The Ultimate Guide To SaaS Social Media Marketing
According to recent studies by Smart Insights, 57.6% of the entire world’s population is on social media, with an average daily usage of 2 hours and 27 minutes.
That’s a lot of people relying on social media for their news, entertainment, and communication.
SaaS businesses can leverage this growing usage to their advantage by using social media marketing to reach out to potential customers.
This is called social media marketing.
Social media marketing is the process of using various social media platforms to promote and sell products or services.
A lot of businesses have leveraged this digital marketing channel to grow exponentially. And those include SaaS businesses.
So how important is it for a SaaS company to be present on social media networks? Is it just to reach 57.6% of the world?
Let’s discuss some benefits of having a SaaS social media marketing campaign.
Why SaaS Social Media Marketing Is Important
There are many reasons why a SaaS business should have a social media marketing campaign, but here are some of the most important ones:
It Increases Visibility And Brand Awareness
Before, for a business to be visible to its target market, they put up physical ads and billboards. They put up these huge billboards on highways, cities, and other high-traffic areas.
They still do it today. But now in the digital age, the word “traffic” also pertains to the presence of an online audience.
And where do most of the digital traffic go nowadays? Social media.
Because of the amount of traffic that goes to social media platforms, they are a great way to make your business visible to a large number of people.
And when you have a considerable following, you can easily share your latest offers and deals with them.
It Helps You Engage And Interact With Potential Customers
Social media platforms are not just a one-way street. You can actually use them to interact and engage with potential customers.
You can do this by replying to their comments, answering their questions, and sharing relevant content that they might find useful.
When you engage with them, you build a relationship with them. And when they trust you, they are more likely to do business with you.
It Can Serve As A Storefront And Sales Channel
One of the great things about social media platforms is that they can serve as a storefront and sales channel.
You can do this by including links to your SaaS product on your profile, or by having a separate landing page for your social media followers
When people see your products or services, they will be more likely to buy them.
And when they are interested in your product, you can further use the platform as a sales channel. Interested followers can message you through its live chat tools.
It Drives Inbound And Outbound Marketing Efforts
Inbound marketing is a type of digital marketing where you attract customers to your business through valuable content.
And outbound marketing is the traditional form of marketing where you proactively reach out to potential customers through various channels, such as email and calls.
Social media can help you do both inbound and outbound marketing. You can share your content through social media. And when you generate leads, you can contact them through their messaging tools.
It Helps You Build A Community Of Users And Advocates
Social media platforms are highly interactive and collaborative. This makes it a great platform for building a community of users and advocates.
When you have a loyal following, they can help promote your SaaS product for you. They can do this by sharing your content, commenting on it, and tagging their friends.
This is a great way to reach more people and grow your SaaS business.
Types Of Social Media Marketing
Now that we’ve discussed some of the benefits of social media marketing, let’s move on to its different types.
There are two main types of social media marketing: organic and paid.
Organic Social Media Marketing
Organic social media marketing is where you reach out to potential customers through unpaid methods. This involves sharing content on social media and constantly interacting with followers.
The main goal of organic social media marketing is to build a relationship with potential customers. And when they trust you, they are more likely to do business with you.
Paid Social Media Marketing
Paid social media marketing is where you use paid methods to reach out to potential customers. This can be in the form of ads or sponsored posts.
The main goal of paid social media marketing is to get your content seen by as many people as possible. And when they see your products or services, they will be more likely to buy them.
SaaS Social Media Marketing Platforms
There are many social media platforms that you can use for marketing. But not all of them will be relevant to your business.
You need to select the platform that is most popular with your target market.
Some of the most popular social media networks for marketing are:
- YouTube
- TikTok
Facebook is the largest social media platform with over almost 3 billion monthly active users.
This is a great platform to reach all sorts of markets, whether you’re gunning for a B2B or B2C audience. It’s a great platform for marketing as it has a wide reach.
What’s more, Facebook has a lot of tools that can boost your social media marketing campaigns. Those tools include live broadcasting, reviews, and Facebook groups.
And Facebook groups are a potent tool in fostering customer retention and advocacy. The platform enables you to create groups where you can grow a SaaS community and build brand loyalty among your users.
Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social media platform with over 1 billion monthly active users.
This is a great platform to use if you’re targeting a younger audience. And it’s also a great tool for building brand awareness as you can share high-quality visuals that capture people’s attention.
Twitter is a microblogging social media network with over 330 million monthly active users.
This is a great platform for quickly sharing updates on your product, or for customer support. You can also use Twitter to run ads and promote your content.
LinkedIn is a professional social network with over 690 million monthly active users.
This is a great platform for B2B marketing as it allows you to connect with other businessmen and professionals in your industry.
What’s more, company profiles usually include a lot of information about their businesses, including their workforce composition and who’s who in the company. That info would come in handy when you’re doing some market research.
YouTube
That’s right. YouTube can still be considered a social media platform. A video-sharing social media platform, to be specific.
YouTube is another great website with a wide reach. After all, it’s one of the most popular websites on the internet, having more than 2 billion monthly active users.
Aside from uploading promotional or educational videos, you can also interact with your viewers in the comment section. That’s what actually makes YouTube a social media platform.
Not only can you reach your audience through the videos. You can get closer to them by striking up a conversation in the comments section.
What’s more, YouTube’s large share of the world’s online traffic also makes it a great platform for running ads.
TikTok
Yes. Believe it or not, TikTok has been showing some potential as a tool for sharing SaaS-related content.
This is a great platform for promoting your brand as it’s a newer social network with a user base that is rapidly growing. And because it’s video-based, you can create interesting and engaging videos that will capture people’s attention.
Right now, the most trending TikToks related to SaaS has been about educating viewers on how SaaS works. Some content creators on the platform even share life hacks that you could do with SaaS products.
However, TikTok is mostly used for short-form videos. So it may not be the best platform for in-depth SaaS-related content.
Pre-Launch SaaS Social Media Marketing Strategies
SaaS social media marketing doesn’t start only after you launch your SaaS product. It should be a part of your go-to-market strategy.
Even far before the product launch, you should already have prepared the way for your social media marketing campaigns.
But how do you actually do that?
Here are some things you can do for your pre-launch social media marketing strategies:
- Identify Your Target Audience
- Know Your Key Social Media Marketing Platforms
- Create A Social Media Content Calendar
- Spark Curiosity About Your Product
- Start Producing High-Quality Content
- Build A Community Of Early Adopters
Identify Your Target Audience
The first thing you need to do is to identify your target audience.
You need to narrow down which group of people you want to reach with your social media marketing efforts.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you need to learn more about them. What are their interests? What are they looking for in a SaaS product?
Knowing this information will help you create content that is relevant and interesting to them.
You can also use this information to determine which social media platforms you should focus on.
Know Your Key Social Media Marketing Platforms
After you’ve identified your target audience, the next thing you need to do is to research which social media platforms they are using the most.
You need to know which platform has the most active users that match your target market demographics.
This way, you can focus your efforts on the social networks where most of your potential customers are.
Create A Social Media Content Calendar
The next thing you need to do is to create a social media content calendar.
Essentially, it’s a plan that outlines what content you will post on which day and on which platform.
This will help you stay organized and make sure that you’re consistently posting high-quality content.
Spark Curiosity About Your Product
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you’ll also need to start sparking curiosity about your product.
You can do this by sharing teaser content that gives people a glimpse of what your product is all about without giving too much away.
But how do you reach an audience if you haven’t even launched your product yet?
You can start by joining social media groups that are related to your SaaS product. For example, if you’re launching a marketing automation software, you can join groups that discuss marketing tips and tools.
You can also start participating in online conversations and forums related to your product.
By doing this, you’ll be able to reach potential early adopters and pique their curiosity.
Start Producing High-Quality Content
The next thing you need to do is to start producing high-quality content.
Yes, I’m referring to your content marketing campaign. It’s very different from your social media marketing efforts. But the two can work hand-in-hand in getting your message to your target audience.
Your high-quality content can be handy in getting traction for your social media page. So you can start posting them even before you launch your product.
This content can be in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, or even podcasts.
If the content pieces you post are reliable and engaging enough, you can build your brand and gain your target audience’s trust. If you manage to do this, they just might become your very first customers.
Speaking of your first customers…
Build A Community Of Potential Early Adopters
Even better than just posting on your social media page is creating a community of users who are interested in buying your SaaS solution early on.
If you’re offering a lifetime deal (LTD) for your product, you may also create a Facebook group for your LTD community.
But how do you actually get these early adopters to join your community?
One thing you can do is feature it on your website. Add a link to your group page and ensure that they can easily join.
Another way is by promoting your community using your email marketing campaigns. You could include it in a newsletter or email blast.
What’s more, you can add incentives to motivate them to join your community. You can offer them exclusive discounts or other perks that they can avail of once they join the group.
By building a community of early adopters early on, you can get a head start in gaining their trust and fostering brand loyalty among them. This would also make community-led growth easier if you’re planning to go down that path.
Post-Launch Social Media Marketing Strategies
If you’ve already launched your product, it’s time to start executing your post-launch social media marketing strategy.
This is where you’ll start promoting your product more aggressively.
Here are some things you can do:
- Social Listening
- Repurposing Your Content
- Leveraging High-Quality Visuals And Graphics
- Consistently Interacting With Your Followers
- Working With Influencers
- Organizing Live Events
- Running Giveaways Through Social Media
- Measuring The Effectiveness Of Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
- Investing In Social Media Marketing SaaS Solutions
That’s quite a handful. So let’s discuss them one by one.
Social Listening
Social listening refers to the process of monitoring social media posts for mentions of your brand, product, or industry.
This is important because it allows you to quickly respond to any negative sentiment and address any issues that may arise.
More importantly, it also allows you to identify opportunities for marketing and sales. If people are talking about your brand on social media, that’s an opportunity to reach out to them and generate some high-quality leads.
But how do you perform social listening? How do you find mentions about your brand when there are billions of users making tons of posts in a day?
The most basic thing you can do is type it in the social media platform’s search bar. But that only works if you’re looking for mentions of your exact brand name.
That method can also be tedious if you’re monitoring a lot of keywords and hashtags.
If you want to be more comprehensive and efficient in your social listening, you can use social media listening tools like Sprout Social or Brandwatch.
Most of these tools allow you to set up alerts. So whenever someone mentions a keyword or hashtag that you’re monitoring, you’ll get a notification about it.
Repurposing Your Content
Another thing you can do is repurpose your content.
This means taking your existing content and reusing it in different formats or channels.
For example, imagine that you have a blog post that’s performing well. You can turn it into a video or podcast episode and then post it on social media. Or you could take a section of your blog post and turn it into an infographic.
But why should you repurpose your content? Is it just to milk your existing topics and spare you the effort of coming up with new ones?
Not necessarily. Although it does save some time thinking about new content topics, that’s more of a perk rather than its main benefit.
Repurposing content is mainly for widening your reach and giving your target audience a breath of fresh air.
You see, people have different preferences when it comes to learning and consuming content. Some are readers. Some are listeners. While some prefer videos.
Repurposing your content makes sure that you’re covering all those bases.
The key here is to be creative. Think about how you can reuse your existing content in different ways so you can communicate it with a new perspective.
Leveraging High-Quality Visuals And Graphics
High-quality visuals and graphics are important in social media marketing. This is because people are more likely to engage with posts that have eye-catching visuals.
One example could be infographics. They are effective tools in summarizing complex information and presenting them in an easy-to-understand way.
Depending on your branding, you can also post graphics with inspiring statements on them. That way, you won’t just appeal to your audience intellectually. You also get to relate with them on an emotional level.
Consistently Interacting With Your Followers
One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is interacting with your followers. This means responding to their comments and questions. Even better, you should strike up a conversation with them through these interactions.
This is important because it helps build trust and strengthens the relationship you have with your followers. It also allows you to learn more about them and what they’re interested in.
Remember: one of the most important things here is consistency.
You need to be consistent in your interactions with your followers. If you’re not able to respond to them regularly, they’ll lose interest and may even stop following you.
Working With Influencers
Influencers are people who have a large following on social media and can affect the buying decisions of their followers.
This is why it’s important to work with influencers when you’re doing social media marketing. They can help promote your product to a wider audience.
Just make sure that the niche of your influencers is relevant to yours.
For example, let’s say you’re selling a B2C solution related to music. You could get some trending musicians to mention your product.
Or if you’re selling a B2B solution, you could partner up with famous businessmen or professionals.
Just note that influencer marketing will most probably be an additional investment on your part. Social media influencers won’t promote your SaaS product for free.
So make sure that you can actually get an ROI from the influencers you work with. See to it that they have a big enough following to actually drive more leads and sales to you.
Organizing Online Events
Live online events are great opportunities for you to generate leads. You can collect email addresses from the people who attend the event and add them to your marketing list.
This is a great way to build relationships with your customers and prospects. It can also bring your SaaS community together.
And guess what. You can run those events on the social media platforms themselves. Most of them allow you to make live broadcasts where viewers can freely leave comments and talk to each other.
What’s more, you can also leverage social media for the preparation of the event.
You can promote it and give people a sneak peek of what they can expect. You can also use it to answer any questions they may have about the event.
Running Giveaways Through Social Media
A great way to generate hype for your product is by running giveaways through social media. This is because everyone loves free stuff.
Social media giveaways can be big opportunities to build brand awareness.
Have you ever encountered a social media promo where you need to tag a specific number of friends in order to participate? You can do that too.
When doing these giveaways, make sure that the prize is relevant to your product. That way, you can be sure that the people who enter are actually interested in what you’re selling.
If you make the prize interesting enough, knowledge about your SaaS product could spread like wildfire.
You can also use social media to announce the winner of your giveaway. Doing this creates a sense of anticipation and excitement among your followers.
Measuring The Effectiveness Of Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Finally, one of the best ways to make sure that your social media marketing efforts are paying off is to see how it’s doing.
You can use various tools to measure the results of your social media marketing efforts.
Most social media platforms have their own built-in analytics tools that help you track engagements across your company pages. But if you’re looking for more comprehensive metrics, you can use third-party SaaS solutions like Sprout Social or BuzzSumo.
Some of the most advanced customer relationship management (CRM) software also have social media marketing features, including reports and analytics.
By using these tools, you can track metrics like website visits, leads generated, and sales generated from social media.
This way, you can determine which social media marketing strategies are working for you and which ones aren’t. You can then adjust your plans accordingly.
Speaking of social media tools…
Investing In Social Media Marketing SaaS Solutions
All throughout this blog post, we’ve been mentioning some social media marketing SaaS solutions. And that just goes to show how they can boost your social media marketing efforts.
There are various SaaS solutions out there that can help you with tasks such as scheduling posts, monitoring conversations, and analyzing your results.
This way, your marketing team can automate the menial tasks and focus on more important things.
Final Thoughts About SaaS Social Media Marketing
Sometimes to a fault, people spend a lot of time on social media platforms. This is especially true for millennials and younger generations.
As a SaaS company, you can use this to your advantage by promoting your product on social media.
Just remember to create interesting and engaging content, use the right hashtags, run online events and giveaways, and measure your results.
But most importantly, interact with your followers consistently.
Doing all these things could help you drive more leads and sales to your business.
And if you need help with your social media marketing efforts, there are various SaaS solutions that can assist you. Just make sure to choose one that fits your needs.
Looking for more guides and strategies to grow your SaaS business? Visit our blog here.
