Discover effective strategies for promoting your self-service demos through social media platforms. Increase visibility, engagement, and targeting to reach your ideal audience. Find out how to choose the right platforms, implement best practices, and measure success.
So, I'm going to assume you're a marketer. Or a salesperson. Or that you're a product person who is exploring what makes for a good product-led growth (PLG) strategy for your organization.
Given that assumption, do I need to explain why you should pay attention to social media? Heck no. You could school me there.
However, if you're another solopreneur like me, and if you're just jumping into the bewildering world of managing your brand on social media, then welcome fellow traveler. Jump in my boat, and let me take you as far as I have traveled. Marketers, salespeople and PLG savants, skip the next section.
Why Social Media Promotion Matters for Self-Service Demos
Three words:
Visibility
Engagement
Targeting
You've probably got a Facebook or Instagram page of your own, so you understand what visibility and engagement mean. Let me just get to the good stuff here: Targeting.
Social media platforms have sophisticated targeting capabilities, allowing your business to reach specific demographics based on their interests, behaviors, location, and more. In other words, this means you can ensure your self-service demo reaches those who are most likely to be interested in your product.
Here's a closer look at some of the main targeting features available on popular social media platforms:
Geographic Targeting: You can target entire countries, states, cities, or even specific post codes. This is great if you operate in particular regions or have physical stores you want to drive traffic to.
Demographic Targeting: Target users based on age, gender, language, and more.
Interest Targeting: Social media platforms collect information about users' interests based on their activities on the platform. This feature is music to marketers' ears.
Behavioral Targeting: Some platforms also offer targeting based on user behavior. This can include online behavior, such as whether they're a frequent online shopper, or even real-world behavior, like whether they regularly travel for business.
Custom Audiences: This feature allows you to upload a list of contact information (like email addresses or phone numbers), and the platform will match this information with user profiles. You can then specifically target these users. Think about the possibilities of that one for a second.
Lookalike or Similar Audiences: Now, if custom audience targeting hadn't blown your mind, certain platforms use your custom audiences to find other people who share similar attributes with your custom audiences. Not only does this multiply your potential audience, but it does so in a way that works with the marketing strategy you already have in place.
Retargeting: This feature allows you to target users who have already interacted with your business, either by visiting your website, using your app, or engaging with your content on the platform. This can help keep your business top of mind and encourage these users to take the next step.
Now that I've got your attention, let's talk about…
Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Self-Service Demo Promotion
A very common (and expensive) mistake small businesses make is to push hard on every platform and stretch themselves too thin. That can prove to be an exercise in frustration. And wastefulness. Just like there is a need to target the right ICPs, there's a need to target the right social media platforms as well.
Let your product guide you
For B2C businesses, Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok help create visibility, and opportunities to engage and interact with customers en masse. Sticky content helps drive traffic to your website and your YouTube channel. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn is a far better bet - it helps target current and potential clients and allows you to build personal connections. Particularly when you're putting up self-service demos, the ability to interact with each person who played with your demo
Go where your ICP is
Each social media platform has its own area of influence. Match your demographics to that of the social media platform. Instagram is most definitely 'younger' than Facebook, for instance. Similarly, LinkedIn is more suited to the B2B crowd, while Instagram is great for e-commerce. Forums are great for building one to one connections - explore what's working best in your niche.
Research what your competitors are doing
Check each of their social media pages and see what content they are posting, how often they are doing so, and how many users are engaging with that content. There are great insights to be had here (for free!).
Best Practices for Promoting Self-Service Demos on Social Media
Everyone has their own secret sauce. However, there are some best practices we all agree on.
Create content that engages. Use a mix of text, images, video, and interactive content - you want something that users can actually fiddle around with. Self-service demos are a great way to hook audiences, particularly when you're customizing.
Create custom self-service demos. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but remember the many ways that social media platforms let you target customers? Use it. Don't spray and pray, show them you know them instead!
Use clear and compelling CTAs. No ambiguity on what comes next. No clever lines. No witticisms. Just clear and concise instructions/buttons/links.
Collaborate with influencers. Get them to play with your self-service demos and then let them do what they do best - post about it.
Use paid advertising. It opens up a whole host of targeting possibilities.
Be consistent. You can't post everyday for a month and then disappear for a week. It doesn't work. Create a steady pipeline of content, and then use scheduling tools to make posting automatic.
In the same way we all agree on these best practices, we also agree on some worst practices and mistakes that are surprisingly common.
Not understanding your audience: If you haven't defined your audience and refined your targeting parameters, you might end up promoting your demos on the wrong platform or using messaging that doesn't resonate.
Ignoring engagement: If someone is taking the time to comment on your post, you need to respond. Not responding in time could mean that you miss out on opportunities to build relationships and convert leads into customers.
Focusing on quantity over quality: It's better to have fewer, high-quality posts than a lot of low-quality ones. Posting too often or sharing subpar content can lead to lower engagement and unfollows. No one wants their feed cluttered with poor quality posts.
Not tracking metrics: If you're not measuring your results, you won't know what's working and what's not. That's a huge no no.
Measuring Success: Key Metrics for Social Media Performance
Here are a few metrics you should always keep an eye on.
Engagement Rate: how users interact with your content, including likes, shares, comments, and clicks.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): the percentage of people who click on your CTA.
Conversion Rate: Of the people who try your demo, this is the percentage who convert into paying customers.
Conclusion
I wish I had a formula for you. I really do. But just like you worked out your sales strategy, your content strategy, your marketing strategy and just about any other strategy, you'll figure out your niche here too. The good news is that you already know what your product can do, why it sells, and who buys it.
Now, you've just got to use that information in this (very marketing friendly!) space. Yes, it can be time-consuming, and yes, it can take a minute to get the hang of it. But this isn't new to you. If you've built your brand, you've already got everything you need to make this happen.
Just one word of caution: social media can be a crowded space. You might be tempted to (and even advised to!) do things that are 'clutter breaking'. Do them, but always keep an eye on your brand and brand messaging. Creating a clutter breaking viral video that brings you a million views is great, but not if it creates backlash. Infamy is very hard to live down. So, stick to your core messaging, your core brand personality. It may take you longer, but hey, the tortoise did (and always will!) win the race.
