Although starting your own business is never easy,hard work and determination certainly land entrepreneurs into a desired point..With the more globalized world and technology , there comes a time to quickly grow any business . Social Media looks like it's the answer to many startups with very little or no marketing budgets.
Realizing this, many start ups create official social media pages reaching out to clients not only in their locality but around the world. Africa’s leading online hotel booking website,Jovago points out 6 economic ways startups can increase their fan base on social media.
1. Share useful and valuable content - Many startups make the grievous mistake of confusing the art of making their social media pages attractive and fun with posting ‘’junk’’ or otherwise unnecessary content. Not everything is worth putting out there. Social media followers are such that, they expect companies especially startups to post more promotional content. Surprise them.It has been observed that a 80/20 rule works for most startups to rapidly increase number of followers and get their brand name very well known. Posting about 80% non promotional useful content and 20% promotional content will significantly improve how the official page is observed in the eyes of followers. Posting a variety of content also makes the page not boring but very interesting. Sharing visual content is also the most effective way to get attention from fans on social media. What they see is what gets them interested. People are interested to see other people hence sharing messages in a picture will get more views than written messages.
2. Giveaways - ‘’Answer to win’’, ‘’Predict and win’’, ‘’Like and share to win’’ are few of the many things that get social media fans to like and follow official facebook pages. When they have no idea what your startup page is,the best way to get their attention is to give something away for free. A quiz or predict & win competition is usually a good pick . It gets people interested in the brand and gets them to like and follow the social media page. Occasionally it's very effective to give out free things or discounts to increase number of followers. The more free stuff people can get from being on your pages, the more they are interested to stay on the page and share the page.
3. Promote social media presence everywhere - Many startups are content with the few thousands of fans they acquire in a short while. Do not stop! Make sure you promote the pages everywhere. Cross promotion helps a lot. For instance, you can promote your facebook page on twitter and your twitter page on instagram and vise versa. Also at events, in email signatures and other branded paraphernalia, you can promote the various pages. Let people know these pages exist. They have a medium to reach you through this.
4. Partner other bigger brands/personalities - The world of social media doesn’t exist in isolation. All the big accounts with millions of followers and likes started with a few tens and hundreds.In order to get a strong foundation, you need to partner with some of the bigger companies whith huge social media fan base through events or projects. By doing that, their fans automatically become your fans. Whoever trusts their pages,trust your page as well.Use influencers,celebrities and people with big accounts to increase the popularity of your brand.
5. Interact - Social media is all about interaction. Always be in the position to respond to fans comments,messages and posts.Whatever their concern may be,you should be there to help them find solutions. Also make sure to find and interact with people or brands who have similarities like your franchise. Chat,comment and let them feel you are not too far away.
6. Hire a dedicated Social Media Manager - This may not be so economic afterall but the benefits are just overwhelming.Hiring a dedicated social media manager means that you have someone in charge. In the past, social media was not so much recognized thus there wasn’t a need to dedicate one person to managing these pages. However,in the modern day business world,it has evolved into a very useful marketing tool. With workload and expectation at very high levels,getting someone whose sole job it is to ensure the growth and sustainability of your pages seems a great bargain. Social media trends change regularly hence instead of getting someone to handle it as a part-time side project, dedicate a member of your staff to it.It is rewarding.
Credit: Jovago
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