Is your business social-ready? We all know that social media can impact business growth, but how do we know which platform will perform best with our marketing strategy?
Not only is social media an incredibly effective tool to connect your business with potential consumers, it’s cost-effective and a great way to bolster your presence online.
If you’re a business owner and new to social media, here are a few things you want to ask yourself to help determine which network to choose for your marketing efforts.
What is Your Objective?
Choosing which social network to use depends on what goals you’re trying to accomplish. Do you want to spread the news about your business? Are you selling a product? Promoting an event? These are some questions you want to answer to make it easier to separate each platform.
Who is Your Audience?
People hang out on various social media networks for many different reasons. It’s important to know which social media channels your target audience are using. This way, you can invest your resources more wisely and possibly reach a target audience with relatively smaller platforms, which can be cheaper and less time consuming.
An effective way to do this is to research your competitor’s audience and look at where they invest their resources online. What channels are they on? Which platform are they getting the most engagement? Another example is to ask them yourself. Send out an email to your customers and ask them where they spend most of their time on social media.
Which Social Media Network Makes The Most Sense For my Business?
When you’ve accurately answered these questions, it’s on to the fun part. Here is a small guideline to a few of the most popular networks.
The most popular network with the largest amount of active users (1.15 billion at that). If you want to reach a broad and diverse demographic, Facebook is a must. You’ll need to set up a business page to begin acclimating yourself with different tools and strategies for Facebook marketing success. This will give you the ability to create ads, events, and content for your target audience.
Image from Kissmetrics.
People come to Twitter to discover what’s happening in the world right now. It’s is one of the best platforms to share content instantly and to connect with people and businesses across a broad spectrum. Twitter makes it easy to discover conversations related to your business, helping you build meaningful connections with new and existing customers.
For a younger, trendier audience, Instagram offers a way to reach this demographic with a visually appealing design. It’s best used for high-end products or services, food/lifestyle/fashion themes, and for popular personalities.
LinkedIn/Google+
These two networks are extremely useful for businesses (especially B2B service providers). Both have more of a ‘professional’ focus on content and design. On LinkedIn, your network of connections (employees and contacts) is the most important content. There’s nowhere better for a company seeking clients and individuals seeking employment. For Google+, keywords and search engine optimization are central to its appeal to businesses. It’s a bit more formal and professional than Facebook, but both share some similarities.
Conclusion
Now’s the time to show off your goods online. No matter the business, social media needs to be a priority in any marketing strategy because of its multi-purpose use and ability to reach a target audience pertinent to your business. If you’re having trouble deciding on which platform to use, try experimenting with all of them. It can’t hurt to familiarize yourself with each network to help you choose the best option for maximum benefits.
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