Best practices for using social media for a product launch
Product or new service launches are always exciting and serve as a great time to strengthen relationships with current customers and encourage leads to finally become customers themselves.
Social media is a natural fit for marketing an upcoming product launch and the perfect place to drum up public excitement. A great thing about social media marketing for your product launch is that you can control or at least steer the conversation by addressing customer questions or concerns and re-sharing or liking the positive posts about this upcoming launch.
There are lots of things you can do on social media to call attention to your new product or service, but here are my picks for the top five ways to use social media for a product launch.
Here are 5 ways to successfully promote a product launch on social media
1. Teasers
Release a teaser trailer or quick announcement that something big is coming and going to drop soon. While you don’t have to be like today’s movie trailers that give everything away, you also don’t want to be too cryptic about what’s going on or people will just be confused or annoyed – especially if you’re teasing a launch that’s more than six months away.
You could also use teasers as a way to encourage people to read your upcoming newsletter or sign up for a special nurture campaign built around your product launch.
2. Sneak peeks
Pay some attention to the man behind the curtain and put the Wizard of Oz front and center. Take people behind the scenes to see the progress on the product launch, interview employees working on it, or just share fun or engaging photos and videos that your customers don’t normally see.
You could even mix in some social media live content by showing how the product is built or tested, run a short Q&A from current customers, or do a series of the top five or ten benefits the new product will offer.
3. Countdown
Everyone loves a good countdown and can’t help but join in as we approach three, two, one! Nail your countdown cadence by working it into your social media schedule lightly at first and then posting more frequently as it gets closer. For example, you could do a three-month countdown, one-month countdown, and then post every day about it for the week leading to launch – assuming you are 100% confident that launch day won’t be delayed.
Tie visuals to your countdown to catch people’s attention and make it more engaging.
4. Launch day celebrations
Share photos of the team celebrating the launch, like NASA still does! Here you can do another round of live or Stories that highlight the people who launched the product, interviews with sales teams who can help sell the product, or just show the general merriment and excitement around the office.
You can also use social media to share your own press releases around the product launch as well as media mentions or if any influencers are talking about the new launch.
5. Post-launch activities
Keep your new product top-of-mind by sharing relevant content around it, like customer testimonials or links to third-party reviews, user-generated content like regular customers using your new product, surveys for people who have started using it, or share infographics with fun stats regarding adoption rates or how people are using the product.
You can also do an inverse of a countdown by sharing milestones or anniversaries, like the one year anniversary post-launch to reignite some excitement and conversation around your product.
Like with most social media campaigns, it’s a good idea to have pre-approved messaging regarding customer questions or complaints to help keep the conversation on topic around the new product. Make sure people can’t hijack the excitement around your launch and be ready to have a real conversation with your customers about the new product as well as your current offerings.
For more social media marketing tips, follow me on Twitter!
