sell sell

social media tips
from people who know
Claude Schneider is the founder of SmarterQueue,
a new social media scheduling tool that lets you
plan a month's worth of balanced content in a few
hours, and easily repeat posts to reach more of your
audience. bit.ly/disruptsq
Social media is a vital marketing channel to fill your sales funnel. It's
often overlooked by startups, as it's very time-consuming to do right, and
entrepreneurs only think to push the button once they've got a product to sell.
START POSTING from day 1 you should have at least 100 followers and
some solid posts on your profile before you launch. This will build trust when
new visitors check you out.
HAVE A LANDING PAGE as your first MVP, and have an addressable and
large enough customer base. Social media can be a w ay to drive traffic to
the landing page, and collect a large email list of preregistered leads.
marketing
Tom Chapman, director of
Cherry, brand and content
marketing agency
www.creativecherry.com
When you’re grinding it out 24/7 for your fledgling
early-stage company, social media can easily drop
down the list of priorities. Here's a few tips on a lean
social strategy that won’t sink your start-up.
LISTEN AND LEARN
With realtime data and social media analytics
providing a live view of your audience, it really pays
to understand who you’re conversing with. Profile
your followers. Hunt out relevant influencers. Dig
into your competitors. Locate where your customers
spend time online and the channels and take the
conversation to their natural environment.
PROMOTE THE BENEFITS of your product, not just its features. If selling a
mosquito repellant, show pictures of people enjoying a holiday carefree
of bites or clothing requirements rather than images of mosquitoes or facts
about malaria.
KEEP A CAREFUL RATIO between your selfpromotional marketing posts,
and other/interesting content. There's no solid rule, but definitely keep your
own content to less than 30% of your posts. Some even suggest 10%.
PLAN YOUR CONTENT categories, and balance how much and how often
you post content into each of them. Some examples are: selfpromotional
marketing; own blog posts; tips; questions; infographics; thoughtleader
articles; inspiring images; retweets. If your target covers various segments,
consider having a category for each (e.g. womenswear, menswear, shoes,
and accessories).
PROVIDE FOLLOWERS WITH VALUE, usually information that will help
them, or they'll want to share. Measure what type of content gets the most
engagement using the social media stats available, and optimise.
GO OUT AND ENGAGE with relevant people to attract their attention,
and create meaningful relationships. Social media is about branding and
partnerships as much as marketing.
REPEAT YOUR CONTENT. Less than 5% of your social audience will see
anything you post, so post the same thing multiple times per day, and recycle
evergreen content over a period of months. Consider reframing the wording
and altering the image each time.
MEASURE what time of day works best for you by regularly repeating your
posts, as well as what wording/imagery gets the most engagement. This is
the closest you can get to A/B testing on social media.
PLAN AHEAD
When time, resources, funds (and sometimes
energy) are in short supply, it’s imperative you keep
any social efforts lean and efficient.
Find a routine that works. Whether that’s scheduling
a few tweets for the day before breakfast, or setting
calendar reminders for your prioritised networks,
regular short bursts of activity won’t derail the other
daily duties.
CREATE AND CURATE
Get yourself a simple content hub or blog. Segment
your content output into buckets that reinforce your
brand story – examples could be product news or
previews, life hacks related to your industry, and
industry best practice. Use these categories as a
content spectrum to steer your output.
Visual content is a quick shortcut to building your
brand personality and can help humanize your
product. And don’t be afraid to curate and share
content from third parties.
BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE FIRST, TEST LATER
Split testing social headlines or imagery is simple
enough, but unless you’ve enough data to see a
statistically significant difference between control
and test versions (several hundredplus shares, for
example), it can throw up false results. Concentrate
first on creating valuable, sharable content for your
audience; build an emotional connection and you’ll
soon find your startup growing wings.
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