Runbin Dong was helping his mother run a dumpling shop when he experienced first-hand how inaccessible social media marketing could be for a small business. The dumplings were no issue; Dong’s mother is a retired chef. Marketing through a social media agency, however, was going to cost $2,000-$3,000 per month.
Dong looked for alternatives and wound up having more success via a friend who had a social media agency in Hong Kong. This in turn led Dong to consider whether he could build a similarly viable agency—or perhaps even use AI to develop a better one. But this effort, too, resulted in a sort of dead end.
On the process of automating social media content creation for marketing purposes, Dong said, “What we found out is that it’s actually terrible.” He expressed that as his budding agency sought to assist primarily small businesses, there was a problematic lack of authenticity in AI-generated marketing.
“There’s a very distinct brand identity, and everything that comes out of the models is, generally speaking, generic and very corporate…. It lacks that personality.”
In seeking to solve this problem, Dong was planting the seeds for Scale Social, the Triangle-based startup of which he is now Founder and CEO.
A Human Approach To AI Marketing
Despite the generic nature of AI-generated material, Dong was able to use the tech to provide more efficient marketing solutions for small businesses. This ultimately enabled him to sell services—including social media management and ads—to his clients for just $300/month. As this early version of the startup began to “plateau,” though, Dong identified another opportunity altogether.
Many of Dong’s clients were food and beverage (F&B) small businesses, and he had often seen them turn to influencers to advance marketing efforts. But there were three clear problems with this approach:
First, influencers could cost $300-$500 for a single visit. Second, the traffic generated by a given influencer was typically fleeting, such that the client might see only a brief uptick in business rather than a sustainable impact. And finally, the content generated by influencers didn’t belong to the clients, but rather to the influencers themselves.
Dong and his team found a way to solve all three problems. As he put it, “We actually ended up building a platform that allows us to gather customer-generated content (CGC) on behalf of the restaurant owners.”
They do this by equipping F&B clients (and eventually ecommerce and event businesses as well) with QR codes. These QR codes invite customers to share moments from their experiences; in return, the customers become eligible for assorted prizes or perks. Scale Social, meanwhile, collects the CGC and uses it to generate short-form video content via AI. The videos are fine-tuned by a creative team and finally made available to clients for marketing use.
“We’re effectively helping restaurant owners turn everyday customers into influencers,” Dong said.
He added that in addition to addressing the aforementioned problems, Scale Social’s solution saves clients time. Simply put, an average restaurant, bar, or event space owner can’t afford to set aside the amount of time that it takes to mount a sustained, effective social media marketing campaign.
What’s Next
Despite the fact that it only formally launched early this year, Scale Social is already providing its customer-influencer platform to hundreds of clients. Those clients are split between the U.S. (with Dong and the startup headquartered here in the Triangle) and Hong Kong.
In the U.S., Scale Social offers two different tiers of services. With the $4.99/month “Starter” package, the startup will set up QR codes and digital folders where clients can then access customer-generated photos and videos to do with what they will. With the $499/month “Premium” package, though, Scale Social will do it all: set up QR codes, collect CGC, create videos, and arrange social media posts and targeted ads.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Scale Social
Founder: Runbin Dong (CEO)
Founded: 2024
Location: Raleigh
Website: getsocialscale.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
These offerings have helped Scale Social become cash flow positive in short time. Dong bootstrapped the startup initially and recovered his initial investment by the second month. Revenue has since been reinvested into the ongoing build of the product.
Moving forward, Scale Social is seeking to make its offerings even more unique (potentially by devising strategies increasing the likelihood of virality). It may also continue to expand into new markets, having initially served only food and beverage clients.
Dong asks that anyone who knows a business owner who might be interested in Scale Social’s services reach out to him.
