A Social Media Marketing Success Story (That Could be Your Own)

86.8% of U.S. marketers were using Facebook in 2019. In 2020, this number is likely to reach a whopping 87.1%. Mr. Zuckerberg had given us a wonderful social networking tool. One fine morning, we all Facebook users could sense that this beautiful networking site has turned a viable social media marketing platform. The number of marketers using Facebook has only increased since then. Very few people take this fact seriously and explore all possibilities of making a profit out of this popular social platform.

My friend Stella has an inspiring story about using social media (for marketing success)

My friend Stella used to spend almost eleven hours a day on social media. Strange fact is, she didn’t spend a single moment for marketing her cupcake business on any social platform. That is the blunder many start-up owners are making every day, losing out 100s of valuable marketing hours on social media. 66% users have admitted that they like and follow a particular brand on Facebook. Then, why shouldn’t you market actively on that platform?

It is a crime to waste all opportunities coming your way through social media. When you are fighting the battle for your start-up, social media is an effective weapon to fight your battle with. You should create loads of visual content and post them on social media. Visual content on different social networking sites gives you the edge. With graphical posts, you can market your startup on social media.

A social media marketing journey began

Already feeling a little shaky? No worries, I am right beside you and ready to hold your hand at every single falter.

Start your venture with lovely visual posts for different social networking platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter offer you ample space to thoroughly explore social media space for effective marketing.

No matter what business you have, Facebook is always a safe and effective platform to start your marketing.

Facebook posts with images ensure 2.3X engagement than without them:

So, you have a reason to have an operational Facebook page, right? The moment you publish your first promotional post on your Facebook page, you start building a connection with users. It takes bit information and bit graphics to make an interesting balance. However, on Facebook, images draw more likes, comments and shares than texts, videos or even links. You connect to your targets with that post. That bond only grows stronger with every post.

I know that most start-up owners consider Facebook to be almost synonymous with social media. Despite all the other social networking sites on the list, Facebook still remains the cherry on top. Take a look at the bar chart below. Facebook still leads the way in social media marketing for small businesses.  

As a start-up business, your first marketing attempt should be creating a Facebook page. The design, message of your Facebook page depends on your type of business and target audience. Sometimes, your Facebook posts can be for pure marketing, while in other cases, they can be simple celebration on special occasions.

Stella used Facebook smartly for social media marketing

Do you remember Stella? My friend who started a cupcake business. She created a Facebook page for her business, took snaps of her delicious cupcakes. Some of the images were captured with her sons, the greatest fans of her work. They were probably the happiest looking posts on Facebook. As a result, all of them gained loads of like and love reactions. Within one month of creating her Facebook page, Stella got her first order for cakes.

She also started announcing special offers, discounts on special occasions. There were announcements for Christmas gifts, occasional discounts, offering New Year goodies et al. Her Facebook page now takes care of all these. It was a great idea as the total number of active Facebook users exceed the total population of China. One in every 4 people in the world is on Facebook. So, it makes sense to have a Facebook page for your start-up business. Doesn’t it?  

You just need to create a beautiful Facebook post for maximum engagement. Sounds tricky? No worries. You can rely on DocHipo templates to create actionable Facebook posts. At least Stella did that.

In the above set of images, we see a template from DocHipo (on left) that Stella edited to create Facebook post for her business (on right).

Within 6 years of launch Instagram achieved 600 Million users:

What an amazing fact, isn’t it? After her business gained a foothold in Facebook, Stella seemed hungry for more. Her Facebook users started contacting her, placing bulk orders for family or community celebrations. But somehow, she was not satisfied. She sensed that she could push her potentials further for new avenues.

For this purpose, she needed exposer to a wider demography. She wanted to tap the Instagram users too. That way, she could reach out to generation Z, who uses Instagram most frequently. According to research, 73% of young adults aged between 18 and 23 use Instagram actively.

Stella decided to use Instagram for social media marketing

So, she jumped into Instagram. Started adorning her wall with beautiful pictures of yummy looking cupcakes. A comparatively younger group started ordering cakes from her online business. Both, the reach and scope of her business actually increased. And why shouldn’t that be? After all, engagement rate on Instagram is actually 15 times higher compared to Facebook and 20 times more than Twitter. She became popular among more people, started earning even more.

Hmm… Working on Stella’s plan was not easy. She needed certain important elements for that purpose. First of all, she needed a beautiful set-up to mix and cook her products. That was needed to get beautiful pictures for uploading to Instagram. A high-end camera was an absolute necessity. Good light conditions, other props were necessary to make the images look out of the world and the list just goes on and on. After all, Stella needed to compete with 60 million more photos uploaded to Instagram each day.

A new journey started on Instagram

 Stella went a bit slow and tried to match her capacity. During her initial Instagram days, she did not have enough capital to invest in her home-bred cupcake business. She purchased a good camera but didn’t know much about what to do with that. She couldn’t even get a gorgeous set-up to create a ravishing background for her Instagram images.

Later on, she started purchasing all that she needed to project her ability on social platforms. She purchased a high-end camera and took beautiful snaps to upload. However, she lacked effective designing skills to create beautiful visual content and post on Instagram. Only an image wasn’t enough. She needed to use that image skilfully to create actionable social posts.

In such a condition she needed ready templates to work with. If your case is the same, you too can do what Stella did. You can depend on templates of Instagram posts stocked in DocHipo. Just get some snaps of your own creations, repurpose the templates with such images and turn them into beautiful Instagram posts that work perfectly in favour of your business.

Take a look above to see how Stella transformed a DocHipo template into a beautiful Instagram post for her convenience. See, it’s easy!

Tweets with images draw 18% more clicks & 150% more retweets:

So, the next time you tweet, make a little extra effort. Attach a beautiful image specially if you are trying to promote your product on Twitter. This particular social platform has a very niche group. A group that has 41% people with an average income above US$75,000, which is 9 points higher than the average population.

Twitter is already known for its highly educated user base. 32% Twitter users are college graduates. Stella thought it was time to be on the side of this group also. So, he decided to have his Twitter business page. Pretty soon, STELLA’S CUPCAKES became popular on Twitter. Beautiful images of her cupcakes attracted a large group of customers on this platform.

How Stella used Twitter in favour of her marketing process

It was time for Stella to have a broad smile. But, things did not always go quite smoothly. After a few hits and misses in the beginning finally, Stella could manage to come out with a few beautiful Twitter images. By that time, she became a pro baker, she already had a stock of beautiful (and quite good quality) images of her baked and decorated finished products. She used them in her Twitter posts. Her followers were simply in love with her creations.

Stella was simply enjoying all the followings and a huge number of retweets on the platform. She was seriously trying to bank on relationship marketing. It is difficult for start-ups to bank on traditional marketing methods. That needs money and time to kick off. Relationship building on social media is comparatively easier. Your tweets bridge the gap between you and your followers. It worked for Stella as well.

How you can leverage social media in favour of your business

But you need to post frequently for a close and strong connection. If you do not monitor your communications with followers on all social media channels, that bond might get loosened with time. Instant reply, ready solution, on-the-go help keep your customers happy. Such instantaneous reactions flatter your users. They feel like promoting your brand without a prominent request from your end. 77% customers have admitted that they feel confident and highly positive about a brand when they receive a reply to their tweets from that organization. That is not a negligible figure, right?

It was time for Stella to create graphical messages for fruitful twitter communication. Her followers on Twitter could see her products real-time and place order right with a comment. Sounds too good to be true??? Absolutely not. In fact, tweets along with images actually get 150% more retweets. Ah ha…Stella is more popular now, thanks to all the retweets by her followers. As a result, she started getting bigger deals. A larger group of prospects are adding to her list of followers every day.

Check out the template below on DocHipo and the final document after Stella edited it for her use. The result wasn’t too bad for a novice designer, right?

The Journey is Still on…

Stella was going good with her social media marketing performance. She was also quite satisfied with the results. Her profit margin too started shooting off. Now, at the back of her mind, she is mulling over taking her journey a little forward to become an expert baker, a celebrated pastry chef. If you are curious to know where she went from here, I will definitely let you know that. Stay tuned to know what happened to STELLA’S CUPCAKES.

As of now, start using DocHipo templates for marketing your small business on different social media platforms. To do so, first thing first, sign up to DocHipo. Happy designing, happy social marketing ?.