How to be a startup on Facebook

Did you know that more than half a million Norwegians want to start their own business, but only 10% try to? 60 000 Norwegians try to make it every year. Owning a startup can be challenging in many ways, especially getting what you want on social media. I´ve been working for startups in social media for some years now, and Facebook should always be a big part of the marketing strategy. And here is what I´ve learned about Facebook:

Be relevant

Make sure you target the right audience with your content. It doesn’t matter if you have thousands of fans on your site if no one is interested in your message. The days are gone when the medium was the message. You want the people on Facebook to engage with you and your business, so make sure you get fans who have an interest in, or are in need of your business. You can even target your audience through making ads to people have similar interest to your own business. You want your fans to recommend you, and talk about you. So keep your evangelists happy.

Be crazy, not lazy

Don´t be lazy. I´ve seen business that keeps on buying content from other companies. That´s fine, but make sure you can interact with your fans through that content. Make sure your content is «written» for your audience. Make your audience feel wanted, special and loved. And make them feel they learn something about your product or business. Let your audience feel they are getting to know you. Links with pictures are the posts that are most seen except from videos. With your content you can drive traffic from Facebook to your Youtube channel, your Instagram, Twitter account and vice versa.

Be open

Building trust is really important through your presence on Facebook. Let your fans feel they can reach you at any time, and that you will respond to them. Again, make your fans feel special. So you should reward them if they’ve been good. Example, if someone has been sharing a lot of your content and has been an evangelists of yours, you should reward him/her with a shoutout or a free sample of your product or service.  And ask your fans regularly about feedback and how you could grow both your business and your Facebook page. That makes your fans even more engaged and can help them feel like a part of your business. Getting reviews can help you enormously to change into the better and it will definitely help you to grow.

Be goofy

Videos always gets more clicks and impressions. Cat videos are those who gets most views, shares and clicks on Facebook. I highly recommend posting short videos, even though it´s goofy posts about you and other colleagues working. It helps building bridges of relationships between you and your audience. You should also post videos about your business, infotainment is the key word here. Post funny pictures about your employees. Funny personal branding can be just as important as branding your product or service.

Be a part of Business Manager

Spend time on Facebook´s Business Manager and let 24SevenSocial help you spend some money on it. The numbers are your friends. You should want to see how your fans react and interact to your activities on Facebook. Let the statistics help you to figure out what kind of posts that works and what and what doesn´t. This can help you save money and time, and learn more about traction.

Be scouting

Hire people through Facebook. People brand themselves more and more as attractive employees on Facebook. This accounts for the younger crowd. More of them feel that LinkedIn is difficult to use and outdated, so Facebook can be used for almost everything these days. So scout for your next employees on Facebook, especially amongst your own evangelists.

Be mentioned

You should keep updated on what people are writing about your business. Trough 24SevenSocial Listen you get notifications every time someone writes about your business online. You can also use the application Mention. These tools will help you to always be aware of what your audience are writing about you, even though they didn´t tag your business in their post. And you can reply. You should also keep doing marketing or PR-stunts on your  page to make your fans smile and talk about you. As a business you should have opinions and from time to time start a conversation or a debate about something that can be a controversy.

Be prepared

Before you sit down to write a post, you should have a goal and make your post help you to reach your goals. Make sure your post isn’t just another post to fill your wall with. In your business plan you have goals you want to reach, and I ask you to treat Facebook with the same respect.

Keynotes to take away from this blogpost are to be relevant, open, goofy, prepared, mentioned and scouting. Use 24SevenSocial and Facebook´s Business Manager, and always keep your evangelists in mind when posting. Remember to make them smile and the world will be a better place because of you. And have fun!