6 Things to Do Before Launching Your Brand's Social Media Presence
Before You Launch
6 things to do before you launch on social media
For new brands, one of the most exciting parts of the launch process is the debut of a shiny, new social media presence on all the main platforms. It’s an announcement to the interwebs that a business is open and ready for customers. A common motivator I hear when kicking off is “we just need posts on the page!” or “ we need to make sure we’re creating buzz!” In the grand scheme of things, this makes sense. How else do we let people know that we’re coming if we don’t perform a social media blitz to get people excited and stay top of mind? I get it. But if you knew better, you’d do better.
Here’s the thing--buzz only gets you so far. After the initial awareness play, you’d better be ready to drive some conversions or risk a social media feed full of cool pictures, high engagement, no conversions. Dramatic? Yes. But it's only because I want the best for you. Here are some things that are even more important for a new brand, just starting out on social media.
1. Have a Timeline in Place
The last thing you want is to jump on social media out of excitement when you don’t have a clear business launch timeline. When is launch day? Where will you be located? What's the website? If it's not set in stone yet, hold off on pulling the trigger on Instagram. People are going to begin to ask questions and want more information. If you can't provide it, you risk being seen as amateur and disorganized.
Lots of unanswered questions will also make it difficult to create a solid content strategy or a plan for consistent, relevant, content. You’ll be forced to supplement with last-minute content (likely irrelevant) just to maintain a consistent posting cadence. Simply put, you’ll run out of relevant content, and soon people will start scrolling past your posts, setting off a negative chain reaction in algorithm-land. Dramatic? Yes again. But follow me--social media is a lot more than filling your profile with the most popular memes and pop-culture news. In fact--unless you’re a publication, or blog with that focus, those types of content most will likely not resonate with your target audience. If you hype people up for a new brand, you know what people want to see? Updates. A release date. A link to purchase. Information about your service. People using your product. Have a clear timeline so you can create excitement without giving enough time to lose interest while you "figure it out".
2. Set Measurable Goals
Social Media is a lot of fun, but most importantly, it’s a tool to create awareness, drive traffic to your website, create leads, and get people to sign up for your e-mail list. There’s room for shameless flat lay spreads and color coordinated Instagram feeds, but make sure each piece of content ties back to a goal in some way. Start by establishing who you’re looking to reach using social, what your content should drive them to do, and what success looks like.
3. Establish Metrics and KPI’s
For every goal, there are metrics and key performance indicators (KPI's) that can tell you how you’re tracking. You can find out which videos people are watching the most, which pieces of content are driving people to click links, and gain insight on variables you may want to test--often right in the native application. Don't stop at simply viewing the metrics. In your analysis, consider why certain pieces are performing better? Is your audience reacting better to dark, moody shots than the light airy aesthetic? Do they respond better to more buttoned up, business-writing or do they click more when your copy is fun and friendly? When you have the right metrics in place, you can use your findings to optimize your content and better meet your goals.
4. Develop a Content Strategy
It's a lot easier to plan your content month to month, when you have parameters in place for the types of messages you want to share. Consider it your north star as you're deciding whether your content is post-worthy. Your strategy should specify content themes/categories, tone of voice, posting cadence, which channels you'll use, audience segments and how you will address each audience.
5. Build a Library of Assets to Pull From
Even if you’ve planned out a content calendar and have all your ducks in a row, what if you need to make a last minute pivot? Have some things lined- up so you can begin create concepts for the next month. Stay ahead of it and you’ll never have to scramble. You can always plug in real-time content in the moment, but start with a solid foundation of evergreen content that you could plug in anywhere as well. If you don't have original images to include, there are lots of options for free stock images from sites like unsplash and pexels.
6. Build a Landing Page
If one day, social media just happened to combust into digital dust, you’d better have an online presence elsewhere. If you’re launching before your website is done (why are you doing that?) you should create a landing page to capture email address to build your email list later. Customers need somewhere to go. If you’re promoting an upcoming launch with just a social media page, the likes and comments are certainly gratifying, but you’re missing out on tons of opportunity to get directly into the inboxes of potential customers as opposed to them maybe seeing your organic content on their timeline.