During SFA’s latest In the Know webinar, Corinne Waite-McNish, senior digital brand manager and Katie Bell, brand and digital copywriter at Pulp+Wire presented best social media practices for startups, last week.
The two covered the current state of social media, trends, and insights, how to create a consistent look and feel paired with your brand’s tone of voice, how to pinpoint your target audience on social media, how to build community, and how to capture opportunities to build awareness and drive consumers down the purchase funnel.
Here’s are 5 things to remember:
1. There is no one perfect fit: implement, get feedback, and try again. The beauty of social media is that once you find the right rhythm, new opportunities will uncover themselves and you can establish a level of agility in how you establish two-way communication with your audience, said Waite-McNish. Until then, she encourages startupts to think of this as a continuous feedback loop between your brand and the community engaging with your content.
2. Start with one platform (like Instagram) and build from there. Bell emphasized that instead of trying to hit every social media platform at once, companies focus on doing a few things really well. She recommended starting by prioritizing platforms where you know your target audience is spending their time. Once you are in a good rhythm on your starter platforms, gauge bandwidth to expand onto other channels based on resonance with your target. Finally, she recommended branching out and exploring content partnerships, paid media, and other extensions once you build a community on your owned channels.
3. Tap into audience insights to better understand your brand’s community. Since you have likely done work to understand who your ideal consumer is and how they spend their time, use insights you already have (such as basic demographic data), tap into platform insights (ex. time of day), and listen to your audience (ex. consumer surveys), to drive the greatest impact, Waite-McNish explained.
4. Content creators and brands can mutually benefit from working together. Waite-McNish stated that given the decline of organic reach in recent years and the ability to employ precision targeting, paid media has increasingly become a necessity to driving impact through social media. Used strategically, this can drive business results and engagement, she said.
5. Find your authentic voice through language, tone, purpose, and persona. Bell believes your brand presence on social media should be more than all-sales-all-the-time. In creating an authentic tone of voice, she recommended striving to think through each of these pillars (persona, tone, language, and purpose), building off one another to arrive at your brand -personality.
To learn more, watch the recording on demand here. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] or reach out to @pulpandwire on social media.
Related: Capitalizing on Social Media Trends; Partnering With Influencers: What Compaines Should Know.