As you define your startup's social media plans, remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. A social media strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines your goals, target audience, and the tactics you will use to engage them on various platforms. The goals you set for your social media strategy should be attainable. You want smaller, realistic goals that will be affordable to your startup. These goals influence everything from which social networks you want to be on to what your budget will be.
The following is a combination of tasks, best practices, and strategy ideas to get your startup's social media plan started. Some of these points are broad, and some are relatively narrow, but all can contribute to a winning social media strategy for your startup and help attract more social media followers.
1) Specify your actionable goals in creating a social media strategy
These are a few examples of goals for a startup’s social media strategy:
- Increase brand awareness. A core goal is to build an authentic, lasting brand by being consistent and true to the name you're building. Avoid promotional messages and instead focus on content that shows your personality, always putting your followers ahead of a sales pitch.
- Conduct social listening. Social listening is the process of observing what hashtags, keywords, and phrases are used by your target audience to understand their conversations and needs.
- Build a loyal following. Find ways to promote user-generated content. When you are interactive on your brand's social pages, your followers will take note. When you have a group of loyal followers, they become your brand ambassadors, posting and interacting with others on your behalf.
2) See what your competition is doing
Before creating content for your social media strategy, you should have a decent idea of what your competitors are doing. You can use a competitor analysis tool to determine their performance. Your goal is not to copy their ideas, but to determine what's working for them and let that guide your own social media strategy.
The most straightforward way to find your competitors is to do a Google search. See who shows up on the SERPs when you search your keywords, phrases, and industry terms.
3) Determine the best platforms for your brand
Consider these takeaways from available demographic data:
| Social Media Platform | Key Demographics & Strengths |
|---|---|
| Facebook & YouTube | High-earning user bases, making them prime platforms for ad placement. |
| User base is predominantly women; platform has the highest average order value. | |
| Ideal for bold, visual content; majority of users are under 30 years old. | |
| The hub for in-depth, industry-specific B2B content, with a well-educated user base. |
Develop your customer persona to include their background, challenges, demographics, goals, interests, and fears. Then, focus on two or three platforms you know to be popular with your target audience.
Your customer persona can also inform you about the best type of content and posts to create, as well as how to develop relationships with your target consumer.
4) Make being timely a priority
Customers have come to expect not only speedy responses from brands but also meaningful, regular conversations. Social media channels are designed to be networks where users can share content and engage in conversation. Make an effort to ensure conversations or other engagement opportunities are not left unattended.
You gain respect for your brand by being present and talking to your audience. Social customer care is about engaging the audience so they feel appreciated when they interact with your brand.
5) Know when to post new content
You've determined where to find potential customers using the persona you previously developed. Now you need to know what days and times they are most likely to be present and looking for new content from you. Using a tool appropriate to your niche, you can determine the best days and times, as well as the frequency of reposting, such as daily, weekly, or monthly.
While it is important to research the best times to post to your chosen social media platforms, it's just as critical that you be available to engage when the posts go live. If you and your customers are in distant time zones, consider using a chatbot to handle general conversations while you’re out of the office.
6) Continually assess what's working, what's not, and how to improve
Unless you analyze your results, you cannot know which social media campaign is working and which is not producing worthwhile results. Taking a bird's-eye view of all social media activity will give you the needed perspective. Fine-tune your campaigns by regularly evaluating their performance in your market.
7) Start conversations and stay in them
Asking questions or asking your readers to perform an action will start conversations. When you get answers and comments, it's up to you to keep the conversation going. Check your social media pages daily for feedback, comments, and questions. Respond quickly and never let a comment go without a response, whether the comment is positive, neutral, or negative. This practice builds crucial relationships.
8) Engage your audience so they want to share your content
Some things you can do to intrigue your audience and keep them coming back to see what you're doing over time:
- Create interactive content like quizzes, surveys, and polls.
- Run contests to drive engagement and excitement.
- Use compelling visuals, as they are shared more frequently on average.
- Incorporate humor, such as a joke of the day or relevant memes, to align with your brand personality.
- Showcase charitable work with photos of your team's involvement and encourage followers to participate.
- Feature your customers in posts to build community and trust.
9) Be on top of platform updates and changes
Most content marketing websites can keep you informed of social media platform changes. Algorithms change frequently, so be sure you keep up. Staying aware of these changes and modifications can have a large impact on your visibility and the user experience for your followers.
10) Remember the 80/20 rule
The 80/20 rule is a marketing principle holding that your social media content should be divided into two parts. This best practice is critical for designing an effective social media strategy. It states that 80% of your content should be informational, educational, or entertaining for your audience, while only 20% should be promotional.
The purpose of the 80% is to develop brand trust and nurture relationships by addressing your audience's questions and providing valuable information. When you build that trust, your audience is more likely to convert into customers when it's time to make a purchase.
The remaining 20% of your content can directly relate to your products and services. This is where you can advertise sales, offer discounts, launch new products, provide free trials, or share customer testimonials and reviews.
11) Have a crisis plan in place
A social media crisis plan is a predefined strategy you will implement if your brand faces negative feedback or an online attack. This could involve an angry customer or someone offended by your content. Your plan should outline steps to address such incidents and take immediate, appropriate action. While we hope for positive interactions, it is essential to be prepared for negative situations in the digital world.
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