Social media strategies for growing your startup

In the fast-paced world of modern entrepreneurship, social media isn’t just a trend — it’s a game-changer for small businesses looking to make their mark. Think of it as your digital megaphone, allowing you to shout your brand message loud and clear to potential customers all over the globe. Whether you’re crafting catchy TikToks, sharing behind-the-scenes snaps on Instagram or going live on Facebook to connect with your audience in real-time, social media offers unlimited possibilities to grow your business, one post at a time. We sat down with Caleb Wang, CEO and Co-Founder of MìLà, the brand known for mouthwatering Chinese street food, to discuss how they have grown their business through social media.  

When it comes to social media, MìLà’s approach is to tell their story and showcase the products in an authentic way. “Our North Star is to add value to the customer – not be overly sales-focused.” “We don’t go in trying to optimize for the highest probability of purchase” says Caleb. “We focus on translating the taste and experience of MìLà through social media to our audience.”  

Caleb says that staying on top of trends is important to their team. “We have a group chat so that anyone on the marketing team that sees a trend happening can send it to the rest of the team. That chat serves as a top-of-funnel tool in our ideation and a way to spot trends and people to potentially collaborate with. We also have bi-weekly content meetings where team members can pitch a trend and we analyze past posts and partnerships,” Caleb explains. For emerging brands looking to make a splash, Caleb warns to watch out for being too sales focused. “People on the internet can sniff out when you are overly sales-y, or you have an agenda. Try to create educational, authentic, fun content that really adds value to the viewer, and you will find your audience.”  

Partnerships and creator content are another huge part of creating buzz on social media. Working with creators not only amplifies your brand message, but it also can validate both your brand and product for newer brands looking to build credibility. Caleb says that his team has one major rule going into any creator partnership: “When looking to engage with creators, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Message those creators that you think might be interested in your product and ask them if they want a sample, but don’t put out the stipulation that if you send them a product sample that they have to post. Focus on creating a good product and sharing it with folks. If you do that genuinely, it will create a self-fulfilling flywheel,” Caleb explains.  

When it comes to working with celebrities, Caleb knows a thing or two about navigating those types of business relationships, as MìLà has partnered with award-winning actor and Marvel super-hero, Simu Liu. “Simu is our Chief Content Officer and is engaged in the company in a really deep way. One important thing that we did in the beginning was align on the amount of time, effort and how mutually deep we wanted the partnership to be. Having those conversations up front and getting alignment at the beginning set up the foundation for the rest of the partnership,” Caleb says. “We’ve heard of a lot of relationships where it becomes one-sided, or the celebrity doesn’t have enough time to devote to the brand. It’s important to set the guidelines early on so that it is a win-win relationship.” 

When it comes to posting content, consistency is key. Some best practices and tools Caleb offers to brands looking to organize themselves for planning posts include:  

• Hypely: “A data tool is highly valuable to analyze post-performance to see what works and doesn’t work,” Caleb says. 
• Create a social calendar: “We’ve gotten more mature as we’ve grown on social. One of the things we’ve implemented is planning out our social calendar several months in advance, whereas before it was ad-hoc.”  
• Always be product first: “We’ve always been product first, even before we had retail partners,” notes Caleb. “Lead with product and you can certainly push your audience to retail with launches when needed.”  

Now that you have some best practices and advice, check out MìLà’s social channels for yourself, and stock up on their mouthwatering offerings available at select Target stores nationwide.