Fomo Academy: Marketing on a budget

Need to start marketing your startup but you haven't quite got the budget for that yet? Not to worry, because there are still ways to start marketing your startup with tools and resources you already have. By the end of this article you will have a simple, doable plan to start posting this week.

You don't need a big ad budget to get attention anymore, but you do need a way to stand out, and that part feels harder than ever because everyone's posting and people’s attention span is getting smaller and smaller so it’s harder to be memorable. 

Today, organic content has become one of the most impactful tools for early-stage companies because it gives founders direct access to their audience with the possibility to reach thousands if not millions of people. It should be taken seriously, if your goal is to grow and scale. 

Find your audience

Before building any content plan or taking out your phone to film, founders should have clear answers to these questions:

• Who am I trying to reach?
• What problem does my product solve, and how do I communicate it to the world?
• Who is most likely to be my first customer?

Then one of the most important questions: 

• Where does your audience actually hang out online?

This sounds obvious but most founders don’t think about it, and just post wherever feels comfortable. Instead, think about it like this:

• B2B, professional services, recruiting, SaaS for businesses → LinkedIn
• Consumer products, lifestyle, visual brands → Instagram and TikTok
• Niche, technical communities → X/Twitter or even Reddit and Discord
• Local or service-based business → Instagram and Facebook (yes, still Facebook for some audiences)

Pick one main platform to start. You can always expand once you're consistent somewhere and get more comfortable with content creation. Trying to be everywhere at once with no marketing team is how most founders burn out. 

You don't need fancy equipment, you just need a phone

Probably the biggest myth stopping founders from posting is that you need a camera setup, a ring light, editing software, and a whole content team. You don’t. (Yes they help, but not necessary to start.)

Here’s what you actually need:

• Your phone camera (yes, the one in your pocket)
• Natural light
• A clean background

The content that performs best on social media right now is the stuff that looks natural to the platform and not overly edited. The subject and core of the content matters more than the editing style (there are many viral videos that are just talking videos and not edited at all) A founder talking straight to camera in good lighting will outperform a polished and scripted one, because it feels more authentic. 

Free tools that do 90% of the job

You don't need to pay for anything to get started. These three cover almost everything:

• Canva - for any graphic, carousel, or static post, templates included 
• CapCut - for editing short form content 
• Notes app (or even pen and paper) - for batching content ideas so you're not starting from zero every time you sit down to post 
• Google Drive - for file and content organisation (if needed) 

That's it. No fancy software, no monthly subscriptions to start.

Building a content plan

I always say to people - don’t create, document instead. 

Documenting means filming what's already happening in your business instead of scripting something new every time. It's lower effort, feels more authentic, and performs better anyway.

Start with your customer, not your product. Write down ten questions your ideal customer would ask about the problem you solve, not about your product, but about their situation. What keeps them up at night, what they Google at 11pm, what they complain about to their friends. Now you have ten pieces of content: turn each one into a 30-second reel or quick carousel answering that specific question.

A few things that keep people watching instead of scrolling: 

• Hook - you've got 1-2 seconds before someone scrolls. Lead with the question, not your company name. You need to spark some curiosity.
• Tone - talk like a person, not a brand. (Pretend you’re on FaceTime with your friend) 
• Subtitles - always, a lot of people watch content on mute, plus it makes the video more engaging. 
• Confidence - This comes with practice, you train it like a muscle. I promise, video five feels a lot less awkward than video one.

Film your team building, talk about the story behind your startup, share some funny lessons, and talk about why you’re building what you’re building. People buy into founders and teams, not only products. 

Keep in mind everyone watches content for themselves, so if the topic is about you and your team, make it entertaining to the person that sees your content for the first time. 

Use trends, but don't depend on them

Trends can be a useful way to get extra reach, jumping on a trending sound or format can put you in front of people who'd never have found you otherwise.

But trends shouldn't make up the majority of your content, and here's why: trends are not original, and a brand built mostly on trends doesn't actually build a brand, it just borrows attention for a few seconds. 

What actually builds a brand is the stuff that's yours only: your story, your process, your opinions, your team. A good rule of thumb: max one out of every 7-10 posts should be trend based, the rest should be content only you can make. And remember, not every trend is worth jumping on, make sure it fits your brand. 

If you take one thing from this: start with one platform, your phone, and one free tool, and post consistently. You don't need more than that to begin. Everything else, you figure out as you go.

Karmen Jürisoo is the social media manager at Fomo.Observer and owner of marketing consulting business Femora Consulting.