How to Choose the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business

By now, the idea that a social media presence is critical for business has been beaten into you mercilessly for years (yes, we are guilty of this as well). So let’s assume that you are convinced and are ready to take the leap. The problem now – which of the ten or more social media platforms are best for your business? Or is it a good idea to participate in all of them? Don’t panic – here’s some information that should make the decision easier. Are you marketing to business or consumers? If consumers, are they predominantly male or female? Young or old? Are you selling a service or an actual product? Is it a product small business social media marketing used in leisure activities or is it related to business? Once you can clearly identify your customers (and, of course, those groups you want as customers), we are ready to dive right in and get started. This is a visual sharing platform, so it is best utilized by businesses that have visually-pleasing products. Think nature, fashion, food, entertainment, art, some manufacturing companies (high-end furniture, automobiles) – these are naturals. Instagram (and also Tumblr) function like Twitter, with hashtags to aggregate topics and make them searchable, along with the ability to share images you like with others. It’s no secret that we now live in a technology-driven society, and social media has taken over as one of the most powerful ways to connect businesses with a target audience. With all of the social media marketing plan sample different social media platforms out there, it’s difficult to know where to start without having a little knowledge about how your business can benefit. It seems that there is a new platform popping up nearly every month, but we are going to focus on 6 powerful social media networks and explain how each one could be right for you.

What would make your product shine?

After you’ve found out where you can find your target group, think about what kind of product you are selling and how you can show it off best. Could you make interesting how-to or behind the scene videos, Use YouTube! Is your product visually attractive?,It would be a good idea to use photo platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. If you are in a physical location where people can visit you, it would be worthwhile to get on marketing on social media Foursquare, a location based platform, to encourage people to see you in person. Even though something might seem irrelevant for your product, don’t just throw it aside. Think outside the box! Sharing photos of your bicycle factory might not be very interesting, but what if you’d let your customers share photos of them riding your bicycle in places all over world? People might not get very excited about videos of the rooms in your hotel, but what if you asked some local bands to perform in those rooms and recorded that? Don’t just choose the beaten path; be original! There are a lot of companies on social media, so you need to do something else in order to really stand out. Is there someone in your company who can work on your social media full-time? We would say, get visible on as many platforms as possible! If you can only spare a couple of hours a week, social media marketing campaign try to find where most of your customers are and what would show your product off the best and focus on that. It’s better to be very active on just a couple of platforms, than to do everything but only sporadically.

Which social media platforms are right for your business? Here’s three ways to find out

Amidst all the hype around social media marketing, some of the most critical questions are often neglected as brands push to stay up with trends. When you think of social, the platforms that immediately spring to mind are likely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and maybe Instagram as well as Pinterest, depending on your own personal leanings. So those are the platforms you should be looking at, right? Well, not so fast. While the major social media marketing degree platforms obviously have the largest audience share, what’s more important is being aware of where your target customers are at and the platforms the people you need to reach are using. Before you go jumping into the social media ocean and heading for the biggest ships in those waters, it’s important to do your research – you may find that your specific audience isn’t even active on Facebook, despite its 1.44 billion user base. So how do you work out which platforms your target audiences are using? Here are three apps that’ll help you do just that. One of the most helpful tools for ascertaining which social media platforms your audience is using is Social Crawlytics. This is best for brands that have had an active web presence for some time, but even those with a relatively social media marketing los angeles new website can get some good insights from Crawlytics reports. First off, Social Crawlytics is totally free – you’re allocated a number of ‘credits’ when you start a new account and each report costs a certain amount of credits to run. If you run out, all you have to do is tweet out a link to promote the app and you’ll be allocated additional capacity. What Social Crawlytics does is, as per the title, it crawls a chosen URL and locates all the social shares generated from that website.