Social Media is perfect to market start up companies because it can reach a wide audience for very little (if any) cost to the company. An effective social media presence can help new companies to create meaningful, lasting relationships with their clients.
Success stories of start up companies such as Airbnb prove that a social media strategy is an imperative part of a strong company launch.
Founded in 2008, it is now used by millions of people in 192 countries around the world. This is, in part, down to social media – the company realised that each person using their company for accommodation would start up a conversation as soon as their holiday started and their own presence on social media would enable them to be part of the conversation. By taking this approach and engaging with clients on Twitter and Facebook they were able to create a rapidly loyal community.
The travel rentals company use Hootsuite’s social media management system to manage thousands of conversations across the globe. The analytics is able to monitor follower growth and social CRM, whilst tracking keywords, enabling the company to create their social campaigns accordingly.
Here are a few tips that will ensure social media takes your company from a start up to a success.
Post Contents
First things first: create your social media strategy
Before you start setting up social media profiles it is important that you work out your goals and objectives and how social media can help you achieve them. Who is your target market? What sort of company do you want to be on social media? Will your profile be serious and just related to business or will it be a bit more easygoing and playful? You want to keep your tweets/posts consistent and this will be easier to achieve when you have the answers to these questions.
Which social network will be best for your business?
There is no point wasting your time on Facebook if your customers are primarily on Twitter, or vice versa. It is worth having a presence on different platforms, but only time will tell which will be the best for your individual company.
Have a dedicated social media team
If you realise the importance of social media to your company – you will know that you need staff dedicated to working on this full time. This could be one person as you are starting up and be added to as your company grows.
Spark up a conversation
You need to let people know who you are and what your company is all about – what makes you unique and stand out amongst all the other companies. The best way to do this is to start conversations – use hashtags on Twitter, share photos and blogs, follow the people you want to follow you – everything you can to start building an online community. Alternatively, speaking to your consumers directly with services, can give you even more of an isnight into consumer habits.
Starting using your social media to market yourself…
Once you have started to build up a following, social media is the perfect place to inform customers and potential customers of any business updates. Be active on your profiles, because here you can post offers and information, as well as using it to talk to your customers directly – if they have an issue, not only can you speak to them to resolve it, others can see how you do this.
Most people will be scrolling through their social media accounts on their phones, so once you have got this up and running you can start looking into other areas of mobile marketing.
