How to use social media to drive early traction for SaaS marketing.
Traditionally social media was used in B2C marketing, with platforms like LinkedIn often reserved for B2B social. However, research suggests that 77.9% of the UK population are now active social media users. With the average user spending more than 110 minutes per day online.
The largest platforms remain Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, and not only do your potential customers use these platforms, but they also use them to discover brand content and follow influencers. This gives SaaS companies a great range of tools to educate, entertain and engage with their audience in a variety of ways.
In our recent blog “The SaaS Marketing Guide” we explored how aligning your PR & social content provides an alternative way to communicate. And, by how showing social proof, being responsive and sharing data-driven content can give you a cost-effective marketing tool that provides results.
In today’s article, we take a look at the following.
- Channel mix – What are the right channels for marketing your SaaS brand?
- Creative – How creative do you need to be?
- Thought leadership – How social can be leveraged
- Employee Advocacy – How to use your employees to expand your reach.
What are the right Social Media channels for SaaS?
When building your social media strategy, it is important to understand on which platforms your audiences are likely to reside. Whilst LinkedIn seems like a natural fit for corporate-leaning firms, brands can fall into the B2B trap of assuming LinkedIn is the only way to target professionals. C-Suite figures and decision makers are also very likely to be active on the more traditionally B2C platforms of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or at least one of them.
If you discover a strong audience on the consumer-based platforms, providing messaging and assets tailored towards the channel is often found to deliver better performance. For example, the use of video on Instagram, such as reels and stories, alongside shorter copy and call-to-action is a sure-fire way to engage with your audience.
Finally, considering a paid strategy allows you to target your audience based on interests and locations, allowing you to cut through the organic ‘noise’ and hone in on your exact target userbase.
When to be creative?
It is well understood that creative assets perform well on LinkedIn. However, it is important to ensure your creative assets serve a purpose, such as a video view, website page click or lead generation from completion.
On LinkedIn, there are many additional functions and assets bespoke to that channel. These include slideshows, PDF integrations and Infographic animation that can allow you to flex your brand creatively. In addition, video has proven to be a massive driver of engagement on the platform.
In terms of post copy, LinkedIn favours longer-form content more than the likes on Facebook. However, being creative with how you present your offering is what is important. We currently work with a client who prefers a problem vs solution approach. This involves them presenting real-life problems that their target audience encounters. Subsequently, they can provide an appropriate solution with the copy.
Utilising your brand’s network.
Thought leadership remains an important part of social media for SaaS. Senior figure profiling allows you to tap into a large number of connections of your CEOs, CFO etc. In addition, it allows you to build trust, recognition and loyalty. As they promote the new service or product and share insights into why their software is market leading. The audience is more likely to go and listen for themselves.
Senior Figures can also supplement the wider business strategy. If you’re launching a new product or celebrating a milestone, you can push the content through the business page AND the c-suite profiles. This allows you to create special content for C-Suite as well which further builds the awareness of the product or milestone.
Using employee advocacy.
It is thought that whilst only 3% of employees share content about their company, those shares are responsible for driving a 30% increase in the total engagement a company sees.
Therefore, make use of your employees to build the organic reach of your content. It can be a great way of building the reputation of your brand by presenting a healthy company. If your staff are sharing and publishing positive content about the company, it presents the firm as a good place to work and a good to do business if you’re a potential customer. To find out more LinkedIn has a whole section dedicated to employee advocacy here.
If you have any questions or comments about anything mentioned above. Please let us know in the comments section below.
Furthermore, you can find out more about working with us here.