7 Social Media Marketing Tips for Startups [Infographic]

Social media is an important part of getting the word out about your startup. Many startups find that social media is the easiest way for them to connect with customers, investors and potential partners. Instead of waiting until your product or service is ready consider starting your social media marketing from day one.

By starting early you will have more time to develop a winning social media formula and build a vibrant fanbase for your startup’s launch.  To get ideas and improve your understanding of social media marketing for startups review these 7 tips based on the infographic on social media for startups below.

1. Startup Launch Pages

Create a launch page as one of the first steps in your startup’s social media marketing strategy. Most launch pages give a short, compelling description of your startup’s product, service or the problem being solved with an email registration form. By driving visitors to your startup’s launch page you will be able to capture email addresses of potential customers who can be invited to try out your product or service when it launches.

Launch Page Services

There are a number of free and paid services to help you build launch pages. If you are not comfortable designing and developing a website on your own one of these launch services might be the right choice. A few of the more popular launch page services for startups are LaunchRock, Kick Off Labs, and Prefinery.

WordPress Launch Pages

If you are more technology savy and prefer to create your own launch page there are also a number of great options. One of the most popular content management systems used by startups is WordPress. A number of free and premium themes for WordPress are available  to help you get started.

One of the more interesting and helpful WordPress options is Launch Effect, a theme and plugin that not only captures email registration, it creates shortcode URLs for all registrants to promote social sharing. Each shortcode can be tracked to provide incentives or rewards to the people who help get the word out about your startup. Launch Effect does offer a premium version but the free version can be set up to generate shortcode URLs and track referrals by following this viral launch page tutorial.

2. Social People

Engage people in your market and who are active on social media. Try to focus your energy on potential customers, industry experts and thought leaders. Get feedback early and discuss ideas openly with these people. Doing so will not only improve the quality of your end product it will also increase the likelihood that people will share your startup’s product or service with their audience.

3. Bloggers are Important

Bloggers have a lot of influence especially in niche markets. It is hard to ignore bloggers if your a startup. On average 70% of bloggers write about brands and 35% actively blog about brands and product reviews. Engage influential bloggers using social media to develop relationships that will hopefully lead to a blog post about your startup.

4. Build Your Networking

Start building your network on social media early as opposed to just before your startup’s launch. If you take the time to develop a strong fan base you will be rewarded with a constantly supply of new registrations and traffic to your startup’s website.

5. Create Great Content

Great content is a powerful marketing and brand building tool for startups that will help you reach a larger audience. Writing great content on a regular basis will increase the amount of sharing you receive via social media. It will also improve your search engine ranking and increase traffic to your startup’s website. Once you have a working formula keep building to ensure you have the largest reach possible when you startup is ready to launch.

6. Build Buzz

If you take the time to do social media right your startup should be able to build a buzz within your niche. By creating a buzz people will be more likely to recommend your startup to friends and share your content.

7. Track Results

Track results from your social media marketing efforts so you can hone in on what is working and what is not working for your startup. The easiest way to get started is to set up Google Analytics to track your social media marketing efforts.When tracking results the most popular metrics of success according to the infographic below are visitors and sources of traffic, network size, quantity of commentary as well as sentiment or quality of commentary.

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