Does Leveraging Social Media Work For Startups?

My grandmother recently signed up for Facebook.

My niece who is 12 years old, frequents Tumblr. I recently hung out with a friend and we reminisced about how we first met: on Twitter. Many people can’t make a home purchase without consulting their stylist: Pinterest. My web developer relies on Instagram and Vine for inspiration. And finally, I only make a hire when my recruiter, LinkedIn, tells me to.

So if everyone is on social media, how do you choose where to focus your marketing efforts? You could spend all your time tackling the large social media sites. Or you can use this list to help you find niche sites to target a specific market; these focus on segments such as from dance enthusiasts to design hobbyists.

However if you decide you are still going after the Facebook crowd for the large reach and segmentation, here are some some pointers to get you started. Many of the recommendations can be applied to any social media site.

General

Every post has one of two purposes: Sharing or Generating. Know your goal!
Connect your other social media accounts to FB and others and cross promote
Add the key words to the user name so it has a better chance of coming up when searching
Put the website URL in your About section
Create an editorial calendar and pre-schedule posts with Hootsuite
Comment and like posts on other pages so others know your page
Integrate your email subscription form into FB page (if you use MailChimp, here is how)

Content

Make the ratio of “selling” to “engaging info” 20%:80%
Make a list of all the problems/challenges your super specific target customer is facing and compose posts accordingly
Create offers only for FB fans (you can find code that hides posts from non-fans)
Use video/infographics/cartoons/other fun and different visuals
Create posts with questions to generate discussion
Leverage calendar events and news events and post related to those
Get personal: Include your photo in the FB profile (if not on the profile photo, somewhere on the photo stream

Though social media can be a huge distraction and often consume hours without any tangible returns, appropriate utilization can help build the targeted branding, recognition, and engagement to establish and grow your venture.

So how you do leverage social media for your business? Is it working in your favor? Let us know in the comments below.