Launch Your Startup: 7 Essential Steps, Tips, Strategies, & Ideas

Everyone has ideas. Some of them may be worth running with, while others are probably not so good.

However, even if your project looks awesome on paper, there’s a big difference between that and creating a successful startup company.

Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

If your answer is yes, then you need a detailed guide on how to start a startup.

For those of you who haven’t launched a business before, it can sound like an intimidating task.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that getting your startup off the ground is an easy mission.

It takes hard work, dedication, money, some sleepless nights, and, yes, some failures before you succeed.

Nearly 20 percent of businesses fail in the first year, and just because you make it beyond 12 months doesn’t mean your startup is going to continue to thrive.

According to government stats, 30.6 percent of businesses fail after their second year, 49.7 percent fail after five years, and 65.6 percent fail after their tenth year.

Once you get your company off the ground, it doesn’t get any easier: you need to work just as hard to keep it going each year.

With that said, it’s useful to have a guide and a set of instructions to follow to learn how to launch a startup.

When I write about launching a startup, I’m talking from personal experience. I’ve created several startup companies like Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and NP Digital.

I’m happy to share my knowledge and experience to help make things a little easier and less stressful for you as you go through this process.

Realistically, it takes hundreds of stages to launch your company, but I’ve narrowed down the top 7 steps into a blueprint for you to follow if you want to learn how to start a startup and learn how to create and develop your own business.

In the following article, I outline and discuss each step in detail so you have a better understanding of what I’m talking about.

Let’s begin with the basics.

1. Create a Business Plan

Have you heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail?’ That was the thinking of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.

Well, research appears to back that up. Study after study shows that businesses with a plan are more likely to succeed. In addition, you can find many articles spelling out the importance of a business plan.

However, the Small Business Development Center at Duquesne University explains it most succinctly:

“A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.”

It’s pretty straightforward, really. Having an idea is one thing, but having a legitimate business plan is another story.

A proper business plan gives you a significant advantage, but what should you include in a business plan? It helps if you think of it as a written description of your company’s future. Basically, you outline what you want to do and how you plan to do it.

Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy and detail your business’s purpose and aims. Ideally, your document should outline your business goals, strategies, and your plans for achieving them.

Here are the key steps to writing a successful business plan:

• Outline your business goals
• Describe your target market
• Explain your product or service
• Detail your marketing and sales strategies
• Write down your financial projections and detail the funding
• Summarize your overall strategy

If you need some help with your plan, the Small Business Administration has an easy-to-follow guide, along with some templates.

2. Secure Appropriate Funding

Without adequate funding, your business won’t launch or stay afloat long-term. According to Statista, in 2021, there were nearly 840,000 businesses that had been in operation for less than a year. Many of these startups won’t survive because they underestimate the cost of doing business.

Perhaps you’re wondering what level of financing you need? When it comes to raising cash, there’s no magic number that applies to all businesses. The startup costs vary from industry to industry, so your company may require more or less funding depending on the situation.

Costs also vary depending on whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store, e-commerce enterprise, or service business. If you’re unsure how much you might need, try the SBA’S startup cost templates to get a better idea.

Once you’ve got a clearer picture of the costs, where do you get the funding? These days, most startups get their funding from:

• Online startup loans, which you can apply for online and pay back over time, with interest.
• SBA microloans, providing up to $50,000 in loans for start-up businesses. The main advantage is the lower interest rates.
• Lines of credit, which is a type of loan available in both secured and unsecured formats.
• Invoice factoring/financing, a process in which a business sells its invoices to a third party, at a discount.
• Friends/family/personal loans, which are unsecured loans.
• Business loans, which you pay back over an agreed period.
• Angel investors, who have considerable wealth and give seed funding to start-up businesses.
• Crowdfunding, where you raise money from a group of investors online.

Let’s circle back to our business plan for a minute.

All business plans contain a financial plan. This usually includes a:

• Balance sheet, which displays your business’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity of the company.
• Sales forecast, which predicts future sales.
• Profit and loss statement, which details your earning and spending patterns. This figure helps calculate your net income.
• Cash-flow statement, or financial statement detailing how much your business has spent and generated.

You use these financial statements to determine how much funding you need to launch successfully. Additionally, you may discover that the number is significantly higher than you originally anticipated.

For example, I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “That would make a great app,” or “I should make an app for this.”

Do you know how much it costs to make an app? Depending on the complexity, you’re looking at anything between $40,000 – $300,000, and that’s just to make it.

It doesn’t include the cost of running it or customer acquisition costs.

This is the point I’m making: to secure the appropriate funding, you need to find out how much money you need.

To find this number, you must research and predict realistic financials in your business plan.

Let’s say you discover that your startup needs $100,000 to get off the ground.

What if you don’t have $100,000?

You’ve got some options, like bank loans and commercial lenders, and that’s the way many small businesses go. With this said, banks are less likely to give large amounts of money to new companies with no income or assets to default on, which may make it hard for your typical startup to get the funding they need.

Don’t worry, your dream isn’t dead yet. You can find investors. They could be:

• Friends
• Family
• Angel investors
• Venture capitalists
• Crowdfunding

However, whichever method you use, proceed carefully because you don’t want to start giving away significant equity in your company before you launch.

Then, if you get lucky and find a potential investor, you need to know how to pitch your idea quickly and effectively. Here are some tips to help you do that:

• Memorize your financial numbers; ensure you know them inside out.
• Refer to your business plan and ensure your financial figures cover the costs.
• Make sure your business plan is presentable so you can give potential investors a copy.
• Practice and perfect your pitch.

One more thing: It’s imperative that your business plan has a proper executive summary to entice busy investors.

Once you secure the appropriate funding, you can proceed to the next step of how to start a startup business: finding the right people.

3. Surround Yourself With the Right People

No one makes it on their own. William Proctor might not have been a high-profile, successful businessman if he hadn’t met James Gamble.

Where would we go for advice if Larry Page hadn’t met Sergey Brin? Not Google, that’s for sure.

Then what if Ben Cohen never met Jerry Greenfield? We would’ve been denied one of the world’s most famous ice cream brands.

Even if you’ve already got a co-founder in place, you need some core staff.

Where do you start? According to Business News Daily, there are eight people your startup needs:

1. CEO and COO. Between them, they develop a vision and put it into action.
2. Product Manager, who is responsible for taking a product from its development stages and onto the market.
3. Chief Technology Officer, who works with executive members to oversee the technical side of a business.
4. Chief Marketing Officer, whose job involves creating a marketing strategy and executing it.
5. Sales Manager, for managing customer relationships, selling products/service, and motivating the team.
6. Chief Finance Officer, who manages the financial planning and decisions for a company.
7. Business Development Officer. This is a varied role that involves drawing up a business plan, establishing funding, and building customer/relationship funding.
8. Customer Service Officer, who assists customers with their questions, any complaints, and providing product information.

However, your business structure depends on the industry, so look at the above as definitive.

When you’re just starting up, hiring an entire team often isn’t realistic, and you find yourself wearing several business hats. That’s OK, to an extent. Just remember to play to your strengths and outsource if you can’t afford to recruit.

That said, there are some experts you should consider essential, including a:

• Lawyer
• Accountant
• Financial advisor

Unless you’re an expert in law, finances, and accounting, these three people can help save your business some money in the long run.

They can explain the legal requirements and tax obligations based on how you structure your business. For example, it could be a:

• Sole proprietorship
• Partnership
• Corporation
• Limited liability company

While your lawyer, accountant, and financial advisors are not necessarily employees on your payroll, they are still important people to surround yourself with.

Finally, for this section, don’t forget the fundamentals for starting any company:

• Register your business name.
• Get a federal ID number from the IRS. The IRS lets you submit your business information online to get your employer identification number (EIN).
• Get insured: Shop around and find an insurance agent who can get you plenty of coverage at an affordable rate.

Now that you’ve got staff, you need to start work on a website and find a place to base your business.

4. Find a Location and Build a Website

Now you’re ready for the next stage of your how-to start a startup plan: finding a physical location and setting up a website.

Whether it’s offices, retail space, or a manufacturing location, you need to buy or lease a property to operate your business.

Unless you’re working from a home office, your two main options are leasing or ownership. Leasing usually works as out more expensive long term; however, don’t just base your decision on costs. Leasing and ownership both have their pros and cons. Look at the whole picture before making a decision.

I appreciate that it may not be realistic for all entrepreneurs to tie up the majority of their capital in real estate.

Strategize for this in your business plan and try to secure enough funding so that you can afford to buy property. It’s worth the investment and can save you money in the long run.

Let’s move on to setting up a website.

Today, your company can’t survive without an online presence. Don’t wait until the day your business officially launches to get your website off the ground, either, and remember, it’s never too early to start promoting your business.

If customers are searching online for a service in your industry, you want them to know that you exist, even if you’re not quite open for business yet.

The beauty of an online presence is you can even start generating some income through your website before you find premises. If it’s applicable, start taking some pre-orders and scheduling appointments.

For those of you who aren’t convinced about the pre-orders business model, many startups are succeeding with it.

Here are some tips about how to launch and promote a successful website:

• When designing a website, it is important to keep the user in mind. The layout of the website should be easy to navigate and use. The colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes.
• Make your website visually appealing. Use eye-catching images and dynamic designs to make the website stand out from the competition.
• Keep the content of the website fresh and up-to-date to keep users coming back to visit your site. Your website is an ideal place to keep your audience up-to-date with a glimpse inside your company, product launches, and, of course, the details of your business premises.
• Another important thing to keep in mind is usability. Your site should be easy to use on all devices, from desktop computers to smartphones and tablets.

Finally, make sure that your website is fast.

I can’t stress this point enough.

I’ve got a video tutorial that explains how to speed up your website.

All of these items combined may sound tough, but it’s really not that difficult. Just focus on one task at a time, and you’ll get there.

Once your website is up and running, you need to expand your digital presence. To do this, use social media platforms like:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Linkedin
• Snapchat

Your prospective customers are using these platforms, so you need to be on them, too. However, when choosing a platform, ensure you go where your core audience is. For instance, if you’re targeting a younger market, TikTok may be ideal.

5. Become a Marketing Expert

If you’re not a marketing expert, you need to become one.

You might have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then your startup can’t succeed.

To start spreading the word, you must learn how to use digital marketing techniques like:

• Content marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• Email marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Social media marketing (SMM)
• Search engine marketing (SEM)
• Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

However, if you’re starting a small business in a local community, some of the traditional methods can still work well. Think:

• Print advertising
• Radio advertisements
• Television
• Billboards

While some would argue that outbound marketing efforts are not as effective these days, research shows that methods like cold emailing and calling still work well.

For those of you who aren’t efficient marketers, there is no shame in hiring a marketing director or even a marketing team, depending on the size of your company.

Your marketing efforts will be one of the most important, if not the most important, components of launching your startup business. To improve your chances of success:

• Allocate a marketing budget.
• Determine how you’re going to distribute this money across different channels.
• Have a plan and try to maximize your return on investment for each campaign.

Take these numbers into consideration before you spend your entire budget on something like banner ads.

The bottom line is this: Marketing needs to be a top priority for your startup company.

6. Build a Customer Base

If you’re following this plan in order, the good news is that you’re already on the right track to building a customer base.

Starting a website, growing your digital presence, and becoming an effective marketer are all steps in the right direction. However, now it’s time to put these efforts to the test. That means:

• Opening your doors (or website) for business.
• Getting a customer to make a purchase is the first step.
• Retaining customers.

There are three keys to customer retention:

1. Customer service
2. Customer service
3. Customer service

It’s no secret. The customer needs to be your main priority. They are the lifelines of your business, and they need to be treated accordingly.

Once you establish a steady customer base, you can use it to your advantage.

You’ll get more money from your existing customers than from new ones.

It’s a more effective method than cross-selling.

Less than 0.5% of customers respond to cross-selling.

Over 4% of your customers will buy an upsell.

These strategies both double back to having effective marketing campaigns.

Overall, establishing, building, and maintaining a customer base will help you get your startup company off the ground.

7. Prepare for Anything

Expect the unexpected.

Launching your startup company won’t be easy, and you need to plan for some hurdles along the way.

Don’t let these speed bumps become roadblocks.

You can’t get discouraged when something goes wrong.

Preserve and push through it.

The difficulties that you face while launching your startup company help prepare you for the tough road ahead.

Even after your business is up and running, it won’t necessarily be smooth sailing for the entire lifecycle of your company.

As illustrated above, you face peaks and valleys while your company operates.

Mistakes and setbacks happen.

Some of these things will be out of your control, like a natural disaster or a crisis with the nation’s economy.

Employees will come and go.

You’ll face tough decisions and crossroads.

Sometimes, you’ll even make the wrong decision.

That’s OK.

Part of being an entrepreneur is learning from your mistakes.

It’s important to recognize when you’ve done something wrong, move forward, and try your best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Pay your bills.

Pay your taxes.

Operate within the confines of the law.

As long as you’re doing these things, you’ll be able to fight through any obstacle your startup company faces in the future.

FAQs

How Do I Start a Startup?

Check if your idea is viable. Do some research and ask around. Are people looking for a business/service like yours? Then ask yourself: How are other businesses in your sector performing? Have you spotted a genuine gap in the market? 
Then you’re ready to start drawing up a business plan.

Where Can I Acquire Startup Funding?

There are several sources, including personal financing, banks, crowdfunding, friends, family, angel investors, and venture capitalists.

Do I Need a Website to Launch My Startup?

In the vast majority of cases, yes. You also need a social media presence that is applicable to your audience. After all, social media is a free, efficient way to reach a huge volume of people that you couldn’t otherwise target.

How Can I Use Marketing to Launch My Startup?

It depends on your budget. Begin with strategies like social media, free press release distribution, and content marketing. As your business grows, you can allocate a budget for affiliates, email marketing, SEO, online ads, and influencer campaigns.

Conclusion

Let’s recap.

Launching a startup company is not easy.

First, you need to determine if your idea is worth turning into a business, then you must determine if you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur.

The percentage of entrepreneurs in the United States is growing strong, and each one of them is going to face challenges along the way.

With that said, having a proper blueprint to follow helps simplify the process. You can get learn the basics of how to start a startup by following the seven steps, and adapting them to suit your individual needs.

With that said, most successful businesses start with validating an idea, creating a comprehensive business plan, and raising adequate funding. Without proper financial planning, your startup doesn’t stand a chance.

Then, surround yourself with the right people and play to your strengths.

For instance, if you’re great at organizing and motivating, focus on that; If marketing just isn’t you, outsource it to a professional who excels in that area.

Don’t forget about lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants to keep your business in order, and make sure you have essentials like an online presence.

Launching your startup is an imperfect journey, and you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. However, proper planning and execution help limit these hurdles and get your business off to a flying start.

How will you raise funding to get your startup company off the ground?

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Google hasn't approved Truth Social's Android app because of all the violent content

Truth Social is still MIA in Google's mobile app store and it's not because an Android version of the platform doesn't exist.

According to a new report from Axios, Donald Trump's conservative social network still has not been approved by Google for its Google Play store due to content moderation concerns from the tech giant.

"When are we going to be available on Android? Well, look, that's up to the Google Play store," said Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes in an Aug. 26 appearance on the right-wing media outlet, Real America's Voice. "I mean we're waiting on them to approve us and…I don't know what's taking so long."

However, a source tells Axios that Truth Social is very aware of the issue and it relates to incitement and threats of physical violence found on the right-wing social media platform.

"On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” said Google in a statement to Axios.

SEE ALSO: Inside Truth Social: Hands on with Trump's social media platform

Truth Social's iOS app hit Apple's App Store in February. While the app's popularity in the App Store has ebbed and flowed over the year, there has been a surge in downloads following the FBI's search and seizure at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month. According to mobile analytics firm Data.ai, in the days following the FBI's search for classified documents taken by the former president, Truth Social saw an average of 13,400 downloads per day in the App Store. That's over five times more than the average downloads the week before. In total, Truth Social's iOS app received 107,500 downloads from Aug. 8 to Aug. 15.

Without an Android app in the Google Play store, Truth Social is missing out on a chunk of U.S. smartphone users at a time when its main attraction, Donald Trump, is more active on the platform than ever before. Android phones make up more than 44 percent of the U.S.'s mobile operating system market share.

Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)

And, of course, its Android app problems aren't Truth Social's only woes. After a rocky start that saw trolls deface an early version of the site and the exit of crucial tech executives from the platform, Truth Social is now facing financial problems. The right-wing web hosting platform RightForge says that Trump's social media platform owes the company more than $1.6 million in unpaid fees.

In addition to those issues, delays in a merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) that plans to take Trump's tech company public, have caused its stock price to tumble from its peak of $97 this year to $24.59, which is what the stock is currently trading at the time of publishing.

As The Verge points out, Trump has increasingly spread QAnon-linked conspiracy theories on his platform since the FBI's search. This obviously won't help Truth Social and its content issues that Google has taken umbrage with.

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Click Fraud Blocking: Your Search Ads Secret Weapon?

In the quest for more conversions, there’s an element most PPC advertisers overlook; invalid traffic—aka IVT, fake traffic, click fraud, or ad fraud.

You might have noticed the IVT column in your Google Analytics dashboard, although it isn’t displayed by default. And if you’ve ever searched for invalid traffic online, you have probably read Google or Facebook’s policies on the matter.

IVT is common. In fact, invalid ad traffic accounts for over ten percent of digital ad traffic.

Marketers often assume tech giants are in control of IVT. But are they? And how much actual invalid traffic really makes it through to your paid ads?

The Challenges of Digital Advertising

Although pay-per-click advertising is one of the most important elements of digital marketing, its reputation has taken a beating in recent years.

Marketers have watched CPC rise, an increase in competition, less-than-accurate tracking, and even noticed they’re paying for fake or fraudulent traffic that doesn’t drive results. 

Plus, consumer groups have been campaigning for more privacy and control over our personal data.

So, where does this leave the average marketer?

First, some stats.

Between 40 and 60 percent of all internet traffic is from non-human sources. This includes bots, web crawlers, and other automated scripts. Despite the wide range, we can assume, on average, that around half of all web traffic is non-human.

It’s also estimated that ‘bad bot’ traffic outnumbers good bots, with bad bots conducting up to 25 percent of total internet activity. Bad bots can include spam bots, scalpers, or data harvesters, to the bots used for hacking, stealing logins, or committing ad fraud.

Added to this, marketers are also seeing their tracking and targeting capabilities changing as Google and Facebook adapt to the changing data laws around the world. 

The growth of fake traffic combined with reduced targeting and analytics sounds like a recipe for a marketer’s headache. 

But Facebook and Google are putting a stop to all this—right? 

The Battle Against Fake Traffic

In 2021, the cost of click fraud and ad fraud was estimated to be around $42 billion. 

The tech giants have long claimed their invalid traffic filters remove the worst of the bots and bad clicks. 

And those IVT rates in Google Analytics might be encouraging. 

Most marketers using Google Analytics see an IVT rate in the low single figures, somewhere between 2 to 8 percent. 

But data from ClickCease shows an average of 14 percent of clicks on paid ads come from non-genuine sources, aka click fraud. Some industries even see click fraud levels way beyond this, with invalid clicks making up 60 percent of traffic. 

Why the discrepancy? Surely the big ad platforms would want to put a stop to fake traffic?

The truth is, it’s complicated.

On the one hand, yes: Google, Facebook, and Microsoft do want to put a stop to fake traffic and protect their advertisers. After all, advertising revenue is by far the biggest earner for all of these companies.

However, the methods they use to filter invalid traffic are considered less strict than third-party click fraud solutions.

A common way for click fraud and ad fraud operators to get around the filters is by masking their location. Most ad platforms block traffic sources by IP address. Using a VPN, bots and click farms can cycle through multiple IP addresses to click repeatedly without getting blocked. 

In fact, the click thresholds for the ad platforms are thought to be much more generous than using a third-party fraud blocker. 

For the more cynical amongst us, there is also the issue of money.

Fake clicks are still a source of income to the ad platforms. And for many advertisers, the metric they’re looking for (beyond just conversions) is a good click through rate. 

More clicks or impressions equals a bigger reach and a job well done, right?

For the ad giants, so long as advertisers see something is being done, then the fight against click fraud is winning in some way.

Well, I did say that’s the cynical view.

Protect Your Advertising Spend With Click Fraud Blocking 

Blocking invalid traffic using a third-party solution is the most effective way to block bots, automated clicks, and even malicious traffic such as brand haters and competitors.

That’s why click fraud prevention is a secret weapon for search marketers. 

For starters, the clicks lost to fake traffic are more than just lost budget.

Companies operating on a limited ad budget might find their daily or monthly ad spend exhausted prematurely. With their ads out of service, the missed opportunities will go to their competitors.

For those operating with a bigger ad budget, the issue of misattributed success comes into play. 

How can you tell if those impressions or clicks resulted in conversions? Well, it’s increasingly difficult.

A tool such as ClickCease doesn’t just block bad traffic in real time and flag suspicious activity. It also offers another level of analytics marketers can use to examine their audience – something becoming more crucial as the tracking changes come into play.

Seeing which search terms attract the most invalid traffic, or how many VPN or out-of-geo clicks your ads, attract allows advertisers to adjust their targeting.

This applies to search and display ads on Google or Bing Ads, and social media ads such as Facebook or Instagram. 

Marketers looking to get ahead of the trends, especially as the tracking changes come into play, should take the opportunity to see how click fraud blocking makes a difference to their campaign results. 

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10 Facebook Analytics Tools to Measure Your Marketing Success

Having access to the right Facebook analytics tools is key to marketing success. If you’re not monitoring your performance, you’re marketing blindly.

With a Facebook analytics tool, you’re able to look into your audience’s demographics, your posts’ performance, your ads’ performance, your engagement rate and more. However, it can be difficult to find the best Facebook analytics tool for your team. Especially since Facebook shut down its standalone analytics tool in 2021.

Throughout this article, we’re going to cover the top 10 Facebook analytics tools you can use to measure your success. Including paid tools, free tools and a couple of tools that are ideal for monitoring your Facebook ads.

1. Sprout Social

If you haven’t yet heard of us, welcome! Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management tool that helps brands create, schedule, manage and monitor their social media content.

While you can use Sprout with nearly any social media platform, we’re talking about Facebook today—and Sprout’s Facebook analytics tools are extremely useful.

Sprout Social’s Facebook analytics options allow users to get a great overview of their Facebook Business Pages. You can quickly see your total impressions, number of engagements, clicks, audience growth and more. Plus, you can access audience demographics to make sure you’re targeting the right people.

Features:

• Colorful, easy-to-read graphs that give you an instant idea of how your Facebook is doing
• Competitor reports that let you get a glimpse at how your Facebook compares to the competition
• The ability to tag content that belongs to certain campaigns so you can gauge campaign success

2. SocialPilot

SocialPilot is a social media marketing tool that provides capabilities like publishing, scheduling, content curation, collaboration, Facebook ads management, and of course, Facebook analytics. To test-drive the tool, SocialPilot offers a 14-day free trial to give brands the opportunity to test out their features before biting the bullet.

Features:

• Get insights into your best-performing Facebook content so you can create more of it
• Discover the optimal times to post based on your specific audience insights
• Gather detailed PDF reports of your Facebook analytics to share with your team or your clients

3. Keyhole

Keyhole is a social media management tool that focuses exclusively on analytics. They offer analytics for a number of platforms, including Facebook, with the goal of helping brands analyze all aspects of their online presence. From competitor analyses and campaign tracking to hashtag analytics and influencer tracking, Keyhole has a number of great options for brands looking to get a full scope of their Facebook activity.

Features:

• Automated Facebook reports that make tracking performance as easy as possible
• Hashtag tracking to provide insight into how your hashtag campaigns are performing
• Profile analytics and account tracking that lets you gauge your success versus your competitors’

4. Rival IQ

RivalIQ is another analytics-focused social media tool. Their tool allows companies to monitor several different platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok. Monitor the success of your social media campaigns from one simple dashboard. The best part is that RivalIQ offers a number of free tools for brands who want to monitor their social media analytics on a budget.

Features:

• Free head-to-head reports that show you how you compare to your biggest competitor on any given platform
• Comprehensive social media audits that help you identify your best and worst-performing content
• Machine learning that helps you understand why competitors may have received a jump in reach

5. Brand24

Brand24 is a social media monitoring tool that helps brands track their Facebook analytics. Monitor online company mentions, hashtags, trends, alerts and more through your Brand24 dashboard.

Features:

• Discussion volume chart that allows you to analyze when your brand name is being talked about more often
• Mention analytics that gives you insight into which accounts are talking about your business
• Sentiment analysis to help you gauge the overall sentiments surrounding your brand name

6. Oktopost

Oktopost is a B2B social media engagement tool with a number of useful social media management capabilities. Oktopost is unique because it specifically caters to the B2B industry.

Features:

• Customizable dashboards with a number of chart types to help visualize your results for your team
• Insights into your buyers’ journey on Facebook and other social media platforms
• Audience insights like follower growth, demographics, brand mentions and more

7. Facebook Insights

While Facebook’s standalone analytics went away, they do still have a completely free Facebook Insights section of your Facebook Business Page. This helps you get a very high-level overview of how your Facebook posts are doing as a whole. To access your Facebook Insights, head over to your business page, then scroll down in the left sidebar until you see Insights.

Features:

• At-a-glance page summary that gives you insight into how your Page has done the last week or month
• Page follower insights to ensure you’re targeting the right audience and to know when to post
• 13+ categories of insights to help you get a better idea of how your Facebook Page is doing

8. Meta Business Suite

The insights section of the new Meta Business Suite is the biggest free analytics feature offered by Facebook. They’ve created this as a way to monitor the insights on your Facebook and Instagram profiles all in the same place. You can access the full suite of Meta business tools by going to business.facebook.com. Then, click Insights in the left sidebar to access your Facebook analytics.

Features:

• The ability to gather Facebook and Instagram analytics in the same easy-to-access dashboard
• In-depth insights into your content, audience, page results and more
• Downloadable reports that you can easily share with your team or clients

9. Facebook Ads Manager

If you’re running Facebook ads and looking for a way to keep track of them, your very first option is going to be none other than Facebook Ads Manager. Here, you’re able to get in-depth insights into the performance of your ads and if you need to make any adjustments for them to be successful. Plus, it’s a completely free tool (aside from the ad spend).

Features:

• Performance charts that let you know how your ad is doing and how many people it’s reaching
• Get insights on how relevant your audience thinks your ad is so you can make necessary changes
• Take a look at insights at the campaign, ad set and ad level to see the nitty-gritty of your ad performance

10. AdEspresso

AdEspresso is a social media tool dedicated specifically to helping you improve the efficacy of your social media ads. With tools that help with Facebook, Instagram and Google ads, you can easily get great insights into how to create and promote the best possible ads for your brand.

Features:

• Get quick analyses on how your ad campaigns are performing with bird’s-eye-view reports
• Automated PDF reporting that makes it quick and easy to grab reports for your ad performance
• Tagging capabilities that allow you to monitor multiple campaigns at a time

Find the right Facebook analytics tool for your brand

It can be difficult to decide which tool is the best Facebook analytics tool for your brand. That’s why it’s always a good idea to take some time to look over each tool and its features, so you can make the most informed decision possible. If you’re still stuck, start a free trial with Sprout’s analytics tool or consider scheduling a demo to learn more.

The post 10 Facebook Analytics Tools to Measure Your Marketing Success appeared first on Sprout Social.

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O Que São Influenciadores: Tipos, Exemplos e Quanto Ganham

Hoje todo mundo sabe o que é um “influenciador”. São especialistas dentro de comunidades específicas que apoiam ou avaliam produtos, software, ou mesmo ideias dentro de suas especialidades. Outras pessoas naquelas comunidades consideram as opiniões deles na hora de tomar decisões de compra.

Influenciadores têm muito poder. Se você conseguir um influenciador para apoiar seu produto ou marca, poderá explorar o mercado que está à disposição dele, que talvez seja muito maior do que o seu. 

Assim, o marketing de influenciador é o campo do marketing em que influenciadores são pagos (em dinheiro ou outros benefícios) para divulgar uma marca ou produto. Vamos explorar como você pode criar este tipo de campanha. 

Parte 1: O que é um influenciador?

Hoje, com as recomendações e críticas boca a boca se espalhando pelas mídias sociais mais rápido do que fogo em tempo de seca, os influenciadores são mais importantes do que nunca. Eles geralmente têm públicos enormes nas redes sociais e são representantes de marcas e divulgadores de nichos. 

A influência real leva à ação, não só ao reconhecimento.

Jay Baer

Mas encontrar um influenciador não é suficiente. Se quiser fazer uma campanha de marketing de influenciador, você terá que encontrar alguém que seja conhecido na sua indústria. Se o influenciador não for adequado ao seu contexto, o post ou tweet dele pode ser completamente ineficaz para direcionar leads. 

Por que sua marca precisa de influenciadores?

Consumidores confiam mais em recomendações de terceiros do que nas próprias marcas.

Isso faz sentido quando você considera um contexto mais pessoal: você não confia em alguém que vem até você em uma festa para se gabar e contar coisas divertidas sobre si mesmo porque quer te convencer a fazer amizade. Ao invés disso, você geralmente acredita em um amigo em comum que fala bem daquela pessoa. 

O influenciador é o amigo em comum que conecta a sua marca aos seus consumidores alvo.

Quando você se alinha com um influenciador, ele não só traz um público, mas também a rede dele. Devido à lealdade do público, um influenciador tem a capacidade de direcionar tráfego para o seu site, aumentar sua exposição nas mídias sociais, e até vender o seu produto diretamente, através de recomendações ou histórias sobre a experiência dele. 

Com a queda do marketing externo tradicional, o marketing de influenciador está se tornando uma das formas mais eficazes de atrair consumidores e clientes. O consumidor moderno já não enxerga os anúncios ou ouve os comerciais. Ele é auto-suficiente e quer pesquisar a marca sozinho, e ouvir alguém de confiança falar sobre ela. 

Como influenciadores podem te ajudar com o marketing inbound? Eles criam conteúdo sobre a sua marca, recomendam sua marca a seguidores fiéis, e se inserem em diálogos em torno da sua marca. Atraí-los antes que o seu concorrente o faça pode fazer uma diferença enorme para o sucesso (ou insucesso) da sua empresa ou produto.

Pense em seu público

Como profissional do marketing, você já tem uma ideia sólida do público que deve segmentar para a sua marca. Para localizar o influenciador ideal, você precisa ir um pouco além e pensar nos tipos de temas, blogs, e perfis do Twitter que o seu público seguiria. 

Como eu comercializo uma ferramenta de outreach para blogueiros da minha empresa, os influenciadores que eu selecionei são blogs de relações públicas e marketing que enfatizam o marketing de conteúdo e de influenciador. Os seguidores destes blogs geralmente são profissionais de RP e marketing que querem se manter atualizados sobre as tecnologias e tendências nesta área. 

Assim, eles provavelmente vão considerar a minha empresa relevante quando um blogueiro fizer uma recomendação. Se eu tivesse optado por blogueiros que escrevem sobre o mercado financeiro, talvez algum deles até gostasse do meu software, mas o público dele provavelmente não teria interesse.

Quem usa o marketing de influenciador?

Algumas empresas aparentemente não querem desistir de suas práticas de marketing outbound, mas sites de ecommerce de moda estão segmentando influenciadores com frequência. Muitos fazem contatos com blogueiros de moda com boas reputações e enviam roupas e acessórios para avaliação. O blogueiro então publica fotos e escreve sobre estes itens, muitas vezes incluindo links para os sites onde o público pode comprá-los. 

O ModCloth, um site de moda estilo vintage, faz isso muito bem. Eles compartilham ativamente (nas mídias sociais) imagens que seu público produz vestindo roupas da ModCloth. Isso deixa o público deles se sentindo especial, o que encoraja ainda mais posts sobre as roupas.

Eu já vi muitos sites de moda enviarem seus produtos para influenciadores que promovem sorteios entre seu público. Ou às vezes, o site envia créditos de compra para um usuário ativo nas redes sociais, um colunista de revista, ou um blogueiro, para que eles vão ao site, escolham algumas roupas, e aí avaliem a experiência como um todo. 

Como selecionar o influenciador certo para a sua marca

Contexto: Mais uma vez, influenciadores para cada marca variam porque, acima de tudo, eles precisam se encaixar naquele contexto. Essa é a característica mais importante na hora de segmentar os influenciadores certos para a sua marca. Por exemplo: o Justin Bieber é um dos usuários de redes sociais mais influentes, com mais de 37 milhões de seguidores. Mas será que um tweet dele sobre o seu software geraria vendas? Provavelmente não, porque o público de software de tecnologia e o público alvo do Justin Bieber não são os mesmos. O apoio dele não seria relevante.

Alcance: Além de procurar um influenciador no seu nicho, você precisa de alguém que tenha alcance. Porque assim ele vai compartilhar um conteúdo incrível ou uma recomendação positiva do seu produto ou da sua marca de uma forma que realmente será consumida. Se sua loja online vendesse roupas para pré-adolescentes, talvez uma menção do Justin Bieber para 37 milhões de garotas fosse uma boa ideia. 

Capacidade de ação: A capacidade de um influenciador de levar seu público a agir. Essa característica ocorre naturalmente quando você segmenta indivíduos alinhados com o contexto da sua marca e com alcance suficiente.

Os influenciadores não podem ser forçados sobre um público. Eles são uma rede “opt-in”. O público escolhe seguir aquele blog ou perfil no Twitter. Assim, o público de um influenciador é engajado e está ali para ouvir sobre um determinado tema. E é por isso que o contexto precisa ser apropriado.

Quero adicionar aqui que há muitas pesquisas de mercado sobre influenciadores médios no momento. Eles são influenciadores com um alcance razoável, mas não têm um público tão grande que seja impossível nutrir relacionamentos com o público e ganhar a fidelidade deles. Um público fiel absorve recomendações como uma esponja!

Dê uma imagem ao seu influenciador

• Tipo de personalidade: Decida se você precisa de um ativista, um educador, uma autoridade etc para melhor promover sua campanha ou produto.
• Gênero: Selecione seu influenciador entre um ou dois gêneros. Exemplos incluem tecnologia, moda, turismo, marketing etc.
• Nicho: O influenciador que você utiliza pode atuar em dois ou três nichos. Para promover meu próprio produto, eu geralmente segmento influenciadores de RP e marketing, já que meu gênero e nichos são empresas que escrevem sobre outreach de blogueiros e segmentação de influenciadores.
• Temas: Selecione um tema que o seu influenciador ideal discute às vezes nas mídias sociais ou em seu blog. Você vai se referir a este tema na hora de fazer contato, explicando porque você acredita que vocês dois são uma combinação perfeita.
• Tipo de alcance: Você deseja tráfego para o site ou seguidores nas redes sociais? Seu influenciador é um blogueiro ativo? Você tem uma campanha visual e precisa que seu influenciador use o Pinterest e o Instagram? Ou você quer tweets? Qualquer que seja o melhor alcance para a sua marca, na sua visão, filtre os canais e o número de seguidores em cada um deles. 

Parte 2: Onde procurar o influenciador ideal

Agora que você já atribuiu uma imagem ao seu influenciador, ele não é mais aquela figura difusa que mal enxergamos. Ele é uma figura tangível, e conseguimos entendê-lo e reconhecê-lo.

Monitoramento de mídias sociais

Defensores de marcas são os influenciadores mais visíveis que a sua marca vai ter. Além de o público segui-los porque o que eles escrevem se alinha à sua marca, eles também falam ativamente e abertamente sobre o quanto gostam da sua empresa.

Monitorar as mídias sociais também te permite encontrar influenciadores que defendem o gênero ou nicho que você selecionou no primeiro passo. Por exemplo, alguém pode publicar e twitar muito sobre equipamento para yoga, mas não mencionar o seu site como um lugar incrível para comprar equipamento para yoga. Você precisa engajar essa pessoa e expor sua marca a ela.

Pesquise hashtags

Identifique as hashtags que seus influenciadores segmentados estão utilizando. Para a minha empresa, eu sigo #bloggeroutreach e #influencemktg. Ao observar as conversas em torno dessas hashtags, eu identifiquei não só usuários ativos nestas categorias, mas também identifiquei temas para posts de blog que escrevi para atrair estes influenciadores.

Quando começar a encontrar influenciadores que parecem uma boa opção para a sua marca, eu sugiro que você os adicione a uma lista do Twitter para organizá-los e segui-los com mais eficiência. Eu uso o HootSuite para organizar meu canal do twitter. Veja como as minhas hashtags aparecem na plataforma: 

Alertas do Google

Configure alertas para palavras-chave relacionadas à sua marca a fim de identificar pessoas que escrevem ativamente sobre temas no seu nicho. Você também deve criar alternativas para o nome da sua marca, para encontrar posts e artigos com menções a você e identificar os defensores que você já tem.

Mention

O Mention permite que você insira o nome da sua empresa para encontrar menções em diferentes mídias, como YouTube, Twitter, e Facebook, entre outras.

Outreach de blogueiros

Blogueiros geralmente são o elemento mais forte dos círculos de influenciadores. Um dos benefícios extras de segmentar blogueiros é que eles quase sempre estão ativos em muitas plataformas de mídias sociais. 

Na hora de localizar blogueiros influentes para a sua marca, comece pesquisando blogs em seu gênero e verifique os nichos, lendo as publicações para determinar se eles escrevem sobre temas relevantes. Após fazer uma lista de blogueiros relevantes para o seu contexto, é hora de localizar os números de SEO e dados de mídias sociais deles para definir aqueles que significam o melhor alcance para a sua marca. 

Examinar os dados de blogs manualmente para encontrar todos os critérios que você definiu com a imagem do seu influenciador pode levar muito tempo. Felizmente, existem muitas ferramentas de outreach excelentes para facilitar esse processo. Existe uma ferramenta para cobrir cada seção.

Marketplaces de influenciadores

Marketplaces de influenciadores como o AspireIQ e o Famebit conectam marcas e influenciadores nas mesmas indústrias. Eles muitas vezes ajudam a monitorar o ROI de campanhas, gerir pagamentos e rastrear métricas de engajamento. Mas eles retêm uma fração do seu rendimento, e portanto, você deve conferir se eles são uma boa opção para a sua campanha antes de investir.

Parte 3: Comece sua campanha de influenciador

Estimule a criação de conteúdo

Um influenciador de marca de verdade é apaixonado por seu produto ou serviço, e essa paixão é visível. Ela se espalha entre aqueles que leem as palavras ou assistem aos vídeos desse influenciador. E isso resulta em potenciais leads para a sua empresa.

A sua meta é conseguir o máximo possível de conteúdo com consumidores felizes, ao vivo, e frente ao maior público possível. Aqui estão algumas formas de obter conteúdo gerado por usuários de clientes que já amam a sua marca:

• Peça aos seus clientes para publicarem fotos e vídeos usando seu produto: Se você prometer que vai compartilhar o conteúdo publicado, aposto que o narcisismo das mídias sociais vai consumir os seus clientes e muitos deles vão ficar felizes em te ajudar.
• Incentive o conteúdo gerado por usuários com sorteios de produtos ou descontos em seu serviço: Promover uma competição é uma forma simples de encorajar engajamento e reconhecimento de marca.
• Peça a clientes satisfeitos para responderem perguntas de estudo de caso e assegure-os de que podem aprovar seu conteúdo antes da publicação. Eu tive taxas de resposta mais altas quando ofereci gift cards em troca disso, porque responder a essas perguntas toma bastante tempo. 
• Participe em todos os tipos de fórum de discussão: Ao participar de discussões com o seu público, você pode usar os posts ou palavras deles como citações ou até inspiração para o seu blog. Você pode também pedir que eles escrevam posts baseados em comentários e publiquem. Eu prometo que quando eles virem suas palavras publicadas, vão compartilhar muito. 
• Envie produtos gratuitos ou uma demonstração gratuita do seu software sem compromisso para influenciadores: Se eles gostarem do produto, talvez te mencionem ou escrevam sobre você, recomendando seu produto incrível.
• Troque guest posts com eles: Os guest posts não morreram. Lembre-se apenas de criar conteúdo de qualidade.

Como compensar influenciadores

Se alguém vai dizer coisas boas sobre a sua marca, ele ou ela devem ser recompensados. Não é preciso ter uma recompensa financeira, mas essa é uma das alternativas. O importante é que você quer que o seu influenciador se sinta recompensado, reconhecido, amado, importante, ou uma combinação disso. Aqui estão algumas formas de compensar os influenciadores da sua marca: 

• Financeiramente: Lembre-se de seguir os padrões e melhores práticas da indústria e as orientações do FTIC na hora de compensar influenciadores financeiramente.
• Referências: Compartilhar um post que alguém escreveu sobre você nas suas redes sociais vai direcionar mais tráfego para o site deles e fazê-lo se sentir importante. Além disso, até um tweet simples dizendo “Obrigado pela menção incrível, influenciador fantástico” ou algo assim, vai dar um resultado incrível. 
• Desconto em produtos ou sorteios: Oferecer um desconto em seu serviço ou um produto da sua marca vai encorajar bastante um influenciador a continuar falando sobre você. 
• Comissão: Para influenciadores que estão se inserindo ativamente em diálogos sobre a sua marca e gerando grandes vendas, não é má ideia oferecer algum tipo de comissão pelos clientes atraídos

Perguntas frequentes sobre o uso de influenciadores no marketing

Será que o marketing de influenciador vale o investimento? Para a maioria das marcas, a resposta é sim. Aqui está o que você precisa saber antes de mergulhar no marketing de influenciador.

Quanto custa contratar um influenciador?

O custo pode variar segundo a indústria, a campanha e o alcance do influenciador. Influenciadores menores no Instagram ganham entre 100 e 300 dólares por post, enquanto grandes celebridades podem receber milhares ou centenas de milhares de dólares.

Onde posso encontrar o influenciador certo para a minha indústria?

Considere usar marketplaces de engajamento de influenciadores ou pesquisar hashtags e marcas relevantes na plataforma da sua preferência. 

Como posso monitorar o ROI de campanhas de influenciador?

Combinar campanhas de influenciador e marketing de afiliados é a forma mais fácil de monitorar ROI. Oferecer links únicos para cada influenciador facilita o rastreamento de vendas e engajamento.

Qual é a expectativa de sucesso do marketing de influenciador?

Como com qualquer campanha de marketing, o sucesso depende da estratégia e das metas. No entanto, 80% dos profissionais do marketing consideram o marketing de influenciador eficaz, e 89% declaram que ele é tão eficaz ou mais eficaz do que outros canais.

Conclusão

O marketing de influenciador tem evoluído desde que surgiu como uma estratégia de marketing digital, mas a técnica continua trazendo sucesso para muitas marcas.

Se você quiser ajuda para criar uma campanha de influenciador para a sua empresa, fale com a nossa agência e podemos te conduzir neste processo.

Onde você procura influenciadores para a sua marca? Vamos abrir uma discussão interessante nos comentários abaixo!

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Is a Discord community right for your brand?

Discord is the future of online communities.

Traditionally associated with gamers, the platform has gone mainstream.

Today the seven year-old company has grown to more than 300 million registered users.

This adoption of Discord is part of a much broader trend. Gen Z, in particular, is opting to spend time in smaller, private online communities.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “…even before Covid-19, Gen Z was eschewing traditional social media for ‘digital campfires,’ more intimate online destinations where they private message or connect either in micro-communities or larger shared experiences.”

Marketers, creators and community builders looking to future proof themselves should take a moment to reflect—are you part of that “digital campfire?”

The answer is likely…no.

So, how do you get started and what role should Discord serve in your audience engagement strategy?

What is Discord and what role does it play?

Discord is not a traditional social media platform. It’s not a place for organic growth and awareness. Instead, it is a community platform.

A Discord server is a hub. Its driving purpose is to deepen relationships with existing, hard core fans and evangelists.

This distinction is critical.

Brands on Discord should focus on two things. First, providing experiences that are unique and cannot be replicated elsewhere. Second, should be facilitating connections and conversations amongst community members.

It’s this deeper sense of community that has brands such StockX, Skittles and Chipotle flocking to the platform. The CMO of StockX, Deena Bahri, explained in Adweek, “The customer is looking for more—more engagement, more dialogue, more input—and Discord is one of the platforms offering that.”

The most active Discord servers have chats occurring across multiple channels 24/7. The pace at which conversations occur within Discord tend to be much quicker than other platforms.

Users participate in chats, have video and/or audio calls, screen share and send direct messages to one another. Topics within a Discord server are organized around “channels,” which ensures conversations are focused and easy to navigate.

All this to say, setting up a Discord community may require more attention and investment to reach fewer people. However, there’s a tradeoff. Those people and that community (when cultivated carefully) will build a deeper relationship with your company. Discord allows for a two-way conversation between the brand and its community, making them feel like they are part of the organization—not just end customers.

How do you set up a Discord server?

To start a new Discord server, click the plus sign below the server icons on the left side of the screen.

From there you can create a server from scratch or choose a template.

The templates give you a list of channels to start with that you can edit if you want.

Once you’ve selected your template (or lack thereof) you’ll be prompted to select your server name and upload an icon.

Congrats. Now you have a Discord server.

After you’ve created your server, you’ll need to create channels.

There are two types of channels: text and voice. Text is for all written and image-based conversation, while voice can be voice and/or video.

Regardless of the type of channels you create, you’ll want them to be focused around your community’s interests. This is where community members will congregate to interact with you (and one another) around the selected topics.

To ensure you cultivate a welcoming community you may want to create a rules page for new members. You can also create and assign roles for your community members. Roles determine a member’s admin permissions and as the community expands you could assign moderator status to users you trust.

Regardless, these are details you can finesse and refine over time.

How do you nurture a Discord community?

Great communities start as small communities.

It’s counterintuitive but true. With Discord, in particular, it’s about depth vs breadth. Especially, when you’re starting out. Here are three tips to consider as you build and engage your audience on the platform:

1. Identify your inaugural class

You may want to hand select the initial members you want to have join the community. Or, at least limit the initial number of members. This will allow you to refine your community management process and work out any kinks.

So who should join initially?

Are there avid fans of your brand? Who is regularly commenting on your social posts or creating content promoting your brand?

These brand evangelists make ideal members. They’re going to be excited about the opportunity.

2. Plan your content (and conversation starters)

Now that you’ve got your initial community, it’s time to activate them.

Ask yourself, what access and/or exclusives can you provide?

Inspire community activity by prompting (and sustaining) conversations within your server.

Develop a content calendar to ensure a steady drumbeat of activity and discussions. Ideally, surprise and delight your community so they feel like they’re spending their time wisely and have a reason to keep coming back.

Maybe your CEO or founder is admired by the community. Perhaps your brand has a big celebrity or influencer ambassador. Any of these would make exciting AMAs.

Exclusive first looks at products would also make a great incentive, and provide an opportunity to get valuable consumer feedback before a big launch.

You’ll want to focus on activities designed to spark high levels of engagement. Create momentum via a steady drumbeat of activity. Remember, it takes time for visiting a community to become a habit.

3. Test and learn, then loosen the reigns

During the early stages of cultivating a community, most activities will need to be prompted by you. Invest in fostering relationships with these early members. Get feedback and identify what keeps them engaged. Apply their input and test what works.

Ultimately, this is all being done to ensure the community is a worthwhile experience when you scale.

Once the community finally reaches a tipping point where the majority of conversation is not being prompted by you, that’s a sign to start adding more members and scale.

If your brand has accomplished this, you’ll have developed a truly meaningful Discord community.

Is it worth it? Should your brand invest in developing a Discord community?

Ultimately, it depends on your goals as a brand. An apt analogy would be comparing Discord to a house party. It’s a private and intimate affair. Whereas Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter is like a Vegas nightclub – a place to see and be seen.

Sure, they’re both parties, but they’re drastically different experiences.

If you’re looking for a platform that will help you quickly grow your audience, Discord isn’t it. But if you have the resources to invest in building a long-term community of people who can amplify and advocate for your brand, Discord is absolutely the place to be.

“Audience” and “community” are no longer interchangeable in the world of social. Read more to find out why.

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Lessons learned as an entry-level software engineer

If you asked me a year ago what a software engineer did, I would have said something along the lines of “solving problems through code.” It’s a simple answer that points to how the work we produce is evaluated. For engineers on product-driven teams, these problems could include how to implement a new feature that customers have been asking for, or how to improve the performance of existing features.

If you ask me the same question today, I would give a slightly different response. Software engineers are tasked with solving the right problems through code—and when solved effectively, they accomplish business goals. Figuring out which problems to solve and how to solve them is the most important part of being a developer, with the actual implementation details being secondary.

My path to software engineering

I became interested in programming after taking a class at Upperline Code the summer before my freshman year of college. I got this opportunity through a college and career readiness program that I was part of called The Opportunity Network.

Upperline Code was my first introduction to programming, and where I quickly realized I was interested in learning to code. Later that summer, I received my Notre Dame enrollment packet and switched from the College of Arts and Letters to the College of Engineering so I could major in Computer Science (CS).

Some of my favorite CS courses were Design/Analysis of Algorithms, Cloud Computing and Programming Challenges. The problems were interesting and the professors were great at presenting new ideas and explaining concepts.

Throughout undergrad, I knew that I wanted to work as a software engineer and use the technical skills that I gained. Thankfully, the summer before my senior year, I had the opportunity to intern as a software engineer at Kantata and pair-program with other engineers to help deliver features.

My internship experience, along with pep talks from my professors, gave me the confidence to not settle for any other role when I first started applying for jobs. After plenty of time spent in office hours, I graduated in 2021 with a CS degree and accepted an offer to be an Associate Software Engineer here at Sprout Social.

Settling into Sprout Social

Part of being new to the role and new to the company was having to develop both general software engineering skills and Sprout-specific domain knowledge. I found that tasks which required general programming knowledge to understand were the easiest for me to solve. However, tasks that required knowledge of Sprout’s architecture took time for me to tackle and I had to rely on my team for help. While there are some problems you can solve by reading documentation online, you can’t always find information that is relevant to the work that you’re doing—being able to ask others for guidance is crucial.

One of the first things that stood out to me when I joined Sprout was how collaborative the development process is. I knew that it took entire teams to develop features, but I didn’t know what that looked like in practice. I quickly realized that releasing a successful feature required many people in different roles working together—from product managers defining project requirements, to designers creating mockups and engineers implementing features. Collaboration wasn’t something that was optional, but a necessity in accomplishing our team’s goals.

Learning how to navigate through the various codebases and building a mental model of how different services interacted with each other was a steep learning curve. Since Sprout’s core business is software, its architecture is heavily shaped by its business requirements. As I was ramping up,  I had to be aware of the business problems developers were trying to solve and why previous architectural decisions were made.

Initially, I was a bit intimidated that pull requests required reviews before they could be merged into the codebase. Understanding that the main purpose of code reviews is knowledge sharing and maintaining code standards helped change my perspective.

Going through code reviews has helped sharpen my technical skills and improve the quality of my pull requests. Having peers give me advice on what to change, introduce me to new patterns, and point me to relevant areas of the codebase has been really helpful. Reading the pull requests of other engineers has also given me valuable visibility into other services that I am not directly working on.

Your previous experiences matter

There is a prevailing idea that as you enter new stages in life, your previous experiences no longer matter. Once you enter college, your high school experiences no longer matter. Once you enter the workforce, your college experiences no longer matter.

But something that is often overlooked is that our experiences, knowledge, and habits have a compounding effect. We usually are only able to achieve new things thanks to the work we’ve done before. The knowledge and skills that I previously gained have greatly influenced how I approach new challenges as an entry-level software engineer.

The classes during undergrad that had the most direct impact on my day-to-day work at Sprout were Programming Challenges and Database Concepts. The former taught me how to break apart large problems into smaller pieces to solve them more efficiently. It helped me become more intentional on how I structured my code and improved the readability of my code.

Database Concepts taught me fundamental relational database concepts and covered topics such as database schema design and SQL. I learned how to write queries, which has been extremely useful since I frequently need to query our databases to solve problems or answer questions.

The opportunities I had outside of the classroom were equally as valuable. Java wasn’t a language that was covered in most of my courses, however I had the opportunity to work on it for a business project that one of my professors was leading. I gained hands-on experience writing Java, working with MySQL databases and creating Docker images. Learning Java was especially helpful since most of Sprout’s services are written in it.

There are a lot of other skills that I gained over my time in undergrad that I take for granted, like navigating the command line and understanding core programming concepts. It’s a common misconception that since most of the topics covered in undergrad are theoretical in nature, they won’t prepare you for software engineering careers. However, I believe the opposite is true—the skills you learn in undergrad matter, even if they aren’t directly applicable to your day-to-day work.

Computer Science is an extremely broad field

CS covers a variety of specializations such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science. The experience you gain in undergrad serves as foundational knowledge that can serve you well in a variety of entry-level roles not exclusive to software engineering. Making the jump from undergrad to a full-time position provides an opportunity to explore what kind of role and specialty is the right fit for you.

If you’re looking to start a career in software engineering, Sprout’s a great place to begin.

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