Social Media 101: How to organically launch your brand’s social media platform

Launching your brand’s very first social media platform can be exciting and nerve-wracking at the beginning. Of course your main goal here is to drive social media users to your website or e-shop and convert them to customers. However, in this day and age, brands are expected to be more relevant and engaging to its target community especially in the universe of instagram, facebook, tik-tok, and twitter. So, how do you do that? How will you be able to sell while being relevant? 

First thing’s first — set your objectives. Although these vary depending on your needs, it’s always very important to keep three things in mind:

• To curate a social media platform that resonates to the identity of your brand and your market;
• To engage your social media market and make them build a relationship with your brand;
• To develop a content calendar that would help drive more social media engagement that would lead to eventual conversion.

“Why did the conversion come last?” Well, you see… you can’t really skip steps in launching your social media platforms unless you’re willing to spend on a huge amount of media budget right away. It takes A LOT patience! So take a chill pill and we’ll share with you how to get started in organically launching your social media platform.

‍

The Content

As they say, “Content is King” — and to be fairly honest, that’s so true! Why? Because putting out social media content for businesses serves as an Ad. Imagine Times Square, New York is Instagram and the people there are the users. With the thousands of Billboard and LED Ads you’ll see there, how will you be able to stand out?

This just means that you have to be extra creative when developing content. That’s why in this section we will be sharing with you the 3 kinds of social media content that should be included in any brand’s content plan namely, Lead Generation Content, Proof of Credibility, and Breakers. Each content serves a purpose that will help drive traffic into your social media platforms and also help promote the brand, may it be through Instagram or Facebook. The exact definition and examples can be found below:

Lead Generation Content

Lead generation content is any kind of post that has the intention to sell or capture demand. These could be in the form of the following:

• Product Highlight Shots/ Videos 
• Showcasing of Product Usage 
• How to Purchase
• Membership Invitation 
• Product Announcements

Tips: 

• Even though the main goal here is to convert social media users to customers, it should not be too much of a hard-sell. Try to stick with themes and make it relevant to the audience. 
• Make use of the caption for the perfect sales pitch. Start off with something that speaks to them — a tone that they can identify with. Follow through with how your brand can take part in that and provide links to the landing page where they can explore the product further. Additionally, through the use of a software like dimelo.at, you can create a page for social media profiles and then give your leads clear directions and call to action, right from your bio.
• Make sure to also use the right hashtags at the bottom of the post. We would recommend looking into through apps like Preview.

Proof of credibility

Proof of credibility are posts that showcase information about the brand and why they should purchase your product. These are very important as today’s market is very aware and conscious of brands that they can trust and products that actually work. These could be in the form of the following examples:

• About the brand ex. What We Do / How it all started 
• Brand logo
• Testimonies from Publication magazines
• Reviews from users 
• Talk about the Brand’s Awards/ Recognitions  
• FAQs

Tips:

• Quote the most interesting line from the testimony and incorporate the logo of the awarding body or publication magazine. 
• Use stars for them to easily identify posts that talk about reviews (★★★★★)
• Make use of the caption to write the full testimony if needed. Make sure to tag the awarding body (if they are on Social Media) or the magazine. Don’t forget to use the hashtags as well. 
• Linking the landing page to the products/ About page could work here as well.

Breakers

Breakers are the type of posts that “makes the feed breathe” in the sense that the entire content is not always about the product or brand. Aside from that, breakers are also “shareable” contents that your audience can relate to and can be possibly shared through their network via stories, reposts, and the like. Some examples of these are the following: 

• Images of your products with Models
• Inspirational Quotes 
• Illustrations 
• News 
• Educational Tips 
• Memes (If opting for a friendlier tone)*

Tip: 

• Breakers give the impression that your social media content is not too much of a hard-sell and that you share posts that identify with them, so make sure to always have these kinds of posts sandwiched in between your Lead Generation and Proof of Credibility posts. 

Overall notes:

• These apply to Instagram Stories as well.
• Make sure to use Instagram features such as ‘Swipe-up’ (for +10k followers) ‘Visit Store’ to link landing pages. (Available on Business Accounts)
• When using Instagram Stories, make sure to also make use of features such as Polls, Questions, Shop Now, etc. to drive user engagement.

The Content Calendar

After knowing which types of content you shall post on your brand’s social media platform, you may now move on to the next level which is plotting your content calendar. You may be asking “why do I have to make a content calendar when I could just post what I want whenever I want?” Well, it really doesn't go that way. Go back to your objectives and read through it, and you’ll realize that in order to achieve those goals, you have to strategize. The content calendar shall serve as a backbone for you to get the best out of your social media efforts and we’re here to share with you some useful tips in constructing your own content calendar.

The Content Plan 

Start off by developing a content plan of what should be posted according to your campaign/ marketing timeline or by assigning a type of posts per day in a week. Below are two possible ways to develop a content plan:

Example 1: Week 1 — Product announcement 

• Monday - Brand Logo
• Tuesday - Breaker-Illustration
• Wednesday -  Teaser Videos/ Images Part 1
• Thursday - About the brand
• Friday - Creative Shots with Models (What to expect)
• Saturday - Quote from Publication

Example 2: Assigned content type per day in a week

• Monday - Breaker
• Tuesday - Lead Generation 
• Wednesday - Lead Generation 
• Thursday - Proof of Credibility 
• Friday - Lead Generation
• Saturday - Proof of Credibility or Breaker‍

Tip: Make sure to share these posts in the Stories as well and engage the community through the Instagram features that were previously mentioned. 

Content Creation

It’s totally up to you how you’d like to design your content and we encourage you to get your creative juices flowing. We just want to share some tips that would guide you in this fun and creative journey. See them below:

Design Wise 

• Make sure to stick to your brand’s color palette for coherence and to make you feed look more put together.
• Make sure images also stick to the same tone, for ex.:

• Images used should have a touch of color from the palette
• Photos must have the same filter / preset

• Make sure the elements are not too crowded
  

Formats and Sizes

• Perfect square size is 1500 x 1500 pixels (both PNG image and mp4 video) 
• Perfect vertical size is 1080 x 1920 (both PNG image and mp4 video) 
• Make use of threads (10 max images in one post) for posts that have intricate details 
• Make use of an entire block for posts. These are perfect for the start of the announcement period. Ex below: 

• Plotting the Feed - To make sure the layouts look good together, always make it a practice to plot them together in 3 rows and 3 columns (just like the feed). You may use our suggested app called Preview to organize your content and make sure it looks good as a whole.
• The Power of Stories - In addition, spend some time creating content for specific formats, such as stories and IGTVs. We can not highlight enough how useful superstory.io is. This awesome tool allows you to use your social media content on your website as well! Hassle free and absolutely easy! 

The Calendar

There are so many ways on how to develop a content calendar. It’s also up to you if you want to use Google Sheets, Notion, Trello, and other softwares to organize them. Regardless of what software you intend to use, here are some important things to take note of when developing your content calendar:

Plot the Content Calendar with the following elements:

• Type of Post (Lead Generation/ Proof of Credibility/ Breaker)
• The Layout (identify the sizes needed: Square or Vertical)
• The Caption (Should include links and hashtags)
• Date and Time of Posting ‍

Posting Schedule:

• Post Frequency varies depending on your marketing calendar. For product announcements, product launches and the like, make sure there is content everyday (both in Posts and Stories). 

According to Sprout Social, best days and times to post Lead Generation content are Wednesday at 11 a.m. and Friday from 10 a.m.–11 a.m, since these are the peak hours for Global Social Media Engagement. Provided below are more insights on the best days to post depending on the kind of content:

• However, we highly suggest to only use these guides at the beginning. Make sure you know what works for you by analyzing your insights. Ask yourself these questions: “Which day has the highest engagement?” “Which post has the highest number of likes?” “What time did I post them?” “How would I know which actually works?” We suggest doing A/B Tests! Try posting on different days and times then you’ll be able to gather the insights you need.
• Would be great to schedule posts for convenience through third party applications or softwares such as Later. Pro version allows the business to schedule threads and stories. 

Well there you have it folks! Try applying these tips and it will surely help you strategize your branding efforts, and understand how to use social media platforms as your acquisition channel. Do you want to take steps further and level up your social media game? Hit us up and schedule a call!