Branding On Social Media: A Startup's Perspective

There is no social media marketing budget for a start-up. The sooner you realize that you can't accomplish what others brand can by purely putting money in the right places, you start wondering if there's any meaning to social media at all. That's when you start thinking straight. It's never about the stamp ads, sponsored stories, media buys or Google ranks. Maybe a little. But it's mostly about the content. In my experience, it's only the content.

Brands have fought the 'likes' battle for the longest time. And till today it's a status symbol. "People won't think you're a legit brand if you don't have more than 20K fans", they say. I managed media spends for many brands, and I remember doing it for the commission, and not cause I saw any benefit for the brand. Today managing it for my own brand, 'Frapp', I know I have to do it right.

People want to read stories, and as a start-up you have many to share. We recently launched a 'Brands going student-friendly' campaign. We wanted to make our partner brands more accessible and welcoming. We need brands to smile more.

The campaign showcased staff members representing their respective brands, and for the first time brands were given a face. The photograph was intended to be a personal invitation by each brand. It had no promotional copy, just a brand communicating intimately with its customers.

Start-up or not, brands need to focus on creating a 'relevant' social presence. There is enough research on the web about pictures speaking louder than words. It's true. As a start-up, you can share your daily experiences via Facebook or Instagram. It could be a birthday celebration of an employee or a broken door in the office; you have to make people feel part of your journey. ​

I guess the most successful content is what interests you and not what is expected of you. As a brand owner I am tempted to post and boast about my organization on social media platforms. Hence those posts have the least engagement statistics. Just ask yourself this, “Would you like to follow your brand?”

As your fan base grows you tend to experiment less, which is what loses the brand its relevancy and 'x' factor. Tonality used should help start a conversation and keep the user from clicking the 'Unfollow' button. Do that and assume you're doing a fair job. That's fair, to know what's great, check 9gag's engagement ratio. We can't all be masters of the funny, but we can learn how the tonality hasn't changed, and how they keep up with current trends. And that's all you can do, stay current and stay relevant.