positivity during the pandemic. Additionally, 69% of users accepted that social media helped maintain customer relationships during these challenging times. And so the more you nurture your relationships with your audience, the likelihood of your business growing grows.
