Social Media Marketing Strategy for Start-ups​: The Tech Guide

What is Social Media Marketing?

A social media marketing strategy for start-ups is a thorough plan of how a business will use social media to educate and engage its target audience, ultimately to offer its products or services and convert them into customers over time.

If tech start-ups want to reach their target market, they, of course, need to go where that audience is hanging out.

Today, Backlinko reports that 5.24B people are on social media. Whether start-ups like it or not, social media will play a role in the overall marketing mix. HubSpot also found that Tech start-ups that maximise social media get a higher chance of breaking through the top business marketing challenge: getting traffic and leads.

Why You Need a Social Media Marketing Strategy for Start-ups

Social Pilot states that 73% of marketers find social media marketing highly effective for businesses. Sprout Social reports that Gen Z—one of the largest and most active demographics—is especially present on Instagram, with 91% using the platform.

Of course, Gen Z is not the only demographic out there, despite being the largest size of 2.5B (Akademia Baru). MSCI’s report also showed that Millennials are approximately 1.8B in size (MSCI), Gen X is at 65M (Investopedia), and Gen Alpha is at 2B (McCrindle). Tapping into social media marketing is becoming key for start-ups building their brand effectively.

Of course, a good social media marketing strategy for start-ups requires a social platform. Do some research to figure out where your ICP hangs out, then do some testing to validate this. You will usually find that one or two are your best channels, which you will scale. However, continuing to experiment to uncover more channels as you grow will be important.

Audience Traffic

Sprout Social’s report showed the top social media platforms of 2024. Different demographics favour different platforms as seen below:

• Gen Z – most active on Instagram and TikTok
• Millennials – active on Instagram and Facebook
• Baby Boomers – mostly active on Facebook

Personal Interaction

Another important aspect of a social media marketing strategy for start-ups is the rich personal interaction it offers. Social media users connect personally using their platforms. They share experiences, opinions and thoughts for others to see. It is a form of human connection unique to our techno generation.

As a tech startup, you’ll typically be focusing on a key pain point and ICP (rather than the broader solution of a more mature org). This makes social media an ideal channel to tap into that pain in a more personal way. Eg, creating conversation around those pain points and bringing the solution to the public via a common ground or experience. This builds a meaningful relationship with your early customers that will greatly contribute to growth.

Brand Recognition

Being active on social media helps with brand awareness. The more active a tech start-up’s social media presence is, the higher the chance for your target audience to get a glimpse of you and start building recognition.

Building a Social Media Marketing Strategy for Start-ups

Measure KPIs

What are the main goals of a social media marketing strategy for start-ups? Carefully define your goals, including the game plan and timeline to achieve them, so you can measure and calibrate where needed. The most common ones for startups are growth and brand visibility.

These goals will automatically guide you to the KPIs you want to measure. Here are some metrics used by start-ups:

• Impressions (To measure awareness)
• Click-through rate (To measure engagement)
• Monthly traffic from socials (To measure conversions)

Create Customer Avatars

To build a strong social media marketing strategy for start-ups, you need to craft and distribute the right message to your audience. This is only possible once you know who your target audience is. What demographic is your buyer? How big is the audience size? What are their interests?

These criteria will be the basis of your marketing efforts, e.g., the tone of your copy, the graphic design, and the social platform/s you will use.

Also, don’t assume that everyone will interact with your social posts. Or at least not right away. In the early stages of your start-up, study your tech product, build a targeted and personalized approach, and focus on really engaging that niche audience first.

Plan the Content Calendar

Now that you have your goal, KPIs, and target audience established, it’s time to build your content calendar. Social media platforms measure a profile’s post activity. Profiles that are active with posting relevant and credible content have higher chances of appearing to their audience.

Tech start-ups face heavy market competition. You are unlikely to get heavy traffic right off the bat. It may even take months before you reach half of your KPI metrics. But maintaining a regular social media presence will show your audience that you are engaged in the market and dedicated to a stable social media credibility.

Conduct Regular Analysis

Do more of what your audience loves, and less of what they don’t. You’ll know this by using the platform’s analytics function, which will show you how your audience interacts with your posts. Regularly reevaluate your start-up’s social media marketing strategy and adjust as needed.

There are lots of additional tools available online, so find the ones that fit your budget and posting frequency. Some examples are Google Analytics and LinkedIn Analytics.

Also, set a scheduled analysis to compare KPIs like post interactions and customer conversions. For example, we do a weekly content performance analysis for our Salient LinkedIn business profile. We test content by posting topics that often receive comments—like updates on tech funding and the job market. This way, we can share more of what our audience finds most valuable.

Kicking Off a Social Media Marketing Strategy for Start-ups

The last tip on building a social media marketing strategy for start-ups: initiate audience interaction. Reply to comments and start insightful conversations with similar tech businesses’ posts. This shows that you’re proactive in contributing to the tech community and conversation. It also shows a more human side to your social media profile.

Creating a social media marketing strategy for start-ups is a great way to grow customer reach. And for a tech start-up in a pool of different businesses with almost similar product features, growing a healthy customer reach is a strength you want to maximise to set yourself apart.

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