What is the best social media platform for your business?

One of the most common business dilemmas is figuring out where to start with social media marketing. Today I would like to introduce a few high-level ideas to help you decide where to put your time for the best results for your business. As with anything in life, there is often a trade-off between effort and business benefits — social media is no different. I need to make a very important point right up front. There is NO common solution social media marketing plan template or strategy that fits every business. What I am proposing here should not be taken as “The Gospel.” This post contains broad generalizations — you still have to use common business sense to determine what fits best for you. OK? Let’s get started. There are lots of amazing things a business can do to create benefits from the social web — customer service, business intelligence and creating awareness to name a few. But, today, I want to assume your primary goal is to create an actionable audience — that is, develop an online community who will create some business benefit for you over time. A common misconception social media marketing world is that “audience” equals “action. It does not. If you are reading this post, you might have discovered it through Twitter or Facebook. But if you have no emotional connection to me as a blogger, are you going to hire me? Buy my marketing books? No. Social media marketing simply opens up the door for connections through weak relational links. You still have to do the hard work to turn those folks into buying customers.

The best social media platform for your organization

The default position for social media marketing seems to be Facebook. While Facebook is undeniably important, let’s stack it up to the other platforms in the context of our ultimate goal of building an actionable audience. In this analysis, I am covering the top social media platforms based on visits, plus a few others like Slideshare and Meerkat for fun. Here’s my analysis: If you were to draw an arrow from the lower left quadrant (low time required, low audience ownership) to the upper right quadrant (high time required and high audience ownership, it would also present a useful continuum of the less social media marketing tips complex content to more complex content requirements. Let’s look at each platform starting roughly from the lower left to the upper right. Streaming video is hot right now, but at this point the genre is limited in its ability to attain reliable reach. You can stream live from an event or from your home, but it has a limited opportunity for sustaining an audience because who you reach is dependent on who is available in that moment. But keep your eye on this space. I think over time, social media marketing tools these platforms will improve in their ability to create reliable reach as users figure out creative new uses for regularly-scheduled programming and even integrating with traditional media. Some businesses are already creating Google HOAs that serve as a personal recorded TV broadcast to be republished later.

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

Join us at Entrepreneur magazine's Growth Conference, Dec. 15 in Long Beach, Calif. for a day of fresh ideas, business mentoring and networking. Seats are limited--Register now to secure your spot and receive exclusive reader rate (expires 12/8). In his book Tweet Naked, online marketing expert and Social Media Firm CEO Scott Levy provides the critical information entrepreneurs need to craft a social media strategy that will boost their marketing social media brand and their business. In this edited excerpt, the author briefly describes the top social media platforms and their pros and cons. When it comes to choosing which social media platforms you'll utilize, select those that offer the best potential for reaching your ideal audience and broadcast the type of media you've decided is best suited for your company. Most people and companies can't be amazing on every platform; that takes a huge amount of bandwidth and resources. Instead of having a sub-par representation in a lot of places, be awesome on a few of them. How do you decide which platforms are best for your needs? Here's a brief overview of the most significant platforms as they pertain to your business needs. Twitter is an ongoing conversation that, like text messaging, benefits of social media marketing has become widely popular. Unlike Facebook and other social media platforms, where people can choose what to look at on your site, or respond later, Twitter is more "in the moment." It's a marvelous tool for businesses that want to reach out to people now and expect--and are ready for--people to reply. If you have breaking news, updates, questions for your followers, or if you want opinions now or even need to announce a recall, Twitter is the way to reach out to people. It's for the business that has things to say frequently and prefers to reach people directly.