How Can Your Startup Benefit from Social Networks?

People often forget that tools cannot innately be good or bad. The same axe that can be used to hurt people can provide lumber for a shelter or fuel for a fire. A similar thing applies to social networks. While older generations accuse millennials of just wasting their time there, things are not as simple. In fact, any 21st-century business owner will immediately agree that social networks have completely revolutionized the world as we know it.

Customer Insight

The first privilege that social media will provide you is some valuable customer insight. A major conglomerate can always hire a team of analysts, employ the most expensive analytic tools and wait for the results, while a startup has no such privilege. What you can do is try to blend in with your social network crowd, read their comments, look at the retweet and like ratio and in this way see if there is anything your clients are happy/unhappy about. Some may claim these to be vanity metrics since there is no telling that the person who pressed the like button is a paying customer, or that a person giving a negative comment isn’t a potential buyer. Still, this is not what you are looking for in the first place, but only some feedback to tell you if you are going in the right direction.

Centralized Digital Workspace

Another great advantage of social networks is that they allow you to create a truly centralized digital workspace. Normally, when it comes to your digital marketing, you would have to work with a plethora of different tools and platforms. Still, with the right software for communication, you can seamlessly integrate all these tools and application into a single spot. One of such software is Interact, which also allows you to utilize your startup’s collective intelligence by including everyone to the same network. Working smarter, not harder, that’s the key to success.

Remote Work

Another great advantage of social networks is that it has allowed people to work remotely. In the US alone, these telecommuters amount to around 45 percent of all employees. Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular pieces of IM software out there and it allows your team a quick and simple communication. This is great even for people who work on the opposite sides of the same office since it helps them create less noise to distract others. So, next time you walk through the office and see an employee on their Facebook, you can either scold them or suggest them for promotion. Either option is viable.

Product Placement

Finally, once you share content on social media you start a wildfire. There’s a chance that any of your contacts may share it as well, which opens up all their contacts as potential brand ambassadors. Still, you need to make your content compelling, interesting and above all shareable in order to encounter this kind of reaction. It goes without saying that different platforms have different target demographics, which is yet another thing to keep in mind when planning your social media marketing campaign.

Conclusion

The best thing about the aforementioned is that the price of any of these actions goes from low to completely free of charge. Needless to say, this makes it ideal for startups which usually operate on a tight budget as it is. As you can see, the social media have this enormous potential to transform your business from a young company to an all-powerful enterprise. Still, this depends solely on how you use it. Choose wisely!

Dan Radak is a marketing professional with eleven years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and a regular contributor to Technivorz.

Fivenson Studios is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our graphic design team specializes in logo and web page design, as well as marketing campaigns for social and print media. From flyers and brochures to targeted landing pages, we aim to bring your company into the spotlight and reach a greater range of potential customers.