When starting a business, one thing you probably lack in the beginning is the necessary wherewithal and expertise for promoting a startup. One goal of the Internet and marketing conference AllWeb is to provide some motivation for those who aim to enhance their e-reputation. So, not only media experts and editors shared their experiences on how to improve a content marketing, but also startup founders and CEOs talked about their strategies of reaching the masses.
“For all startups, it is better to choose one or two social media networks to start with. Don’t be greedy and make profiles on all social networks if you are not ready to manage them all efficiently and effectively,“ said social media expert Rick Wion in his opening talk. While Goran Jankuloski fromExecutive Group summarised the four cornerstones of Twitter communication strategies (be relevant, provide content in real time, relateto real life, and add value), his colleague Rajma Isljami stated that the more you personalise your campaign to your target audience the more successful it will be. Huge Media CEO Srdjan Erceg, on the other hand, took up on the content perspective and urged that it’s crucial to always communicate the things that make your service special and exclusive.
Going viral on social media
AllWeb conference aims to get your ideas floating; Photo credit: AllWeb
While the main objective of promoting your business is to reach as many people as possible, going viral is the supreme discipline of online PR. To Davor Runje, co-founder ofDRAP, one of the most important things in this super busy world is to take the time to engage with your audience/customers and get them involved when creating your brand. Nikola Spasov, CEO of the research agencyRating, carried on the topic of user engagement by giving insights into the results of their research on what actually goes viral: “The more humane the story, the more people can relate to it, the bigger the chances on going viral.” According to Spasov, it is eight simple positive emotions that encourage social media interacting and may take engagement to a higher level: anticipation, surprise, interest, trust, love, satisfaction, optimism and support.
Yet another opinion comes from Ljupco Jurukovski ofoff.net.mk who states that “the art in creating viral content lies in the title, you have to make it clear to the reader that the news will be exclusive, amazing, shocking, without having to use these words in the title.” The online media expert also revealed that he pays close attention to the feedback of readers and checks user interaction on a daily basis. “Marketing is not selling, it’s about story telling! Measuring is important only to a certain extent, it’s not something you base your brand strategy on long-term,” Branimir Brkljac fromTerra Panonica explained, defining the priorities when marketing your project digitally.
The unique conference on Macedonian grounds not only provided high quality speakers on stage but also gave visitors the chance to grill the experts in extensive Q&A sessions. Moreover, the breaks between panel discussions and keynotes provided great networking opportunities to mingle with media startups and social media enthusiasts.
About telling, selling and measuring
Full house at the unique conference in Skopje; Photo credit: AllWeb
Last but not least, Heather Russell founder ofrinkya.com was there to look at the topic from a CEO perspective and made some suggestions on their role in online PR. She believes that a CEO should “work at least one day a month as customer service,” stay humble and remember that they “are not above anyone or anything,” and keep in mind that “if your customers are not your number one priority you shouldn’t be in the business.”
Having listended to advice, talks, analyses and research results on stage one can conclude that there is no one and only recipe on how to best promote your startup but you need to find a healthy balance between a clear message, incorporating feedback and building up a relation to your users, readers or customers. The daylong conference has come to an end pretty quickly and the one take-home message can be summed as: without a good internet marketing strategy your startup is almost non-existent in this swipe-away world.
