Creating a Successful Social Media Campaign for Startup Launch

When you start your company, you know that you need a social media campaign. You know that you probably need to be on LinkedIn, maybe Facebook. Do we need Instagram? If so, what do we post about? Do we need to be on Tik Tok? How about X? It can be very confusing because there are so many platforms and being on all of them might be your first instinct, but it could also be a huge waste of time and effort.

Before rushing headlong into every social media platform and creating a profile, let's look at how to carefully, and strategically, create a successful social media campaign for your start-up

The first thing you need to know is who your audience is. This can be done based on your industry, and doing some searches online. There are services out there that will give you insight into your industry and the people most likely to buy from your company.

You can also interview customers you already have. Ask them why they went with you. How did they find you? What is it about your services that intrigued them and what about your services set you apart from others?

Where is your audience most likely to engage with you? If you are a B2B company, then LinkedIn will likely be your focus on social media. Make sure you fill out your entire profile and then start posting regularly. Get the rest of your employees on to the site, and connect them to the company.

If you reach out to a younger demographic, then Instagram and Tik Tok might be the solutions.

Plan carefully and make sure you are reaching the audience that is most likely to engage and become a client or customer.

When you first started your business, you likely did a competitive analysis. However, it is now time to dig deeper. What social media sites are your competitors using? More importantly, did they start using one platform, but then stop? How active are their social media campaigns? Can you see how much engagement they are getting?

When you study these, don't just duplicate. Are there gaps somewhere? Is there a way to post on your social media platforms that answers questions the competition is not answering? You do not need to copy what your competitors are doing, but find out how you can be on those platforms, and do it better or different.

Your company is brand new and you are in a unique position. Now, you can try several different types of posts and see how people react. If you are doing paid social, this is known as A/B testing and platforms like Facebook allow you to do this easily. Figure out which images work the best. Does your audience react better to video? Does your audience react to seeing faces? What are they reacting to most positively?

This means collecting data and analyzing your social media on a regular basis. This might be weekly, or once a month, but you need to study the data to determine what works and what is not.

When you are starting your company, the temptation is to just jump into everything and start posting. Your instinct is to reach as wide an audience as you can, right off the bat. However, social media works best when you can reach the largest possible audience of people who are mostly likely to engage with your content and purchase your product or service.

This takes lots of research and should be done strategically. There are people out there who know all of this and can help you, so don't be afraid to reach out. If you plan, strategize and work hard to create a terrific social media campaign, you will find customers waiting.