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 five key steps.

1. Startup and Social Media: How to effectively execute your social media marketing plan?
“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 five 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.

2. 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.
For example, a new organic beauty brand’s long-term goal could be to establish the connection between
their brand’s identity and nature. So, in order to fulfill the long-term goal, every marketing campaign
that they will undertake will depict elements of nature in design and copy. Now, if this brand wants to
create a special social media campaign for their new spring collection, the short-term goals could be
getting ‘x’ amount of revenue through online sales or getting ‘y’ number users on their online portal.
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 a 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
what role does your brand/product plays in their day to day lives.
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
• Who does my target consumer listens 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 prefers to consume his/her content?
• What devices or interfaces does my target customer use?

3. 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 plays 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.

4. 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

5. 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 are 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!