Innovative Ways To Market Your Start-Up Business (and Successfully) Through Social Media Marketing

Over the last ten years technology has advanced quite a bit, including the way that social media is used. First generation social media platforms like Myspace were basically used by people to connect with other like-minded individuals. It was used to share your life and everything about you, including your up and coming band, short films, etc. Today, however, social media is so much more than that -- especially for small to medium sized businesses and start-up businesses around the globe. In all essence, social media is something that can help you make your brand go viral.

As a start-up business it is very important to understand just how important social media is when it comes to marketing your business and the growth of your company. The article below talks about three different ways that start-ups are driving results through social media:

1. Warby Parker  

Social strategy: Encouraging user-generated content that drives brand awareness. 

Warby Parker, a New York City-based online seller of vintage-inspired eyeglasses and sunglasses, is using social media to reinvent how people shop for and purchase eyewear. It does this by shipping customers five pairs of frames that they select from Warby Parker's website in packaging that encourages them to take pictures of themselves wearing the glasses and then post the shots on their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Customers can take five full days to test the glasses before shipping them back and, the company hopes, placing an order.
The strategy behind the Home Try-On campaign is for shoppers to get feedback from their social-media friends and contacts on which pair fits them best, while generating a positive, social buzz around Warby Parker's brand "in a natural, organic way," says co-founder and co-CEO David Gilboa. Customers who post photos of themselves in frames are buying at twice the rate as those who don't, he says. 

Shoppers seeking opinions outside of their own social-media circles can submit pictures to Warby Parker's Facebook page for additional feedback. Home Try-On participants have posted some 25,000 images on the company's Facebook Timeline and more than 40,000 on Instagram since the promotion was started in February 2010.  

"Don't view social media as just another way to push your marketing messaging," Gilboa advises. "Think of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as critical customer service gateways and take the time to respond to each and every customer who reaches out to you there. Each comment, photo and tweet gives you an opening to directly communicate with them on a meaningful, personalized basis that encourages brand loyalty."




The founders of Pork Barrel BBQ created their own social-media platform for BBQ fanatics.  

2. Pork Barrel BBQ   

Social strategy: Creating its own social community.  

Who needs Facebook when you can invent your own social-media network specifically tailored to your target demographic? That's what Heath Hall and Brett Thompson did in February 2011, creating Backyard BBQ, a social-media network for barbeque enthusiasts.
The co-founders of Pork Barrel BBQ, an Alexandria, Va.-based barbeque sauce, restaurant and catering company, noticed that barbeque fans from around the world were interacting on internet message boards and forums that didn't allow them to share, comment on or like photos and videos. In response, the company developed a free online social space for grillers of all skill levels, from backyard beginners to competitive pit masters, so they can swap recipes, cook-off stories and pictures and videos from the pit.  

Hall and Thompson invited legendary pit masters, such as Johnny Trigg, Pat Burke, Rod Gray and Melissa Cookston, to join the social network and help spread the word in their own social networks and grilling circles. Backyard BBQ has grown to 4,312 members from in the U.S. and in more than 20 different countries, Hall says, and it is driving "a significant amount of traffic" to the company's main website where people can buy sauces and rubs.  

From concept to launch, it took about six months for Hall and his Pork Barrel BBQ co-founder Brett Thompson to develop BBQ Backyard. They developed the platform using Ning, an online service that lets individuals and businesses quickly, relatively easily design, create and host their own custom social networks. Ning offers a 14-day free trial and basic monthly prices range between $25 and $99. Hall says it cost about $500 in all to get BBQ Backyard off the ground.  

Pork Barrel BBQ has its own member profile on Backyard BBQ, of course, featuring blog posts, how-to cooking videos, recipes and promotional event photos. Hall encourages fellow small-business owners to launch their own specialized social networks "if there is a void in their particular market." Hall says the benefits "can be enormous in terms of networking, spreading your brand message, learning about new opportunities and giving back to the community."

You can read the rest of the article here.

If you're a start-up business that is looking to grow your company there are a various ways that the use of social media can make that happen. Classic Image is a creatively driven marketing and design company that thrives on helping businesses grow; a company that has helped hundreds of start-up businesses with their marketing and social media campaign, providing excellent results for a reasonable price. The company is insanely creative, coming up with innovative ways to grow your business, regardless of your niche. Give them a ring! 

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Content Marketing: How to Grow Your Business With Content

Content is King...it's Just the Way It Is

As a small to medium sized business you might have heard the phrase "content is king" somewhere along the line. It might seem crazy, but the truth of the matter is that content IS king and content marketing is something that small to medium sized businesses will need to take advantage of at some point or another, especially if they are looking to grow their business. 

We have worked with hundreds of clients who have been working on building their business for years only to find that their marketing campaigns have lacked a few major key factors that are simply imperative if you're looking for profit, growth and wealth. 

As a small to medium sized business it is very important that you include these factors within your marketing campaign: 

1. Strong Brand (one that will stand out from your competitors) 
2. Marketing Campaign that includes Social Media Marketing and SEO
3. Content Marketing

With these three key factors incorporated into your marketing campaign you will see that the growth you're seeking will hit home. You might want to consider looking for a company to help you with your marketing needs so that they can focus on marketing your business while you can focus on what matters most -- growing your business.

Content marketing is extremely important and it isn't something that just anyone can succeed in. It takes time and skill, and yes, a little bit of strategy. In a recent article (below), Joe Pulizzi talks about the top ten content marketing strategies from the last 15 years: 

1. There is no silver bullet
Regardless of what anyone says, there is no silver bullet when it comes to content marketing strategy. So many marketers are looking for the perfect dashboard, system, process, and distribution plan for their content marketing. It simply doesn’t exist. We’ve worked with hundreds of small and large brands around the world, and only one thing has been consistent: Every plan we developed was different. Why? It’s simple: The mixture of communicating what your business offers, delivering on your customers’ informational needs, and sharing your own corporate story is impossible to duplicate —  the output from your particular blend of attributes and goals should always be different and unique. 

As Don Schultz, the father of integrated marketing, has always professed, competitors can copy everything about what you do… your pricing, your product, where you promote it… but they can’t copy exactly how you will communicate. 

2. You can play offense or defense 

One of my favorite basketball players of all time is Julius “Dr. J” Erving. I’ve heard many interviews in which Dr. J talks about two ways to look at basketball offense: You can impose your will on the defense, or you can take what the defense gives you. Dr. J always chose to exert his own will, and that worked for him (quite well, in fact). LeBron James, on the other hand, usually takes what the defense gives him, which is why he racks up so many assists.
Both strategies can be effective. At CMI, we decided to exert our will with the term “content marketing.” In 2007, we popped onto the scene and started using the term like it had been around for years. Through lots of planning, strategy, and luck, it worked, and now content marketing is the defacto term for our industry. (Incidentally, HubSpot did the same thing with “inbound marketing.”) 

But imposing your will is just one way to do it. You could also choose to ride the waves of others and pick your sweet spot. A great example of this is Social Media Examiner. When it launched in 2009, many thought it was late to the party… but it rode the social media wave and executed a content marketing strategy second to none, growing into one of the most-trafficked B2B marketing sites on the planet. 

3. Content marketing is the great equalizer 

“David vs. Goliath” is alive and well in content marketing. Large budgets don’t always win; actually, the smaller players usually come out on top because they are equipped to move more agilely and quickly than their larger competition. For instance, CMI had a smaller budget than almost every marketing media company on the planet, yet we came out on top through focus and hard work. I’ve never seen a bigger company move faster than a smaller organization. OpenView Venture Partners is, relatively speaking, a small VC company compared to its peers. On the web, though, it dominates. 

4. You don’t have to be on all platforms 

In many cases, it’s smart to weave your story onto multiple platforms. It’s entirely possible to have a killer webinar series, amazing blog, outstanding video program, and cutting-edge digital magazine all at the same time.
But there is another way. You may decide to focus and work to dominate one platform. How about a killer podcast series? What about an amazing print newsletter? Maybe a blog is just the platform for you. 

Yes, you construct your strategy before choosing your channels, but don’t feel obligated to be active on every channel that your customer uses. The international travel magazine, Monocle, has just a print magazine. No iPad version. No Facebook page. It works for the magazine and its readers. 

Sometimes simple and focused is better. 

5. Subscribers rule 

If I have one regret as a content marketer, it’s that I didn’t focus early enough on generating subscribers. It took us years of experimenting, but we finally found our “Moneyball number:” the subscriber. We’ve found that once someone is a subscriber, they do different things than non-subscribers that lead to more revenue for us. Instead of converting from content to an immediate sales opportunity, we’ve found that converting from content to more content is the best way (for us). (For more on subscribers, please check out these outstanding reports from ExactTarget — a great example of content marketing, as well.)

You can read the rest of the article here.

If you or your business is in need of content marketing or general marketing assistance, Classic Image is a premier marketing and design agency that has helped hundreds of companies over the last decade. They are affordable, too, so you don't have to spend an arm and a leg while you're trying to bring your business to the top.

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