The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Guide For SaaS Businesses

Most SaaS businesses know how hard it is to acquire a customer — and keep them happy.

Social media allows you to reach the right people on a scale that most other marketing platforms struggle with.

And it helps you to do so while maintaining a human essence in your messages and communications, which makes your brand relatable. Plus, the more the prospects intimately engage with a brand on social media, the higher the chances of them becoming and staying as a customer.

But with all of the different types of social networks available to promote your business, it can be hard to figure out where to start and how to run successful social media marketing campaigns.

This article will help you determine the right social media platform for your SaaS business and gives you access to the strategies to do social media marketing right.

Let’s jump right in!

Does Social Media Work For SaaS Businesses?

Social media marketing is an effective way to build your brand and increase product awareness, but it can also be a bit tricky.

There are many platforms to choose from, each with its own unique rules and guidelines.

In addition, there are many different types of social media users — some people like to share their personal lives, and some are present to consume entertaining content.

If you’re not sure which type of social media platform is right for you, then the best place to start is by determining your target audience.

In a nutshell, the more specific you can be in defining your audience, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to successfully target them with the content that resonates with them.

Theoretically, social media is ideal for B2C businesses since B2B content does not appeal to the masses.

Hence, one of the critical components of social media marketing (virality) can often be absent.

However, with SaaS businesses, the objective is not to be seen by millions. Instead, it is to be seen and followed by your small target audience.

And using the right strategy, content operations tool, and pursuing the right audience can help you be seen by more of the same kind of group since social media platforms tend to show content that is proven to be engaging to other users with similar behavioral traits.

For example, if you own a SaaS company that provides a no-code tool(s) to create websites and mobile apps. Then your content should focus on providing step-by-step guides rather than general advice or tips on how best to use new technology like mobile apps or websites.

Takeaway:

Catch your audience’s attention on social media with the outcomes, with what’s possible with your SaaS tool.

Retain their attention by telling them how to achieve those outcomes using your tool.

Convert them with a no-brainer offer.

Keep them as loyal customers by providing stellar customer support.

How To Pick The Right Social Media Platform?

Social media helps you build customer relationships, get customer feedback, and engage with your target market in real-time.

Therefore, it’s key that you pick the right social media platform for your SaaS business.

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• Who are my target customers?
• What do they do on social media?
• Where do they hang out most often?
• What kind of content do they like to consume?
• What makes a brand tick for them?

You must note that it is social media where people talk about their needs, desires, and interests — all of which can be leveraged to create brand awareness and increase sales.

For example:

• LinkedIn is often regarded as the best. But visual platforms like Instagram too can be highly lucrative since your Target Group could still be active on these platforms.
• Facebook is another one that fits well with SaaS businesses. You can use it to generate leads and customers (with paid ads) who are already interested in your product. Also, you can generate organic traffic by being active in the niche Facebook Groups that have members who could be your ideal customers.
• If you’re a SaaS (B2B) business, Twitter is a good option because you can use it to reach people who are not yet aware of what you do but may end up becoming interested later down the line. Twitter is the place to build high-ROI relationships with future customers, Angels and VCs who invest in similar technology, etc.

Regardless of the social media platform you zero in on, your target audience, marketing strategy, and business goals will direct your choice.

How To Do Social Media Marketing For Your SaaS Business Right

Don’t Go After Competitors

When you start doing social media marketing for your SaaS business, instead of checking competitors, look at other accounts that may possibly be targeting the same kind of audience.

Let’s take a look at this strategy in action:

You can do this on Instagram by finding your ideal persona profiles (ex: CEO of a construction business), and looking at the accounts they follow.

Most of them could be personal profiles, but they could also be following business advice accounts, construction advice accounts, etc.

Those accounts they follow could be something you can replicate.

Here’s a 3-step process to execute this strategy:

Identify Your Ideal Persona Profiles (ex: CMO of an email marketing software)

What kind of person is interested in your product? You can find this out by checking their profile, and seeing what they’re interested in — it could be anything from productivity apps to website-building no-code tools.

Find Their Accounts

You should also check their social media accounts and see if there are any accounts that follow them that could be similar to yours, but maybe more specialized or targeted at a different audience.

For example, if you sell membership software, you could target accounts that are followed by coaches.

Analyze Those Accounts

The next step is to analyze those accounts so you can see how many followers they have on Instagram (or Twitter, could basically be any relevant social media platform) and how often they post new content.

If it looks like they’re not posting as much as you would like them to, then try doing some research about who they’re following or who has influence over them.

This will also give you an in-depth idea about the kind of content they like to read about and what type of posts resonate with them the most. Then use that information to create content for your own account.

This strategy ensures that you aren’t guessing your social media content but creating and publishing content that actually works.

Perform A Content Audit

Once you’ve figured out a list or type of social media accounts you want to emulate, do a content audit of the social media accounts to find the top content formats that bring the most engagement.

You need to know what works best for your SaaS niche and audience.

One of the best ways to do that is by using a social media content audit tool like BuzzSumo or Semrush. These tools will tell you which social channels are generating the most traffic and engagement for your competitors (or target accounts), as well as how you can replicate those successes with your own content.

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Takeaway: Let the data dictate the kind of content you produce.

Build A Funnel Strategy

Social media marketing is not a one-way street — it’s a two-way street.

You need to keep your customers engaged and provide them with value to convert them into leads, and then customers.

This is where the funnel strategy comes into play.

The funnel strategy outlines how you will attract new customers, convert them into leads, and then close deals with them.

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To do this, you need to find out exactly what your target audience wants by asking yourself (many a time, asking the audience itself) questions like: ‘What do they care about?’ or ‘What do they look for when searching online?’

Then create relevant content that answers these questions head-on.

Next, to convert them into leads, you can offer a valuable (downloadable) PDF freebie in exchange for their email address.

Now that you have got their email address, you can nurture and convert them with email sequences and paid ads.

Takeaway: Think How to attract your ideal audience -> How to get their email address -> How to nurture them -> How to convert them

Work On The Content Strategy

You can’t simply share just about any content on the social media platform of your choice and expect results to pour in.

After building a funnel strategy, you have to work on the content strategy and make sure that you’re sharing valuable, actionable information that your target audience needs or wants to learn more about.

Think about how you can tie all your social media efforts together with other content marketing efforts into a cohesive strategy. This will help you identify gaps in your (as well as competitors’) content, and make sure you are sharing the right information at the right time for the right audience.

Please note that for your content strategy to work effectively, social media cannot work in a silo. You have to tie with your blog content, and other marketing assets (including webinars, event marketing, etc.)

You can, for example:

• break down the latest blog posts into helpful tidbits that can be shared over social media.
• create short Instagram reels from insights shared on the latest webinar.
• share videos and photos from your latest event marketing (also an opportunity for cross-promotion where other businesses that attended the event could promote you, and you promote them).

Keeping the idea of building a sustainable SaaS brand online in your mind all the time while crafting and executing your content strategy will ensure you don’t even subconsciously take a detour.

Time To Go Paid

Social media marketing is a cost-effective marketing channel for SaaS businesses backed by solopreneurs as well as large enterprises. It helps you reach new customers and grow your revenue relatively faster than traditional marketing channels like email.

If you have the budget and do the paid acquisition right, this will be the case for you too.

Identify the social media content formats that will fetch you the highest ROI, and invest in boosting them.

To amplify the conversions, tie these content pieces with discount offers, contests, lead magnets, etc.

For example, if you have an existing customer base, ask them to share their experience of using your tool on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.

Then boost this user-generated content (UGC) via paid ads.

Social proof converts, period.

You can also target and run paid ads on people who are similar to your target audience — for example, if you sell meeting scheduling software, then instead of targeting businesses directly, you can target appointment setters (and closers) as they would definitely be interested in what you have to offer.

Analyze And Tweak

The key to successful social media marketing isn’t simply posting content. It’s about analyzing what works, and then optimizing your campaigns around those insights.

Each platform like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter has its own Analytics dashboard where they share details regarding views, engagement, etc.

Keep a close track of what’s working — both in terms of audience demographics and engagement metrics.

This will give you a clear idea of what’s working, and what isn’t, and especially give you an arena to figure out ‘why’ that is the case.

Based on this data-backed feedback, you can start experimenting with new ideas or tactics to further improve your existing campaigns or build new ones from scratch.

Takeaway: Double down on what’s working, and understand deeply why a particular social media marketing campaign failed.

Wrapping Up

Far too many SaaS companies jump on the bandwagon with a lot of talk about how important social media is to their business without doing the legwork of figuring out why it matters for them.

Just because every other business owner thinks they should be using social media, doesn’t mean that you have to do it.

Remember that you need to do the right thing for the right reasons.

Social media marketing can be a great way to introduce your business to new customers, develop brand awareness, and deliver the right message to the right people.

But there’s a caveat — building a SaaS brand via social media isn’t simple.

Although every available social media channel is useful and important, you must figure out which one(s) vibe well with your business and its goals, the online customer behavior, and more.

Communicate your value and offer clearly to the right audience on the right platform to not only build a well-engaged SaaS brand but also a brand that has recurring customers.

By Mary Keaton

Mary Keaton is an eLearning and education specialist with years of experience in online course development, curriculum design, and corporate learning management. Having been part of the FinancesOnline team for 5 years, she has reviewed and analyzed over 100 learning management systems to provide users worldwide with insights into how each one works. She is a strong supporter of the blended learning model and aims to help companies get the information they need to bring their L&D initiatives into the 21st century.