Social Media Marketing

* This article is a summary of Founders Factory Africa (FFA) content & delivered by Steve Waidelich. [ Summarized by Ighlaas Carlie ]

* A big thanks to FFA for allowing us access to their content!

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Social Media Marketing

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Social media is a great way of getting customers, especially for B2C startups. Social media is focused on building a community, and encouraging engagement & communication.

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You should enter social media with a mindset of community building and giving out value. Gary Vaynerchuk, used the jab, jab hook principle to explain this - the idea is to give your community of followers so much value, that they actually feel obligated to support you. You most likely won't succeed if you go into social media with a selling mindset. The most successful brands are the ones that sell without selling.

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Focus on a channel

Niche down to at most 2 social media channels where your target market resides. If you are a B2B brand or your product is targeting professionals you can use Linkedin/Facebook, If your target market is tech enthusiasts then consider using Twitter/Linkedin.

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Aggressive Amplification to get your first 100–1000 followers

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Starts with the individuals in your startup

Position your founder(s) and employees to talk about the product and share using their personal profiles to give your new company page a boost.

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Join Conversations in your niches

in Twitter spaces, Twitter chat, and groups.

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Start a community conversation 

 Organize events, create groups, and invite experts to speak and share knowledge.

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Partner with experts

Reach out to experts in your industry and do a partner tweet, conversation or offer to bring traffic to your social page.

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Build relationships with journalists and PR firms 

Engage in Existing platforms

Be active in groups, spaces, and on trending Twitter threads. Post meaningful content that will resonate with your target market.

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Give out Value and build Trust

Give out consistent value and build trust through your content.

Create a consistent social media content strategy

A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress.

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How To Set SMART Goals

The first step of creating your social media content strategy is to set goals and objectives. Your goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-specific .  These are often called S.M.A.R.T goals. S.M.A.R.T goals are one of the longest-lasting, most popular goal-setting frameworks for business.

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Let's take a closer look at what makes a goal S.M.A.R.T

• Specific : The more specific you can be with writing down a goal, the easier it will be to clearly see what it is you are trying to achieve. For example, a goal to grow your Twitter followers.

• Measurable :  How will you measure your success? For example  -  double the number of your existing Twitter followers.

• Attainable : Is your goal attainable? Can you realistically double the number of your Twitter followers?

• Relevant : a relevant goal is aligned closely with your business objectives. Does this goal support your business's objectives, vision, or values?

• Time Specific : give your goal a deadline. Double Twitter follower numbers in three months.

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Here's an example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal:

"We will use Twitter for customer support and lower our average response rate to under two hours by the end of the quarter."

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Create audience personas

Knowing your audience and what they want to see on social media is key. That way you can create content that they will like, comment on, and share. The aim of the audience persona is to make sure you are attracting the right type of followers who are potential customers of your product.

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Researching your persona 

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Talk to previous customers

Interview customers and prospects to discover what they like about your product or service.

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Educated guess

Use the solution you have to find the people most likely to have a need for that solution.

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Look at competitors' fanbase

Look at the active fans of your competitors to get an idea of who will most likely engage with your brand on social media.

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Create a Social Media content calendar

Once you know what content performs best and you've identified your primary goals, it's time to build a social media content calendar. A calendar will let you take a big-picture approach to social media content planning. It will help you visualize your ideas and organize them in a way that makes the strategy easier to execute. Your content calendar will be a hub for everything you post.

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When planning content, don't be afraid to repurpose content and schedule it across different social media platforms to get the most out of it. When deciding where to post what content, also consider what types of content perform well on that platform based on your audit.

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Determine the right content mix

Make sure your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement you've assigned to each social profile so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.

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You might decide that:

• 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website

• 25% of content will be curated from other sources

• 20% of content will support lead-generation goals (newsletter signups, ebook downloads, etc.)

• 5% of content will be about your company culture

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Placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix.

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If you're starting from scratch and you're not sure what types of content to post, try the 80–20 rule:

• 80% of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience

• 20% can directly promote your brand.

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Metrics to Measure

• Post/Page Reach

• Number of Followers/Connections

• Number of post engagement

• Social media conversion rate 

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