Which Platform is Right for your Business

Have you jumped into social media feet first? Is your business now on every social site? Or have you shied away from the rapidly changing social landscape? As a business owner or marketer, you don’t have infinite time and resources to be everything to everyone. You can’t afford to be on every social site, but you can’t afford to ignore them either. It’s more important to choose the sites that work for you, your business goals, marketing by social media and your customer wants - and then to engage on them well. In this article, I’ll give a comprehensive overview of the 6 major social sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest) with tips on how to best use them. Before we start, I’d like to make it clear that the sectors I’m naming are not the only sectors that will work for those social media platforms, nor are those social media platforms the only sectors that will work for those sectors. There’s an exception to every rule for every platform. For instance, the Brimfield, Ohio Police Department has 135,000 Likes on Facebook (13 times the population of the city of Brimfield, Ohio). Can we learn something from the story? Yes. Does it mean your business will find the same success? I’m afraid not. I’m going to back up every assertion I make with statistics, but even so, feel free to disagree in the comment section below. In fact, I encourage it! While not the best platform social media marketing for sales generation (in my opinion Pinterest has that honor, as long as your brand fits its niche) it is definitely the best platform for increasing awareness of your brand. The sheer reach of your brand’s content on Facebook makes it a must-use. The targeting capabilities in the Facebook advertising tool have been changing the way we advertise online. Because users put their personal detail onto the platform, we can target based on those details. Imagine targeting your ad not just by basic demographics, but by job title, the age of a user’s kids, the fact that they recently returned from holiday. The list goes on. Something to be aware of, however, is the dramatic generational changes happening at the top. A study by PiperJaffray of over 5,000 teenagers found that the number who consider Facebook the most important social media site has fallen 10% in the past year. The well-documented decrease in popularity has been widely put down to the increase of parents on Facebook - a fact that, understandably, has terrified 17-year-olds everywhere.

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

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, has become widely popular. Unlike Facebook and other social media platforms, where people can choose what to look at on your site, social media marketing strategy 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. Pinterest is billed as a content-sharing service that allows members to pin or post photos, videos, and other images to their pinboards. The site, which has a predominantly female audience, is ideal for businesses for which visual imagery is a main feature or selling point. If you focus on wedding planning, travel destinations, interior decorating, fashion or foods, you can say a great social media marketing plan deal about your products and services through your stunning photos or videos. In essence, Pinterest has a niche market and serves it very well. You can comment on people’s boards, share imagery and click onto the webpages from which the images came. You can also like what you see, or “pin it.” Each board is linked to the pinner’s profile page so people can see the person, business or brand behind the photos or videos.

Which Social Media Accounts Really Matter and Why

I think social media is really important. I doubt anyone would argue with me about that. But social media is also misunderstood in some ways. One of those misunderstandings is which social media sites a business or individual should be on. If you read this article, social media marketing companies you’re going to understand which social media sites are best for your brand or business. You won’t have to waste your time messing around on social media sites that have no ROI, and you even might do better at gaining leads on the social media sites that are perfect for your business. Social media isn’t a fad or trend. It’s an enduring reality of online existence. For marketers, it’s indispensable. But when you approach social media as a marketing channel, things may get a bit confusing. Here’s why. Social media marketing includes a myriad of potential social media sites, a vast array of ways to engage, and a medley of styles for each platform. It’s more than just Facebook. You need to figure out which of the legion networks to join. Then, you need to determine optimal messages, posting frequency, social media marketing services cost of social media management, integration with other marketing channels, and how to make the most of the billions of people who are purportedly hanging out on social media. A caveat is in order. Simply because you have followers doesn’t mean that you have an audience. The Next Web, reported that anywhere between 67.65 and 137.76 million Facebook accounts are fake. Simply having a bunch of followers doesn’t guarantee that you have a human audience. If you buy followers, you are almost assuredly buying fake accounts. While these fake accounts might be great for follower numbers, they don’t do much for your actual marketing.