Talk Objectives
Our talk is informative, and it presents how to “Build a Social Media Strategy for Your Startup” and answer all their questions on the matter. It was incredibly refreshing to see our current youth interested in the digital marketing landscape and understand the important role it can take in deciding the success of a business startup.
Digital Marketing Topics Covered
The topics covered during the talk included educating students and potential startup owners on how frequently to post on their social media outlets and what are the optimal timings. In addition to that, the type of posts people engage with the most depending on the industry of the startup and how to choose the most suitable promotional tools depending on the social media platform.
Finally, we discussed how influencers can help your startup with the exposure needed, how to best utilize their audience, and how influencer promotional codes function. However, the students’ eagerness to learn more sparked further questions, making the session much more informative and entertaining for everyone involved.
We look forward to a similar opportunity in the near future and we wish all #GUCians the best in their final exams during the upcoming period.
How frequent to post and what is the best time to post
This is one of the most common questions for startup businesses on how to handle their social media strategy. Green Mind Agency able to share some of its internally used resources and directories that help them make the right decisions when it comes to how frequent and what is the best time to post.
We started off understanding the market by doing some research and use StatCounter’s ability to get the most growing platforms in their country of choice, DataReporter’s market segmentation and analytics, Socialbaker’s tools to showcase the most followed pages in the country, and so on.
All these tools combined allow you to determine how frequently to post and form your initial digital marketing strategy based on strong background information and statistic. As to when is the best time to post, usually, it is between 4 PM to 12 AM Cairo time. However, this is not set-in-stone as it changes based on the occasions, events happening in the country, and your target audience’s behavior.
What is the type of posts people engage most with
Initially, you have to determine the correct type of posts for your startup itself, based on its target audience, the type of market it is engaged in, whether you are offering a product or service, among other elements. Not only that, adapting your digital marketing strategy to the worldwide and local happenings shows your brand’s flexibility. The biggest example is the switch to working from home in March, and how Green Mind Agency was able to pivot its clients’ digital marketing plans to covering more relevant topics.
As for determining what type of posts people engage with more, it is incredibly difficult to pinpoint whether pictures do better than videos or vice versa. Generally, shorter videos between 5 to 15 seconds perform better with the recent user’s shorter retention span and quick consumption. However, the concept of the post itself is what matters. The idea you are trying to convey with the post is what attracts the user’s attention and pulls them to give you their engagement.
How to choose suitable social media promotional tools
One of the first things you need to consider is conducting a thorough analysis of your competitors, not only in major regions but even in smaller countries and regions. This would allow you to determine your initial social media budget, and what you would need to reach your audience. A common mistake is startups investing in developing a website, a mobile application, and a perfect online presence, However, they forget to put aside an advertisement budget, which is needed heavily at the early stages of your product or service’s lifetime to expose it to a larger group of people.
If you are finding it difficult to determine how big of a budget you need for digital marketing, a general rule of thumb would be to dedicate 6 to 12% of your expected yearly revenue to your marketing plans. For brand new businesses without a solid income stream, 12% is usually more than enough. This would you allow to effectively and efficiently spend it throughout the year.
How to incorporate influencers into your brand’s digital marketing strategy
The recent rise of usage of influencers in raising awareness on a product or service deems their incorporation into your brand’s digital marketing strategy almost inevitable. As a startup, you don’t have to aim for the top influencers straight away, as there are tiers of influencers to choose from with varying price ranges.
Some of them would be willing to talk about your product or service to their audience for free or even for simply sending them a free sample for their personal use. Incredibly powerful tool brands can use to reach influencers in our region is Trendster, which allows you to maximize your impact through choosing the correct influencers for your brand and offering you a wide range of follower bases to choose from.
