Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn — am I overwhelming you yet? The ever-changing world of digital data has presented us with a huge selection of social platforms, both for personal and business use. Which one is best for you and your company?
71% of the United States population has one or more social media profiles. This means you should have no problem getting your ads, products, or brand in front of people. The biggest challenge, however, is getting in front of the right people. With so many platforms to choose from, how do you decide where to put your time and money?
The first thing you’ll need to do is understand your customers. Ask yourself: Who is your typical customer? How do they like to interact on social media? What do they want to see? And finally, what is your business’s goal for using social media? Once you know these few things, it will be easy to figure out where to focus your energy.
Below we’ve covered 6 of the social media platforms for you to get started.
FACEBOOK AND MESSENGER
The vast majority of people alive today have most likely heard about Facebook. With their nearly 2 billion active daily users, Facebook has collected a massive database to use for advertising purposes with pinpoint targeting.
Creating a Facebook business page is a great start to your social presence. Their advertising platform and user data make it easy to reach the right people by targeting age, gender, interests, relationship status, employment, and purchasing behaviors, among many others. Whether you are focusing on brand awareness, website traffic, lead generation, or online conversions, Facebook is good for just about every industry. 70% of Business to Consumer, B2C, companies who have an active presence on Facebook gain loyal customers. With this platform, however, you will need an advertising budget to get your content in front of people.
As you may know, a few years back Instagram was purchased by Facebook. That means when using Instagram advertising, you get the same user database and advertising platform as their parent company. Instagram is still a different type of social media platform with it’s own benefits. Users can post a combination of pictures and videos along with text which can easily reach people around the globe.
700 million active daily users drive the culture of Instagram. Instead of being “friends”, you can choose to follow a profile. The followers you gain can be seen as your fan base and a great start to building brand awareness as well as loyal customers. Instagram is known for hashtags, or the pound sign as some may know it, which allow your content to be seen by anyone in the world who searches that same word, #targeting. The organic growth on Instagram is fantastic if it’s done correctly.
YOUTUBE
Google’s video sharing platform, YouTube, receives close to 2 billion monthly active users looking for news, entertainment, educational videos, DIY tutorials and much more. These videos can be anywhere from seconds to hours long. Because YouTube is owned by Google, you will have access to Google’s advertising platform.
Creating videos to share and advertisements to run on other people’s videos will help you reach your target audience. YouTube videos have organic reach from the use of keywords in your video’s description. These keywords help people find your video when searching the vast database. Using YouTube advertising for your business can help you reach some of those 2 billion users and direct them to your website or another call to action.
Sharing and saving interesting things found on the internet has been made simple by Pinterest. Known to be used by creative industries, users are able to pin important items for later. Pinning is easy with the web browser extension, which with one press will save the webpage and add it to your Pinterest board. Some things that are regularly pinned are food recipes, home decor, outfits, wedding ideas, and construction plans, among many others. When creating a pin to share, companies and brands can add specific information such as product details and location maps. These are called Rich Pins.
Over 175 million users are active on this social site every month. Organic reach depends on the quality and quantity of keywords in your post. Users can search for items using multiple keywords, such as Dog, Dress, Halloween. This search would then bring up any posts containing those keywords and the more accurate your keywords, the easier people will find your post. Paid ads will also help you boost the reach of your posts and will allow you to track online conversions. Pinterest is a niche platform which may not be suited for all industries.
A little bird told me some news: Twitter has around 330 million active monthly users who share real time updates from around the world. These updates include text, photos, links, polls and videos. Interacting with others on twitter is very similar to other social platforms by using their username in your posts and comments. This is a quick way to connect with people from anywhere in the world.
Organic reach on Twitter stems from the use of hashtags, which help you be found by new potential customers. With real time updates, Twitter is a great platform to market your business, share events, and handle customer service.
The social media platform for professionals, LinkedIn, made its debut in the last few years and while it may not be the most popular social platform, there are still around 250 million users active every month. The majority of users are businesses and their employees, making it a great resource for B2B marketers. The users will typically have information on their profiles about their employers, jobs, contact info, projects, and interests. With the use of LinkedIn’s advertising platform, you can target job positions, businesses, and industries.
SO, WHAT NOW?
Not all social platforms will work for your company and the goals you have set. It’s up to you to find out who and where your customers are, how they’re interacting and what they want to see. Then make sure you have a professional start creating content and getting it in front of the right audience. Social media advertising isn’t effective by simply having a presence and putting stuff out into the world. It’s more of a strategic placement of information.
Whether you are wanting more brand awareness, website traffic, lead generation, or online conversions, we can help you. Our team at Mammoth enjoys trying out new things and figuring out what works. We are dedicated to learning about the constant changes happening in our digital world and developing methods and practices to help our partners effectively share their story and gain loyal customers. Let us help you get a foothold on your social presence by giving us a call to schedule a free consultation. You’ll be that much closer to having an engaging loyal audience. We look forward to partnering with you!
George brings with him years of customer service and sales experience. He can understand, empathize and connect with almost anyone instantly, especially your dog. To learn more about George and the Mammoth crew and what we can do for you, click here.
