1

Social Media
Marketing for
start-ups
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3 What is social media marketing?

Paid and Organic Social Media Marketing

Why a start-up should use social media marketing

5 Social media marketing strategy

6 Facebook

7 YouTube

Contents 8
Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

9 Content Types and Post Types

10 The why behind the content

12 Content for the customer journey

13 Creating engaging content

14 Designing for Social Media

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What is social media

marketing?
Social media marketing is a tactic that you use as part of your
overall marketing plan and it refers to the process of gaining
traffic or attention to your business through social media
platforms.

Paid and Organic Social

Media Marketing
When using social media for your marketing there are two
main strategies that we can use:

1. Organic social media marketing: this is any content that

you post to social media that you do not have to pay for
2. Paid social media marketing: this is any paid method you
use on social media

Why a start-up should use

social media marketing
Cost-effective marketing

Social media marketing is particularly cost effective as you

can use organic tactics with great success and with social ads
you can also gain quite a lot of traction in terms of reach with
less ad spend than you would need for other platforms.

“With social media, one can target the audience and reach
out to the segments in a very precise, cost-effective manner.”
Ravi Subramanian
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Increase discoverability

Having a social media presence contributes to search engine optimisation

and therefore to your online discoverability. Social media pages also
appear in search engine results pages and that helps users to find your
brand.

54% of social browsers use social media to research products.

Global Web Index

Increase brand awareness

As a start-up you need people to know about your brand before they can
consider or purchase from you.

There are 3.8 billion social media users around the world, and social
media growth is expected to grow 9% year-on-year.
Smartinsights

Drive website traffic

You can insert links to your social media profiles and content which helps
online users find you.

According to shareaholics social referrals were responsible for 31% of

website clicks during the 4th quarter of 2014.

Improve brand reputation

The more awareness you generate around your brand the bigger your
reputation will become as your company grows.

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each
tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can
each tell 6,000 friends.” – Jeff Bezos
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Engage with customers online

Marketing is increasingly becoming a two way street - according to sprout NOTES

social nearly half of consumers have taken to social media to ask questions
or raise concerns with a brand about their product or service - this gives
you a valuable platform on which to have meaningful interactions with
your customers.

62% of top salespeople attribute closing more deals due to social selling.
Digital marketing institute

Grow social commerce

Social commerce is on the rise where users can buy products directly
through social networks.

30% of users say they would be likely to make a purchase from a social
network like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat.
Bigcommerce.com

Social media marketing strategy

A social media strategy is a detailed blueprint that answers the what, when, how and why for all of your business content that
you post to social media business pages.

Social Media Strategy Step 1: Goal setting

SMART Goals - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based

For example:

Objective Business Goal Social Media Goal Key performance indicator

Brand awareness Increase brand awareness Increase Fcebook Month-to-month follower

by 70% across all marketing followers by 10% in one growth rate on Facebook
strategies for first quarter month

Lead generation Increase lead generation Generate 5% more Number of leads generated by
by 60% across all marketing leads in one month social media
strategies for first quarter across all social media
channels

Website traffic Increase website traffic by Increase website traffic Number of unique visits to
40% across all marketing from social media by website from social media
strategies for first quarter 5% in one month channels

Sales Increase overall sales by Increase sales from Number of sales from social
50% in the first quarter social media by 5% in media channels
the one month
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Social Media Strategy Step 2:

Social media platforms
The social media platforms that you choose to use will be determined by;

1. Who your target audience is

2. The industry and product or service offering

3. Resources and budget

Facebook
Number of users:
2.4 billion users

Gender: Age:
65% female 48% 18 - 34
35% male 31% 35 - 54

Network type:
Social networking - which is the more traditional form of social media and
allows users to interact with each other in different ways. It is first and foremost
a platform for connecting and socialising with other people.

Facebook’s mission:
To give people the power to build community and bring the work closer together
by staying connected, discover what’s going on in the world and to share and
express what matters to them.

What does that mean for you?

Apart from providing your followers with valuable content. It means that you
want to focus your attention on creating content that fosters relationships
and keeps you connected with your audience. You can post images and videos
of your products, share links to blog posts, product images, motivational or
informative posts.
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Youtube
Number of users:
1.9 billion users

Gender: Age:
62% male 48% 18 - 34
38% female 31% 35 - 54

Network type:
Video sharing platform - allows users to post videos to a feed that other users
are able to watch and interact with.

YouTube’s mission:
YouTube believes that everyone deserves a voice, and that the world is a better
place when we listen, share and build community through our stories. Their
values are based on freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of
opportunity and the freedom to belong.

What does that mean for you?

You want to focus your content on telling stories and providing education while
fostering community. The videos that you produce can be on anything from
product reviews and demos, how to videos, interviews, discussions, behind the
scenes, events.

Instagram
Number of users: Gender: Age:
1 billion users 68% female | 32% male 80% 18 - 42

Network type:
Photo-sharing platform - allows users to post highly visual content to feeds and interact with other users content.

Instagram’s mission:
Instagram aims to strengthen relationships through shared visual experiences that inspire visible action.

What does this mean for you?

Create high-quality engaging visuals that are valuable to your users to strengthen relationships - business or other. Ideal for
highly visual products such as apparel, food, accommodation, tourism.
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Twitter
Number of users: Gender: Age:
335 million users 62% female | 38% male 66% 15 - 34

Network type:
Microblogging platform that enables users to share short snippets of
information that other users can interact with.

Twitter’s mission:
To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly
without barriers.

What does this mean for you?

The key words that we can identify here are ideas and information. While you
can also post photos and Gifs to Twitter - it’s priority is information.You may
want to post company updates, product updates or use it purely as a support
platform.

LinkedIn
500 million users Gender:
Age: 69% female
60% 25 - 54 31% male

Network type:
Professional networking - it is a platform dedicated to networking and connecting with industry professionals and experts.

LinkedIn’s mission:
To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

What does this mean for you?

Create content that is professional, you can use this platform to become a thought-leader in your field, for hiring purposes and
employee advocacy and as a representation of your company culture.
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All companies use the various social media platforms differently.

You really need to consider what it is you want to use each platform for and how it would best tell your brand story. If
you don’t know then don’t use the platform. How best to appeal to your target audience.

For instance, a recruiting agent may use LinkedIn as their main page, and while this is not a highly visual product,
they still have a presence on Instagram because they use it to show their company culture and attract talent to their
company.

You could also just use one platform like Facebook to begin with. There are so many content creation options on
Facebook and it has a host of content types so you can post images, videos, share links, text and host polls. It all
depends on the resources that you have available to create, post and manage your social media accounts.

Social Media Strategy Step 3: Content

The types of content you create will also be based on your

NOTES
target audience and the platforms that you use. Once you
have these two key elements down then the rest of your
social media marketing decisions will follow easily.

Content Types and Post Types

Text (Copy)
Event updates, news, company updates and announcements
or industry updates and announcements

Photo/Images
Product images, brand images, quotes, customer quotes,
affirmations or inspiration, facts, helpful tips, reminders,
ideas, infographics, memes, GIFS

Video
How to, product demo, interviews, Q&A, video testimonial,
behind the scenes, about us, trailer/preview, live event
recording, webinar, presentation

Files
Slides, ebooks, booklet, guide, catalogue, magazine,
checklists, planners, instructions, templates, worksheets
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The why behind the content

Entertainment

Are you producing the content to entertain users?

Humorous content generally has the most potential to go viral because who doesn’t want to laugh - viral videos, jokes,
memes, comics, puzzles, competitions.

Inspiration

Are you trying to inspire your users?

Rihanna’s line of makeup - Fenty Beauty - whose main campaign was geared towards racial inclusivity. This builds
brand awareness as well as brand loyalty by aligning with consumers shared belief - quotes, facts, personal success
stories.
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Education

Does your content aim to educate your audience?

Whole foods educates their customers about healthy organic foods, sustainability of certain products like seafood as
well as provides tips to keep kids healthy. While the consumer is only purchasing food products they feel as though
the brand cares and is there to support them by being a source of information on being healthy - informative blog
posts, tips and tricks, industry research, case studies, live video training.

Conversation

Are you trying to jump start engagement and conversation around your brand?

Simply using a Twitter channel - Digital Freelancer engaged their audience by allowing them to ask any questions
around a particular topic - not only does this generate engagement and conversation around their brand but positions
them as an industry authority - Q&A sessions, fill in the blanks,
caption this photo, polls.

Connection

Are you trying to build a connection with your audience?

General Electric invited influencers and a few fans to tour their

facilities and post pictures - this combines influencer and user
generated content tactics - behind the scenes, product reviews,
employee or customer features

Promotion

Are you trying to promote your brand, products or services?

GoPro of course has an upper advantage when it comes to any

kind of marketing as it is a highly visual product. But they ran a
competition with a million dollars on the line for users submitting
a highlight video of their latest GoPro product - I mean! This is a
double whammy - they get hundreds of hours of user generated
footage and an advert for their latest product made by a user!
Obviously your campaign does not have to be that extreme -
giving away a free product works just as well - client testimonials,
webinars, product and service highlights, discounts/promotions.
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Content for the customer journey

Entertainment
Throughout their customer journey of awareness, consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy;

• What information do you think they will need or want at these different points?
• What content will generate awareness and interest in our product, service or brand?
• What content will convince them that this is the product for them during consideration of our product, service or
brand?
• What content will really drive home the users intent to purchase?
• Having become a customer what content is going to encourage that customer to buy again?
• What content will encourage them to share your content and advocate for your brand?
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Creating engaing content

Original
Identify a unique perspective or point of view with creative formats
for content.

Valuable
All content that you produce should provide value whether it’s to
educate, entertain,inspire, connect, communicate or promote -
what value is the viewer getting?

Compelling
Your content should inspire action, use call to actions, evocative
language, psychological tactics such as fomo and time limits.

Clear
Your message should be clear and to the point so that someone
can understand what the post is about over the period of a scroll.

Consistent
Users will begin to build a relationship with your brand, you need to
ensure that your style, voice, terminology and messaging remains
the same over platforms and in different situations.

Well-written
Although you may only be posting 280 characters, don’t
underestimate the power of good writing, no matter how short it
is, make sure it’s punchy.

Findable
Laura would have introduced you to search engine optimisation in
the previous lesson. Your content has to be findable, so optimise
every piece of content as best you can.
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Social Media Strategy Step 4:

Design & Branding
Carry over CI from Lesson 4
• Brand colour palette
• Typography
• Visuals
• Tone
• Brand character

Designing for Social Media

Different images
Style of images you are using
Images sizes and resolution for each channel

Include your logo

The presence of a recognisable logo makes it easier for users to
recognise your brand- how often do you scroll through social
media, see a post but don’t look at who posted it? This can help
users to identify your brand.

Balance
Keep your design balanced and ensure that imagery is easily
recognisable - consider what it would look like on mobile.

Consistency
Ensure that all your brand colour combinations and fonts are
adhered to.

Limit text
Try not to use too much copy on your designs. Keep it as short as
possible and to the point.

Use negative space

Particularly if you are highlighting a product - ensure that your
product stands out - again not making the image too busy or
chaotic.
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Social Media Strategy Step 5: Social

Media Management
Social media management is the process of creating, scheduling,
analysing and engaging with content posted on social media platforms.

• Social Media Strategising

• Scheduling posts to a variety of channels
• Managing community relationships so replying and commenting on
messages or posts
• Measuring brand sentiment and managing your brands online
reputation
• Monthly reporting and analysing content direction
• Collaborating with multiple departments for content and to
streamline online experiences

NOTES