Startups in St. Petersburg: How to Stay in the Spotlight

This is the fifth in a series of blogs that will examine the needs of startups in St. Petersburg, focusing on the various services they may need, as well as available resources and community leaders who are here to help!

One thing that all businesses share, whether it’s a start-up or a Fortune 500 company, is how to stay relevant enough to remain in the spotlight. With so many obstacles and noise in the business landscape, it can be difficult to keep your company’s name front and center. So how does one disrupt the social channels and positively spread the word in order to stay in the spotlight?

(Healthily) Aggressive Communication
It’s not good enough to sit passively by and let other companies reap the benefits you desire – you must engage, and that means in every way possible! Get your employees and followers involved by having them share news articles and other content about your business on social media platforms. This user-generated content can oftentimes reach further than any official campaign could. Connect with other businesses and groups and get outside of your business bubble – make your presence known by attending local events or speaking at community forums. Respond to your public – once you begin dialogue with contacts and groups, don’t forget about them! Continue the discussion so that the creative juices are always flowing and business relationships evolve! Healthy yet aggressive communication is a key factor in making digital and interpersonal marketing work to your advantage.

Social Listening
We’ve discussed social listening before, but it has evolved more than we ever expected. At one point it was purely to ascertain how digital marketing campaigns were progressing, and using that information to adjust future campaigns, as well as responding to conversations on social media platforms. Now we are seeing a rise of “spy” tools within social listening, which basically means using AI to detect public brand conversations across the Internet via alerts based on specific keywords. This technology allows you to stay a step ahead of potential brand crises and issues, as well as finding out what your company is doing well. These consumer insights can affect your entire brand strategy, all by employing a simple AI initiative.

Self-Evaluation
Never stop learning about your business and the methods used in all marketing endeavors. It’s only when we take the time to evaluate what we’ve done that we can make informed decisions on what we need to do next. By evaluating past campaigns and initiatives, using consumer insights from social listening, and having a dialogue with other business contacts and clients, you can form a clear picture of patterns and trends that did or did not work. We’ve all heard the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We must learn from our past successes and failures, and we can only do that when we evaluate our past actions.

By using a mix of technical know-how and interpersonal experiences, a start-up can keep their name in the spotlight – all you need to do is take the time or make sure you have the right team by your side. If you are a startup in St. Pete or in the surrounding Tampa Bay area, and you need a tech partner, contact Blink;Tech today. We’ve helped visions just like yours come to life on the web and we are here to help you.