Social Media. We’ve heard this before. We’ve all been there, been awed by its presence, laughed at the funny cat pictures and marveled at the brilliant campaigns run by Businesses like Star Sports (#MaukaMauka?).
As a startup, we all know and understand the power of Social Media. We would all also like to get in on the action and have our own pages roaring with likes and User Engagement. We want our videos to go viral and we want people to talk about us in their networks.
At this point however, it makes sense to think about the First Moon Landing. Neil Armstrong did not just build a ship out of scrap aluminum, fill it with Kerosene, light a fuse and land on the moon. There were endless hours of trainings, practice landings (first of which required him to parachute out of his ship) and design refinements prior to eventual launch.
Similarly, there is a structured approach to building and maintaining a vivid presence on Social Media. We at Inquirly have been in this space for almost 2 years and after managing Social Media Presence of almost 200 brands, we’ve decided to share some tips that helped our clients grow.
Tip #1: Create a Social Media Strategy before creating your profiles.
The first step would be thinking about what you want to achieve from Social Media. Brand Awareness, Lead Generation, Driving hits on your website, Customer Engagement there are a large number of things Social Media can do for you. We usually prefer to host brainstorming sessions with Startup founders to decide what their strategies should be. We remove the clutter and present simple, workable ideas that founders can then choose.
Tip #2 – Identify your target group
This is important. More-so because each target group responds to a different type of messaging on Social Media. Take the example of SpaceX. SpaceX knows its target group and a large number of its followers will be people who love…wait for it…Space!! It’s target group is mostly comprised of tech-savvy adults, people who like Science and geeks/nerds (just like us). SpaceX therefore tailors its tweets to appeal to its target audience. Building content that appeals to target groups is usually handled by the founders at very early stage startups, however some founders do prefer to stick to what they’re best at, be it Product design, sales or hunting down investors.
Tip #3 – How much do you post?
One point commonly noticed by us during our interactions with various startups is that they have created a presence on Social Media but eventually stopped posting because they decided to focus on other, more important things. This should be avoided at all costs. An inactive presence on Social Media gives your followers and customers the impression that you are unreliable and sloppy. These negative aspects are automatically attributed to your product or service and voila, you suddenly have a negative brand perception in the mind of your customer.
Here’s the solution – If you cannot actively engage on Social Media, DON’T POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA. We understand start-ups don’t have time to look beyond daily operations, cannot afford expensive agencies but brand creation through social channels is one of the most important aspects in your Go to Market strategy. There are several tools available for a DIY model which can be leveraged for saving time. For example we have reduced the time required to manage all the different channels by creating an omni channel platform with industry specific templates and images.
Tip #4 – Types of Posts
In an ideal world, we would like to post content, have visitors engage with the post and then have these same visitors BUY our product or service. The real world works a little differently. At Inquirly, one of the first things we tell our customers is that before trotting out their lovely campaigns with Incredibly Creative calls-to-action (BUY NOW! CLAIM COUPON NOW!), they need to engage with their audience, build a place in their minds, show them a solution and then sell them the solution. Customer engagement has a value all of its own and sometimes that value rivals that of a closed sale. By engaging with your customers, you are not just interacting with them, but you’re also visible to their immediate network. Suddenly, your reach is multiples greater than the page-likes or followers that you have!
Tip #5 – Measure, Measure and Measure some more
You absolutely need to keep track of how your posts are doing. Which ones are performing the best and which ones get absolutely no engagement. A/B testing is essential for your Social Media campaigns. It is the job of a Great Digital Marketing Strategist to run these tests and identify ways of improving your campaigns. There needs to be a keen belief in your team or your partner agency that things can always be improved upon. Forming good habits at an early stage helps any startup manage its growth in a more effective manner.
Fun Fact – For some of our more “complex” clients, at Inquirly, we have in-fact deputed a team (not One or Two) of strategists to brainstorm, create and execute amazing campaigns
Once you’ve incorporated a few of the tips mentioned above, you’ll be on your way to setting up a great Social Media presence. We are working with a lot of start-ups and in fact planning to open start up specific cells in key co-working spaces as with a combination of one of a kind technology, data-driven expertise and a world class team, our goal is to save time for the start-ups through a unique ‘we do it for you’ model and enable start-ups to build relationships to drive customer satisfaction, increase revenues and manage their Sales and Marketing workflows. And we do it all at a price that’s just right. You can learn more about us on www.inquirly.com
Guest Post by Anjan Choudhary, Inquirly