Why is social media important?
I recently started with Marketing Mavens and for my first blog post, I decided to write something that is personal to me. One thing that bugs me is businesses using certain social channels without any real thought or strategy.
Social media can help you increase your brand awareness and can familiarise your potential customers with your company and what you do. It’s a cost-effective way to have a direct line of communication with your audience and allows you to get to know them better, which ultimately allows you to constantly improve how you to market to them.
However, not every social media channel will work for your business. This blog will help you navigate the most popular platforms so you can hopefully find out how you can reach your customers effectively.
Understanding the purpose of each social platform
Understanding how to use each platform will allow you to make the most out of them. Whether you decide to use only one or multiple platforms, it is important to know how each of them work and what type of content you should be posting. For example, Instagram content might not work very well on LinkedIn (the opposite is often also true).
Here are the 5 biggest social media platforms and how you could use them:
Instagram has 100 billion monthly users and it is renowned as one of the most engaging social media platforms out there. Using hasthtags can increase your visibility and means you can target your content to people’s interests. A great tool I use to research hashtags is https://www.all-hashtag.com, it’s important that you use the correct hashtags. I mean, you wouldn’t do SEO without keyword research? This will help push engagement and get your content in front of the right audience. Although the platform is popular, content can be missed by users unless you are consistent with your posts. As a visually oriented platform it allows you to showcase your creativity and can improve your brand credibility if your potential customers are Instagram users. Perfect for Ecommerce, retail, and fashion businesses
Facebook is generally seen as a must for businesses due to the community of around 2 billion people that use it. Facebook is a great platform, especially for smaller businesses, who can use it to interact with their local community. Businesses often use Facebook to run advertisements, and you can measure the efficiency of these campaigns in the analytics tab. It is primarily used for businesses selling to consumers rather than businesses marketing to other businesses. You can also use their advertising platform to help increase awareness of your brand. Although Facebook users are declining, it still remains a very popular choice for most businesses.
This is the number 1 social media platform for businesses, it is used more with B2B companies as it allows you to communicate with real people representing companies and specific professions. Marketing executives say that LinkedIn is the top place to find quality content and 92% of B2B marketers include LinkedIn in their digital marketing strategy. Users of LinkedIn are using the platform to look for interesting and high-value content, which means there’s usually already an audience out there waiting to read your blogs.
Twitter’s user base has been freefalling the last few years, but it can still provide a lot of value for the right type of businesses. Using Twitter allows your brand to bring out your voice and personality, which can be done by mixing personal and relevant news in with your promotional business posts. Unlike Instagram and YouTube it is used by a wider variety of ages. In my view, Twitter is becoming more of a news platform rather than a social media platform. In a world of fake news, “Twitter Moments” tells the true story. So in future think about changing tactics with this content and release new stories using trending hashtags.
YouTube
While it may not be the most important social media channel for most businesses, YouTube has a wide reach with over 1 billion users and it is the second largest search engine after Google. Video content is becoming more and more popular, so YouTube has huge potential for many businesses. YouTube can also increase your organic rankings when you include videos on your website. Plus, any videos you create can then be easily shared on your other social channels. Creative and unique videos can also go viral which would boost your brand awareness.
What message do you want to send?
Your message should determine which social media platform you choose to use. If you’re a B2C company, your approach should be more personal, by making your business relatable to your audience. Potential customers like to feel like the product reflects their lifestyle and that they can see themselves using it in their own lives. Platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram are perfect for this. B2B companies who want factual information and stats may favour LinkedIn or Twitter, which have a more professional image.
Know your audience
Knowing your audience is also important when deciding what social media channel to use for your business. For example, there are 4 different generational categories that your audience could fall into Baby boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z. Your audience will be a major factor when deciding what social media platform to use when trying to reach your potential customers. For example, even though Twitter is declining in overall users, you may discover that your specific audience is actually very active on Twitter. If you want to know more about the various marketing strategies for different generations, then check out our recent blog on generational marketing.
Create a community
Whatever social media platform you use, it is important to create a community. It’s easy to spot companies who are only posting content to gain followers instead of wanting to engage with their customers and provide value. Focus on customers who are interested, like your content and already engage, as these are the people who help build your brand awareness. Once you start to build up your community you can use that platform to reach out to social media influencers and work with them to promote your product.
If you would be interested in getting more information on this subject, have a look at our guides.
