How to Launch a New Product on Social Media Effectively
By Natasha Gayle | SEO Specialist, BGD Digital Marketing
March 29, 2021
Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
“It’s NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH DAY! Cue the Dancing Banana GIF and get ready to post!”
WAIT! Don’t post anything yet!
While it may be hard to quell your excitement - and I hate to stop a good Dancing Banana GIF - you should take a step back to share that excitement on social media with people BEFORE product launch day. Doing so can ensure a more effective social media product launch.
Step-by-Step Guide to a New Product Launch on Social Media
Step 1: Build Anticipation, Momentum, and Excitement Around the New Product on Social Media
Think back to when you were a kid. It’s April, which means only a few more weeks left of school, and then summer! There’s excitement, anticipation, restlessness. You’re counting down the days - as is your teacher...
Now imagine if you had no warning, no anticipation, no set expectation that summer was coming and then WHAM! it hits.
You’d still be happy it’s summer, but you might be a little disoriented at first. You haven’t made any plans. You haven’t had time to get excited about what awaits.
When you go straight to the new product launch on social media without taking the time to build anticipation and excitement around your new product, you create a similar experience for your customers.
People haven’t been growing in their excitement about your new product; they haven’t been saving up for it; they aren’t ready to purchase it on the day of its release - and they may miss your product release on social media entirely.
Here are some ways you can build that product anticipation and how to market your product on social media:
Start Talking About the New Product on Social Media in Advance
Talk about your new product at least 30 days in advance! But don’t give away the whole product all at once. Tease its release before you officially announce what it is.
It’s like a good movie trailer. You shouldn’t know everything about the movie from the trailer, but you need to know something to entice you to actually go watch it.Show Your Face
You need to show your face and your excitement! Why do you like the product? Talk about how the new product can solve x, y and z for your customers, and how it has helped you! Taking time to express your excitement and why you think it’s such a great thing will help others get excited about it.Have you ever heard of MUD WTR? It sounds like Mud Water, right? Doesn’t sound too appetizing, if you ask me. But thanks to the owner’s enthusiasm talking about his product, sharing his excitement, and disclosing his vision behind it, you start to catch on and think to yourself, Maybe it’s worth a try!
How you talk about the product will impact how others perceive it. You can do this through Instagram stories, Facebook posts, video, email, etc. But whatever platform you use, you have to be as excited about the product as you want them to be!
Create a Great Design & Brand Narrative
Your images, videos, and messaging need to consistently build your brand narrative from Day 1 to Launch Day.
These graphic designs and social posts need to create a digital sensory experience. Help people experience the new product before they’ve seen it and make sure your graphic designs are consistent so they’ll remind people of your brand throughout the whole campaign.
Step 2: Refine the User Experience
Before your product launch, test the user experience on your website to ensure the purchasing process is as peaceful as possible. Any hiccups and users will be quick to leave and not return.
To improve user experience, you need to test your checkout process in the following ways:
Experience It for Yourself - Go to your website or social page and purchase the product for yourself! If you don’t like the checkout process, you can’t expect others to.
Ask Your Friends to Help - Need another perspective? Have a friend go through the check out process and give you their feedback.
Create a Focus Group - Put together a focus group that represents your ideal client base. Incentivize them with the chance to get your new product for free, as well as offer them a gift card or discount for offering up their time.
Ask them the following questions:
How easy was it to find the product you were looking for?
Were you incentivized to purchase more than one product?
How was your experience going to the website from social media to make your purchase?
How was your experience utilizing the Instagram shop button?
Step 3: Create a Post-Campaign Campaign
After your new product launch day on social media, your work won’t be done just yet. You need to run your post-campaign campaign....
This is the icing on top! Unless you don’t like icing, in which case that was a bad example...
In the post-campaign campaign, you want to use the following marketing strategies in your social posts:
Thank those who have made purchases and remind them that you are still excited and loving the product, too.
Share pictures of delivering or preparing products to send to customers so others can see what a big deal this new product really is and how many people like it.
Encourage people to take photos of them opening or using the product and tag you on social media. This will continue to build hype and help others make their buying decision if they had been on the fence about it.
Step 4: Get Users Ready for What Comes Next!
While you have viewers attentive to your social media pages and posts, build hype over your next product launch - even if you don’t know what that next product will be!
It’s like those post-credit scenes of Marvel movies. You’re ready to make a beeline for the bathroom but not ready to miss that post-credit scene to know what comes next. They’ve got you hooked!
Follow up with people on social media, via email, and share some posts that tease your next great product release for later that year.
We recommend that you have a social media campaign every month for something in your business, which will make your monthly social media marketing costs worth the investment. Perpetually running these social media campaigns and social posts keeps users attention, even if what you’re product marketing on social media isn’t something new.