Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter – all these platforms can play a useful role in marketing your business solution. SaaS social media is a great way to engage your customers where they spend a substantial chunk of their online time.
Here, we’ll explain how you market a SaaS product on social media, as well as some of the best tools to facilitate the process.
To read more about social media for SaaS, read our detailed articles on Facebook advertising for SaaS, LinkedIn advertising for SaaS, and Instagram marketing.
1. How SaaS Social Media Marketing Helps in Promoting SaaS Companies
1.1 Increases Brand Visibility.
Almost 60% of the worlds population uses a form of social media, with that figure rising to 80% for Europe, North America and Australia. By creating a social media strategy for SaaS, you’re putting your product in front of more eyeballs.
1.2 Builds Reputation
Social media is where your customers go for information. One piece of research found that 71% of all decision makers are influenced by social media when assessing a solution for their company.
1.3 Drives Traffic to Your Website
Part of building a solid reputation for your company is about creating lots of web traffic. Social media can help you with that, both through paid ads and organic click throughs
2. Types of Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
Foster brand awareness and engage sales prospects by researching and then creating content that will appeal to them, whether it’s through blogs, videos or white papers.
- Advertising
All social media services allow you to directly target specific groups of people who may be interested in your product via well-placed ads.
- Influencer Marketing
A good way to reach a broader audience while also being relatively targeted is to hire an influencer who already posts about your field and has dedicated followers to promote your brand.
- Social Media Management
Make sure you’re on top of the planning side of SaaS social media. There are several tools that can help you manage your different channels as well as schedule posts by date and time.
- Paid Media
A slightly more sophisticated form of advertising, paid media involves having your content featured in people’s feeds so it appears more like a post, as opposed to more traditional ad formats like banners.
- Building Your Following
Having a significant number of followers helps establish you as a trustworthy source of information as well as an expert in your field. This takes time but is a worthwhile investment of resources in the long term.
- Contributing to Forums
As mentioned in the last point, being recognized as an authority in your industry is a useful way to generate confidence and, eventually, sales. Contributing to social media forums or threads dedicated to your industry is an important part of that.
- Reviews
Encouraging happy customers to share reviews on social media or soliciting them to give you a quote that you can share via a graphic or video builds positive buzz. Note that 92% of people are more likely to purchase a product that is well reviewed.
3. 10 Ways to Promote Through SaaS Social Media Marketing
3.1 Acquire New Customers by Creating Awareness
Creating awareness is one of the principal reasons to have SaaS social media companies. This starts with having a brand page, whether that’s on LinkedIn or Facebook, that explains what your product does as succinctly and clearly as possible, accompanied by a link.
For example, project management tool nTask’s Facebook page limits its description to just 14 words that detail benefits alongside multiple methods of getting in contact.
3.2 Allow Social Commerce for Customers
Turn your social media page into a virtual shop front of sorts by providing details of how to purchase your SaaS or including links to free trials/promotions.
Appointment scheduling app Timely, for instance, includes information on its 14-day trial as well as contact information for representatives on its LinkedIn page.
3.3 Show How Your Product Solves Their Problems
Spelling out exactly how your SaaS solves a variety of use cases is an obvious way to increase interest and conversions. This can easily be done through a carousel of graphics or video.
Accounting SaaS Zahara’s overview on YouTube takes potential users through its features and why they’re useful, while showcasing the clean user interface at the same time.
3.4 Answer Questions with Q&As
From market research and customer feedback, you should be able to develop an idea of what burning questions your users often have about your SaaS and its utilization. Addressing these queries or concerns through Q&A sessions or webinars on social media removes obstacles standing in the way of a sale without the need for one-on-one customer interactions.
LinkedIn Events are one way this can be achieved, as workflow management tool ServiceNow did with its webinar on risk management.
3.5 Conduct Social Media Contests and Giveaways
Everyone loves a freebie, even businesses. By hosting contests or offering giveaways related to your product, you encourage social media users to become involved with your brand and perhaps even trial the service.
Backup service Rewind, for example, encouraged users of PM software Trello to describe it using a GIF to qualify for a $50 Visa card – they also made sure to mention you had to follow Rewind’s Twitter to qualify.
3.6 Collaborate with Influencers
As discussed above, finding the right influencer to promote your product through their social media channels is a great way to reach new audiences and to get endorsements from figures in your industry.
Depending on the service you offer, it may not even be necessary to pay them directly for their assistance. Instead, you could consider offering them a free subscription for a year or access to premium content.
3.7 Pay for Social Media Ads
SaaS social media is often a balancing act between owned and paid media – at least until your product becomes recognized enough to foster earned media. All the major social networks have options for targeting particular customer segments via paid ads, making sure you get your message in front of people with the right purchasing power.
There are many ways to approach this method, from carousel ads that take prospects through your SaaS, to video ads, to simple text with links.
3.8 Post Relevant and Engaging Content
One of the cornerstones of SaaS social media ideas is to develop and post content that will intrigue your desired clients. This can take the form of blog posts on industry trends, questionnaires, product videos or case studies.
3.9 Take Customer Feedback Seriously
Try and utilize social media SaaS platforms that enable you to monitor and aggregate customer feedback. Not only does this help to ensure a positive experience and reduce churn, it also helps identify areas that you could possibly improve or adapt your solution.
You can also use social media management tools to get insight into what people are saying about your competitors.
3.10 Post Testimonials to Gain Trust
Using data analytics, you should be able to identify the most active users of your SaaS. Solicit quotes from them describing why they like your solution. As mentioned above, reviews foster trust and smooth the sales journey.
4. Examples of SaaS Social Media Marketing
4.1 Zendesk
Infographics are a clever way for SaaS businesses to create visual content for their social media even if their product isn’t necessarily very photogenic. Customer service platform Zendesk uses a simple infographic here that’s eye-catching, informative and relevant to its market.
4.2 ClickUp
ClickUp regularly posts testimonials on its LinkedIn page in the form of live talks. These video streams feature the software’s clients discussing how the productivity platform has benefited their businesses in an engaging way that also has an air of exclusivity due to the time-sensitive nature of the post.
