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Taking a Deeper Dive into the Top Social Networks to Maximize Social Media ROI
Frustrated because you have created accounts on all social media platforms but are not getting enough consumer outreach? Navigating through various social media platforms can be a challenging task, especially with each medium offering different features and tools. Brands should invest their time and effort into these top 5 social communities (or groups within the major social platforms) to start seeing the most ROI and consumer engagement.
Facebook is one of the older social media platforms, but it has not lost it’s charm. In fact, “Facebook is the most popular social media app on smartphones and attributes to 66% of all social media…” and “95% of Facebook users log into their account daily.”
Facebook communities can be utilized to connect with existing and potential customers about their brand questions, satisfaction, and concerns. Keep in mind, a brand must be an active participant in their Facebook community or else they will not be controlling the flow of the conversation. Consumers respond better when brands are posting interactive videos, pictures and articles rather than only brand promoting. Make content easy for viewers to share, with the hopes that once information is shared, it will attract more consumers to your Facebook community.
Google + is an effective, multi-purpose, community building platform because brands can create their circles and communities as well as, integrate all Google accounts onto one page. This platform provides a central location for consumers to engage with the brand and easily move across mediums without having to search through numerous websites. In order to get the greatest ROI, brands and companies must develop their circles and join other professional communities. Being involved in other communities enhances brand recognition and credibility and provide strong networking leads. Joining local community circles has proven to generate strong ROI because company bios will show up within the Google Search and it displays businesses’ information, phone number, hours and location.
Circles help to organize followers and when posting content, brands can customize and share information according to particular circles. Google + has combined tools from Facebook with the (+1) and Twitter’s (#) as features users write to generate outreach from their posts. Similarly to Facebook and Twitter, when a user incorporates a +1 or #, all other parties included are notified.
Many businesses are unaware of the “list” feature on Twitter, which gives brands the ability to create and follow communities according to their industry interests. Communities can be designed for customers, potential new business clients, key influencers, relevant news media outlets, etc. Once the group has been made, businesses can start categorizing followers according to their bios and interests. Companies can post specialized content pertaining to the groups and posts will be less spammy and grab more followers attention.
Being the founder of groups or a member will help to boost retweets and favorited tweets, so company’s content is being viewed by a wider audience. Once a company sees a trend of active followers that frequently retweet, reply and favorite, a business should develop a list identifying the active followers to continuously engage with them and start conversation.
LinkedIn is one the top platforms to engage in professional communities. Brands should create and become members of groups and engage with experts related to their specialization and target market. Being a founder or member is not enough, brands must post captivating articles and questions that professionals will want to read and respond developing an engaging discussion.
The Influencer Content Search feature gives users the ability to type in keywords, names or ideas and a list is generated of blog leaders, industry news and top influencers related to the desired topic. Additionally, content can be easily shared on company pages for all viewers in their community to see.
Quora is a less known but equally as valuable community developing website. It serves as professional, marketing, question and answer platform. Users foster relationships asking and answering one other’s questions and trading business secrets of success. Influencers pose and reply to questions in their niche market and hear tips and ideas from other professionals. Quora also makes it simple to keep tabs on competitors and how/who they are interacting with in the industry.
Quora members can design “boards” for other users to follow based on different industry topics. Creating, managing and following these “boards” will help a brand to stay updated with pertinent and timely industry news. Just like Twitter, users can follow others’ boards or profiles to keep updated on what like-minded experts are doing and open up opportunities for networking with business professionals.
Now that all social media communities have been developed, a brand cannot forget to monitor the analytics of each platform. Analytics will explain what is bringing consumers to a company’s page/community, what they are clicking on and measure overall monthly performance.
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