“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before
defeat.”-Sun Tzu

Today, we live in the world built around content and chaos. All brands, with any kind of budget want to get their message across to the same consumer through social media. In a world that is fighting for the  8-second attention span of a consumer, it’s easy for a startup to get overwhelmed while figuring out a social media strategy. Creating a brand presence and breaking through the clutter may not be an easy
task, but it can get easier if you follow the six key steps.

Why should I create goals?

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”-
Fitzhugh Dodson

The important thing about any marketing campaign is that it must always have an objective. Doing a social media campaign because it is the “it “thing to do, just wastes your time, money and efforts; and for a startup time, money and manpower are all scarce resources. So, first thing you will have to do is create goals for every campaign you are planning.

As a marketer, you need to remember to follow the SMART framework when you define your goals. The SMART framework is acronym for creating Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. All campaigns need to be targeted at specific outcomes, so that you could optimize your resources.

You also have to divide your goals according to a time frame; long-term and short-term goals. The long-term goals could be the major objectives tied to your company’s vision and mission, while the short-term goals could be the ones which will analyze the immediate deliverables of a campaign. Short-term goals need to be campaign specific and generally more quantitative in nature. Number of clicks,
impressions, sign ups and purchases could be great starting points for short term goals. Long-term goals could be more qualitative- focusing on building a brand identity and a brand recall.

How do I define my customers?

“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”-
Albert Szent-Györgyi

To know your customer, you cannot just stop at the surface level geographic, psychographic,  demographic and behavioral segmentation. Although the traditional segmentation procedures are absolutely necessary, you need to put in the extra effort to understand what your target customer goes  through every day. You will have to walk in their shoes, do an ethnographic and netnographic research,
conduct interviews, active feedback session and immerse yourself in understanding their pain points. After you figure out what your customer thinks, needs, wants and feels; the next step is figuring out In order to have a successful impact of all your social media campaign, you will need to know everything that is currently relevant to your target audience. You need to know the answers to all the following questions-

• What role does your brand/product plays in their day to day lives?
• Who does my target consumer listen to, follows or likes on social media?
• Who are the key influencers online and offline for my target consumer?
• What other brands does my target consumer most relate to?
• Where does my target consumer hang out online and offline?
• What kind of content does my target consumer like to consume?
• Where does my brand content and value fit in to my target consumer’s daily life?
• Which channels does my target consumer prefer to consume his/her content?
• What devices or interfaces does my target customer use?

Why should I define my value proposition?

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”- Albert Einstein

After you define your customer; the next step is figuring out what role does your brand/product play in their lives. To demonstrate your brand’s value to your customer you need to be aware of your customer’s needs and wants. Once you make that list, you have to determine which need are you going to address first. Try to quantify the benefits of your value proposition to create a better impact. It is very important that your value proposition remains consistence across all channels.

In the Startup sphere, it is very difficult to convince people to buy your product or service. There are several other startups, which are trying to sell something similar and are talking about it. So, you will have to have a clear crisp message about what is your product all about and what you are offering to a particular consumer. It is essential that you focus and convey that one single message, so that it gives clarity to your early adopters. Once your message is clear to your early adopters, it is  easier for them to propagate it further. So be very clear of your value proposition and messaging while you define your social media strategy.

For example, a startup selling cold pressed juices could position themselves as a juice company or expand their value proposition as a ‘lifestyle brand that inspires healthier living’. The messaging in each of the cases could be vastly different as a juice company would be easily replaceable in consumer’s mind with packaged juices or other beverages; while a lifestyle brand that is more focused on health would be difficult to replace. The ‘lifestyle brand that inspires healthier living’ would also need to augment their positioning with additional services such as free delivery to gyms or yoga classes, making the brand image of health consciousness more effective.
Which channels should I focus on?

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”- William Hazlitt

For a startup, it is impossible to tap every social media outlet that is currently available. It is not only a matter of feasibility, but also largely about the fact that relevance is the key to a successful social media campaign. For example – If your target customer is a teenager, LinkedIn would probably be a redundant channel for your business. On the other hand, Snapchat with its maximum teenage user base could potentially be highly relevant to you.

So instead of focusing on the number of users a platform has, you need to focus on the potential target customers available to you on that platform. You need to know what kind of engagement rate and conversion could a particular platform bring your business. Consider and list the advantage and disadvantage of each platform.

The next big question you will face is whether or not to go for paid advertising. For a startup, there are no massive budgets allocated for paid adverts. Before you go ahead with paid adverts you need to create an initial organic reach and a good content base. So being creative and explorative with organic content is an important strategy.

Most social platforms today give you fairly advanced targeting options. So, if you have answers to all the questions, about your target customer’s persona, you don’t have to worry about your content reaching them.

For reaching masses, Facebook ads or Google ads could be good choices just because the gigantic user base. Facebook targeting is extremely focused and helps you reach many potential customers, while also giving you the option of choosing them based on their geography, language, demography and interests. Through Facebook targeting you even target people going through a particular life event  such as targeting people who have just changed their cities or just gotten married. Facebook also gives you an option of unique audiences where you can upload a certain set of users and create a custom list for targeting. It becomes a great way to connect with your existing customers and advertising to them for new offerings. The other benefit of custom audiences is that, Facebook also gives you an option of
creating look- alike audiences, so when you upload a custom list, Facebook will find similar people like them for you, making targeting new consumers easier.

For targeting customers through their professional profile or targeting B2B businesses, LinkedIn seems to be the preferred medium. LinkedIn groups could be a very useful way to reach out to people in an organic way. LinkedIn could also help you identify the key people in an organization. Good content in terms of blogs could be a great way to engage your existing connection on LinkedIn. LinkedIn paid campaign could also be considered as option depending on your target audience’s preferences and budget.

Twitter as an organic platform and it is a great way to drive traffic to your website. It is also a strong platform to engage, discover and converse with your customers. The key to perfecting twitter is being present and being prompt in reaching out to your followers. The twitter ad platform also gives you various options in terms of conducting follower campaigns, engagement campaigns, hashtag campaigns or lead generation campaigns. Twitter is an efficient way to keep up with your customers and also listen to what they are saying.

For a startup, exploring new and unconventional channels could also be a great way to reach potential consumers. Subgroups on Reddit forums or Quora’s question and answers, could help you build subject matter expertise in the eyes of your consumer. So, keeping track of all upcoming social networks that are becoming relevant to your target audience is important.

What type of content should I produce?

“Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.” William Cowper

For a startup, hiring content writers and designers may not always be a feasible option, so what type of content should you produce first? The simple answer is to produce the type of content that is most relevant to your target customer. Start with the content that is easy to produce and you are most comfortable with and quickly scale up to variety of content including videos, blogs, eBooks, infographics
and so forth. Now, once the content is published you can easily track the success rate of each format. So all you have to do now is figure out what your customer prefers, if your target customer prefers to read,then master the art of blogging or e-books. If your target customer prefers to watch videos, then make sure your content focus is around making videos. However, most customers stop engaging with your content if it is in a monotonous format. As a result, you are always better off mixing up your content from blogs, videos, infographics to webinars.

As you scale up, try to incorporate multiple content formats to your content strategy. If you are writing a blog create an adjunct infographic which can be shared on other channels and relink it to your blog. Experiment with different formats such as webinars, interactive content, reviews, Q&As, how to articles, listicles, imagery and many more.

Be agile in adapting to new formats of media in order to keep up with your consumer’s preferences. Find out what works the best for your business and develop that format to the next level.

When and how often should I engage with my audience?

“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.” -Michel de Montaigne

Ideally, you need to post 14 or more times on twitter per day, 5-10 times on Facebook per week and 20 posts on LinkedIn per month. But your engagement need not be limited to your social posts, rather it should be an ongoing conversation with your audience. It is important that you follow, converse and get know your influencers on a daily basis. It is also crucial that you interact with people who comment or share your content. Daily engagement can also double as
feedback loop where you could understand your consumer’s problems and solve their issues in real time. Daily engagement could also be a great way to gain momentary traction based on major events or viral hashtags.

Conclusion
A great social media strategy is a full-time job, so take your time in strategizing before you begin your journey. Reach out to your network, influencers and domain experts and seek their help in defining your first steps.

Create goals that are attainable and which further the growth of your company. Know your customer well, well enough to create an effective positioning of your brand. Convey the emotional value of your brand to your consumers in every communication message. Every industry, every brand and every consumer would require different strategy so define your strategy very well. Once you start with
execution, keep on testing different platforms and different formats, till you find the right fit. Once you find out what works great with your target audiences, grow that content type and channel to attract more business.

Invest your time, effort and creativity in building the presence of your brand on social media and your consumer is sure to notice or reach out through one of the channels. Just remember that every startup is different and even with all the pointers there are few things you can only discover hands-on, so keep
on creating, revising and exploring!