A couple of years back, the internet was only considered a knowledge bank, then times changed and came social media and brought along opportunities that enabled businesses to interact and reach out to a bigger audience and experience incremental gain in profits. And as the online world evolved, people discovered ways that could benefit them and allow them an access to a better life, mainly through online businesses. This provided a boost to the spirit of entrepreneurship mainly among the global youth.
As mentioned earlier, social media possess a great opportunity for startups and no matter what stage your startup is at, with the help of social media you can continue to grow and reach a wider audience with a very successful endeavor that you do on social media. Working with a professional social media agency in Toronto has provided me the insights on how to effectively market your new venture through social media? Here, I am sharing few pointers for the benefit of all the startup owner’s located globally.
Create Profiles
The starting point of marketing your entrepreneurial venture on any social network is the creation of profiles and social pages on that network. The requirement includes creation of branded cover and profiles pictures, filling out details about you and your business and providing contact information where your prospects might get in touch with you. For example, Twitter allows a 160 character bio, web link, and location. Facebook requires a shorter description, web link, address and a phone number. Hence, every social network has its own requirements that the business owner need to cater to, to start marketing his business on the social media.
Start Building Audience
Once your profiles and social pages are up on the network, it’s time now to start building an audience. Start off by sharing few updates. What you share entirely depends on your business industry and your target audience. For example, if you are a restaurant business, the initial shares would include some pictures of your eatery along with few videos that show how cooking takes place at your restaurant, what kind of food you serve and so on. Always remember, the more quality content you upload, the more will be its share-ability. Customers always adore content that is unique and that challenges their thinking in a new way. Try to instill that spark in your content every time you create a post.
Don’t Forget To Cross-Promote
Do you already have a large audience on any one of your social accounts? If yes, then you must ask them to follow you on your another social account. Your existing followers already trust you and have the knowledge about your product. If they start following you on your other social account, this not only builds your credibility as a trusted business but also allow more people to find you, as social media is smart enough to find and link people to each other, even distinguish the dialed numbers on your phones and recommend people to get in touch with businesses.
Add Social Icons To Your Website
Online marketing is an integrated effort that drives results only when every channel is fully utilized. Think of social marketing and it doesn’t really stop at social media only. You have got to provide you target audience, ways to reach your social pages. This could effectively be done if you feature social icons on your website design so that when someone lands on your website and likes it, he might as well reach out to your social media pages by clicking one of the icons that you featured on your website for the said purpose.
Add social accounts to your email signature
IF you add social accounts in your email signatures, anyone that you communicate with will know about your startup, irrespective of them being your customer or not. Email communication, especially when personalized for the customer takes your online marketing efforts a long way, and social icons included in it also makes your brand penetration much effective than others.
Participate In Other Groups
Social media is not all about talking about you or promoting your services only. Social media is basically about promoting others for your self-promotion. You will find a number of groups that are related to your service offering on any social media network. Make a point of joining those groups and start communicating in those. By liking and sharing posts on these groups that other people make, you actually build your credibility and rapport of being a responsible member and when you post something others will share it with you.
Make Use Of Hashtags
When you share photos and videos, be sure to use hashtags in your captions. Hashtags are utilized by Instagram users to find visual content on specific topics. As people come across your photos and videos in a hashtag stream, they will be able to click a button next to your name to follow you.
