What Social Media Platform Should I Use?
You’re more than likely aware of the fact that your business should be investing in social media.
I mean, when 87% of small to medium-size businesses say social media helps their business; 74% of marketers see an increase in website traffic after investing just six hours per week in social media; and social media and blog sites reach 8 out of 10 U.S. Internet users, its hard to argue that you don’t need social media.
So, with so many choices out there, how can you know which social media platform is best for you?
Well, let’s see if I can enlighten you with just a few of the very many social media platforms that can take your business to new heights.
Everybody and their mother has a Facebook account. Literally…everyone. Statistics have shown that Facebook has more active users than China’s entire population (that’s over 1.4 billion users).If you are new to social media start with Facebook. With that many active users, you have a lot of opportunity to reach potential clients or customers to make an impression on them. Just remember, people don’t want to see ads 24/7. You’ll have to invest your time and post thoughtful, entertaining content that will generate conversations.
Need some inspiration? check out Hubspot’s post on their favorite Facebook business pages. Spoiler alert: #1 is Maine’s very own L.L. Bean. Check out their Facebook page here.
LinkedIn is a social media platform geared toward professionals. If you run a B2B organization, you should be on LinkedIn. It’s also a great resource for professionals to gain advice, industry news, and build your own personal professional network. Learn more about the benefits LinkedIn provides your business from Social Media Today.
This micro-blogging platform lets you tweet (send) 140–characters of content out to its 310 million active users. Tag your content with relative hashtags to join the conversations and maybe, just maybe, become #twitterfamous. It’s number one selling feature for your business? Because of twitter’s ‘real time’ interface you can have active conversations and use it as a customer service tool.
Learn from the best.
Google+
So, is Facebook’s ‘alleged’ competitor right for you? It’s social factor is probably not as strong as Facebook, but there is one advantage that was enough for Kander to have a Google+ page. This platform is affiliated with the World’s largest search engine. What does that mean? Well, when you post content and link that content from your website or blog you are going to receive major brownie points from Google and get quite the SEO (Search Engine Optimization–basically your ranking in searches) boost. Learn how to work your very own Google+ page from Ko Marketing Associates.
Visual marketing is a big trend that seems to be here to stay. If you are a product–based business then I’m going to go ahead and say you need to be using this incredibly popular platform. And if you’re a service–based organization, then Instagram is a great way to connect with your audience and showcase your organization’s personality. Another reason to use the ‘gram? Facebook recently acquired the platform and has provided an inexpensive and consistent way to advertise your company across multiple social media platforms. Learn from Fast Company on how to master my personal favorite social media platform.
So, hopefully you’re still not asking yourself, “What social media platform should I use?” And if you are, trust me, you’re not alone. We work with many clients on an on-going basis where we develop and execute a social media marketing campaign as part of their monthly strategy. We assess which platforms will be best for their organization and work with clients to develop thoughtful, entertaining, and original content. It’ll take some trial and error to decide which will work best for you, but in the long run, I promise, it’ll be worth it. Now, get out there and tweet, ‘like’, post, and hashtag to your little heart’s desire.
