The first 3 steps to building a brand's social presence (with examples) 📈
And how to do it without burning yourself out or falling for bad advice
Hey friends,
Big news this week.
After a whirlwind of a few weeks, I accepted a job offer as Head of Social for a tech startup out in Austin — Triple Whale. Weekly newsletters will be returning, now that I’m out of that craziness.
Even cooler, the focus of these newsletters will be centered around how I’m building Triple Whale’s audience on social (within reason, of course). I’ll share what’s working, not working, content formats, and more lessons I learn along the way.
Speaking of which, today I’ll be going over my process for when I come into a new account. It can be intimidating for marketers to come into a new environment, but it doesn’t have to be.
Let’s talk about it.
If you’re new around here, take 7 seconds to subscribe for weekly pieces on how to create better content, grow your audience, and get more customers for your brand:
🤓 Step 0: Learn the product and the industry
This is the prerequisite for any success in this role.
There’s going to be a learning curve regardless, but it’s especially noticeable if you’re coming into a new industry.
(Pro-tip: when you’re hiring, bringing on someone with industry experience saves you a lot of time)
If you don’t have that industry experience in your new role, spend time scrolling Twitter (yes, this is productive), listening to industry podcasts, asking your coworkers questions, etc.
Luckily, I’ve been running social strategy over at DTC Newsletter for a few months now, so I’ve had that experience.
But even then, there are intricacies of the TW product that I need to learn. To address this, I’m getting on calls with our customer success team this week to learn the technical ins and outs of the product.
Key takeaway: The deeper your knowledge of the product and industry, the more effective your content will be.
Now, for the next step... 👇
🔍 Step 1: Identify your target audience
This is your top priority coming into a new role, or when you’re starting your own brand.
Without a clear vision of who your audience is, you won’t be able to prioritize the right platforms and create engaging content.
Luckily for me, the target audience at Triple Whale is already pretty clear: marketers and operators of ecommerce stores using Shopify.
Once you have that...
⭐️ Step 2: Select 1-2 priority platforms based on your target audience
This is where a lot of content marketers get screwed over.
There’s a common misconception that you need to be everywhere, all the time. Sure, this is the dream scenario...
But here’s the reality: content creation is becoming a lot more resource intensive. The manpower needed to publish high quality content across several platforms is no joke.
So, before you run yourself into the ground (been there; not fun), select 1-2 platforms to focus on for the next quarter (3 months).
These platforms will depend on who your target audience is. At Triple Whale, we’re trying to reach marketers and brand owners. Hence, our primary platforms will be:
Twitter - essentially a groupchat of ecom marketers and founders; all of us spend way too much time on there.
LinkedIn - extremely underrated when it comes to organic reach, and has the perfect userbase for a B2B SaaS brand like Triple Whale. Want examples of B2B brands doing this well already? Check out Gong, Gorgias, etc.
In the coming 1-2 months, we’ll be looking to expand on TikTok as well. While it might not drive initial sales, I do believe there’s value in being an “early mover” on the platform. That brings me to a cool opportunity:
If you know any TikTok creators in Austin, or willing to relocate (with a relocation bonus of course), send them my way 👀
Now, after you’ve identified your top 1-2 platforms...
🤷🏻♂️ Step 3: Identify 1-2 “support” platforms
Let me tell you a secret:
There’s a way to be on more than 1-2 platforms at once without burning yourself out. It comes down to managing expectations.
You can be on several platforms, you just can’t expect them all to grow at the same rate. Let me use us as an example.
Twitter and LinkedIn are supposed to be significant drivers of organic growth for us.
But, we’re still posting to Instagram and Facebook. Why?
Well, there’s paid traffic running on IG and FB. If visitors click through to our IG profile or FB page, we want to make sure there’s relevant, recent content available.
On these platforms, it’s not about follower growth, it’s about properly complimenting paid media and improving the buyer’s experience in our funnel. It could be the difference between someone signing up for our email list, or bouncing because our profile is a ghost town.
Right now, our IG is pretty dead. In the coming weeks, my plan is to repurpose content from Twitter and LI to populate our page and optimize it for that paid traffic.
That way, we can make our profile look good without having to pour a lot of time and resources into it.
That said, if you don’t have the resources to execute on this, it’s not a dealbreaker. I’m very fortunate to be part of a company that values its social team.
If you’re running with scarce resources, or as a solopreneur, focus on your primary platforms and worry about this later.
🧐 What’s next?
After getting familiar with the product, identifying a target audience, and selecting your platforms... you actually have to map out the content strategy.
I’ll be sharing my philosophy on that (as much as I can) in next week’s edition of the newsletter.
So, if you’re new around here, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss that:
Now, let’s get into this week’s bonus resources (you’ll see a trend here LOL):
1 resource that’ll make you a better marketer
Forgive me for the bias here, but I’d highly suggest signing up for Triple Whale’s own newsletter: Whale Mail.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, our CMO sends out in-depth breakdowns of DTC and ecommerce marketing strategy, along with recommended readings and resources to make you a better marketer.
Check it out here (and tell them I sent you 😇).
1 account to follow to get better at marketing
Ok, hear me out…
You should probably follow the TW account on Twitter as well to:
Help me get my metrics up (kidding, kind of)
Stay up to date with the latest ecom marketing strategies
One more thing 👇
If you’re new around here, I publish these newsletters every Thursday to help your brand make better content (and get more customers).
If you enjoyed this, and want to stick around for future editions, you can sub for free here:
Talk to you next week,
Tommy
PS - any TikTok creators looking for a sick full time gig in the tech industry? Reply to this email and let’s chat