You had a great idea. Your business plan is perfect. You found investors. Your office is clean and tidy. Your company is ready for launch. What's missing? Well, it's time to think about the best social media platforms for your startup and how to use them at the best.
In 2020, the global social penetration rate reached 49 percent, with East Asia and North America having the highest penetration rate at 71 and 69 percent respectively, followed by Northern Europe at 67 percent. Social media is a huge market for your startup. Are you ready to discover their secrets?
In this article we will consider the main platforms chosen by the best startups all over the world: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Best Social Media for Startups
How to use LinkedIn
With 562 million users, LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections. If your business is a B2B, then LinkedIn is the best channel you can choose. Why? This interesting infographic explains it to you.
Create a Company Page
It will be the showcase of your business, where you will publish news and updates relevant to your target audience. Choose the right profile picture, add a great cover image and keep it updated with good content.
Encourage your employees to connect
In addition to following your Company Page, you should also encourage your team to like and share your updates. Make sure you notify them whenever you post an important update on your Company Page. As Hootsuite underlines, employees are your biggest advocates, and by adding them as followers you also tap into each of their networks.
Use LinkedIn's multi-language tools
One of LinkedIn's best features is the ability to write posts and descriptions of your page in more than 20 languages.
If you have users who don't speak English, this is your chance to contact them too.
Discover LinkedIn ads
Being the social network preferred by professionals all over the world, LinkedIn is also the best place to spend your money on advertising to reach companies that may be interested in your product.
If you have a budget to spend and want to know more, read this guide.
How to use Facebook
More than 1.8 billion people use Facebook every month to connect with their friends and family and discover new things. Since Facebook has such a large user user-base, this is the best place to promote brand awareness among masses.
Use Videos
Videos and images capture more attention of the reader. But in recent times Facebook seems to have focused everything on videos, increasing the reach of the contents included in its Watch section.
Go Live
One of the best features of Facebook is the possibility to show your work live. Whether it's a webinar, a video tutorial or a conference, live streaming videos are a great tool for keeping your audience up to date. Read the full guide by Hubspot and get ready to go live.
Explore the Groups
As AdEspresso pointed out, groups give you the chance to showcase your expertise and dedication to your customers, especially since many will be asking questions that are extremely visible to other group members.
How to use Instagram
Instagram is a game-changer for businesses. It's free, it's visual, and with more than 1 billion people using it every month, its potential to reach the right audience is huge. Why? For example, because 60% of users learn about new products on the platform.
Use Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are very useful for telling a story about your idea. Show the background of your work, your days at the office, the secrets of the trade, and interact with your audience by reposting their stories.
Take advantage of your users' posts
This is called UGC (User-Generated Content) and this is a great way to give voice to your customers, showing the humanity of your brand and creating a real connection with potential customers.
Use Hashtags
Responsible for improving engagement by an average of 12.6%, the best hashtags for Instagram are the driving force behind many influencers’ and brands’ popularity on Instagram. These powerful keywords are a brand’s superpower– when used correctly. In fact, using relevant, targeted hashtags on your posts and stories is still one of the best ways to get discovered by new audiences on Instagram.
As you can read on Later’s blog (great resource), “If you have a public Instagram account and add a hashtag to a post, that post will be visible on the corresponding hashtag page”.
If you're looking for the best way to find the perfect hashtag for your startup, check this beautiful article by Kicksta: also, their hashtag generator tool is a great place to start with this.
How to use Twitter
Twitter is much different now than it was when it first debuted in 2006. It is important for marketers to understand the network's evolution and find out how to best use it to launch your startup towards success.
Before going into detail, it is useful to see some statistics in this infographic.
Be Consistent
Tweet consistently because consistency is the key to your success on Twitter. Don't lose sight of your audience: choose a post frequency and never give it up.
To do this, you will need a calendar where you can insert all the ideas and posts you want to publish. An excellent starting point is the one created by HubSpot, which you can find here.
Mention
What is the best way to get visits to your profile and increase your reach?
Mention users using "@username" and tell them how great you think their articles / posts are and add in some relevant hashtags.
Ask for Feedback
People love to help out! Twitter is a simple way to get feedback about your customers' experiences with your product or service and make them feel part of the process.
