There’s a plethora of social media channels for businesses to jump on board with these days. And although that seems like a good thing, it also makes it difficult to decide which is the right one for your business.
So before we get any further, let’s get this out of the way: you shouldn’t be attempting to market on every social media channel. There’s simply too many, you won’t have the time and resources, and not all social media channels will work for every business.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the big dogs and see what they have to offer and why you should or should not be using them to market your brand.
If you’re a business, you should be on Facebook. It’s hard to turn your back on a social media site that has 1.32 billion users. Now obviously you aren’t going to market towards all 1.32 billion people, but chances are there’s a big target audience for your company on Facebook.
Facebook is great for spreading brand awareness. It’s not a big sales generator, but it will get what you want to say out there. One thing to keep in mind is that Facebook is seeing an increase in usage by adults and a decline in teens. So if your brand is geared strictly towards teens, you might want to cut back a little on your marketing efforts on Facebook. But like we said, Facebook is a must.
Just as with Facebook, Twitter is a highly recommended social platform for businesses. But it’s not for the same reason as Facebook. Although Twitter has a high volume of users (310 unique monthly visitors), it’s selling point to businesses is that people tend to use Twitter to follow brands, rather than connecting to friends and family. Business owners should be chomping at the bit because of this.
People want real-time updates, therefore, Twitter may be a better platform than Facebook for your brand. If you’ve got time-sensitive sales, promotions, contests or other real-time events, than Twitter should be your go-to channel.
If you haven’t used Instagram, let us know fill you in on what it is with one word: PHOTOS!!
If you don’t have eye-catching photos to use, Instagram probably won’t be for you. Instagram is recommended to those businesses that have something that users just have to see. For example, a handbag store that has a new product that hit the floor or an architectural company that just completed work on a one-of-a-kind building. These are the companies that should be using Instagram.
Also keep in mind that a heavy portion of Instagram users are young, with 53% of users in the age bracket of 18-29 years. If you’re in the market for retirement homes, then perhaps Instagram isn’t where you want to be marketing.
YouTube
Just as Instagram is tailored towards photos, YouTube is all about videos. And it’s hard to not want to use YouTube as a marketing channel as it has the most unique monthly visitors out of any other social network — yes, even more than Facebook — at over 1 billion monthly users.
But again, it’s not for every business. Just because there’s billions of people viewing YouTube videos doesn’t mean any old video will get attention. Think about it, there’s over 100 hours of video posted to YouTube every minute. That’s a lot of competition, folks!
So in order to get noticed, you better have a plan and have some good content. Also keep in mind that while YouTube is used by all ages, it’s mostly being watched by young adults as it reaches more adults aged 18-34 than any cable network.
Now What?!?
Well, it’s time to get out there and experiment with some of these social networks. As we mentioned earlier, don’t stretch yourself too thin by trying to manage too many networks. Take a look at a few to start, see what gets the most traction and go from there.
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