Francesca Olsen is Publisher of the MFN Journal, and she’s also a longtime digital marketer. She spends a lot of time educating business owners, artists, and college students on digital marketing essentials; here, she shares four tips for getting started as a new startup founder or business owner.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I’m Francesca Olsen. I’m MFN’s publisher, but I’m also a long-term digital marketer and marketing consultant. I am so excited to offer a few quick content marketing tips for new startup founders, and really anybody who’s getting a business or project off the ground. So here they are.
1. Use a scheduler for content planning and posting.
As a new business owner, you are probably going to feel overwhelmed with the amount of social media that exists and the pressure in the digital world to create content. Using a scheduler for your content planning and posting will allow you to piece that out and create structure in a way that you couldn’t if you were just flying by the seat of your pants. Tailwind, Hootsuite, Later are all great options. Facebook and Meta have their own free Planner Tool. But really, if you are planning a product launch in six months, start creating content for that product launch and schedule it now. You’re going to be so thankful that you did that.
2. Take advantage of metadata and other powerful SEO tools.
Metadata is so important. It provides information to people searching for you online. If you are not optimizing your website page titles, the excerpts that show up on search engines, you are missing out. You really want to be doing that and doing keyword research, too. A quick rule of thumb is to keep your page titles to 50 to 60 characters and your descriptions to around 120 to 150. Anything longer is not going to display as a complete sentence on a Google search page result, which is confusing and a bit alienating for your end user.
3. Integrate your social media, your email, and your website.
Make sure your website has all your social media listed and linked, ensure your email signature has your website and your social media listed and linked. Make sure your social media has your website listed, plus a way to contact you. This best practice also links all these entities together so that search engines can see you are a legitimate entity with multiple linked platforms. It establishes you as someone who has various ways of representing yourself online, which is really helpful for search engine integration.
4. Anchor your content to your mission.
Don’t just focus on sales; give customers resources, perspective, education, and more. Aim for a 70/30 split, which I know can be really hard for startups because you have investors, you’re working towards sales, and you need to be making money. But you still need to give your customer something before they give something to you. You need to educate them; you need to make your case in different ways for different subsets of that customer. So, 70% content that your users really want to see and consume, 30% “buy this now” calls to action. That’s a really good split, a nice sweet spot in marketing. But you may want to test this out depending on whatever your product is.
And of course, I’m always going to say this to anybody: get serious about branding. Tell your story; make it consistent. Make all of your graphics, visuals, and colors consistent. You will look professional and be able to be more concise, informational, and entertaining to your customer.
Those are my four cool tips for you as a beginning startup founder, and if you want more tips and resources, please check out the rest of mafounders1stg.wpenginepowered.com. We have tons of stuff for you there!
