Guide To Choose The Right Social Media Website

Social Media has become an alternative search engine for the millennials, businesses today are utilizing social media websites to tap in the same.

Be it an up-gradation in products or services, or an award, or even a CSR activity. But as marketers, do we know which social media platform is best for our business? This can be determined based on various parameters like type of business, target audience, goals and much more. After reading this article, you will be in a better position to opt for the best social media platform that suits your business.

Facebook:

With approximately 1.65 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most visited social media platforms, not only for personal use but also for business. A marketer can share or upload, photos or general news as a social media advertising strategy. Marketers here need to understand that fans or prospective buyers are going to visit your business Facebook page to know what’s going on, what’s new and to explore events.

Facebook – For Marketers:

Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform and hence is the best platform to increase your fan base. In fact, you can find a diverse audience in age, nationality, and interest. People with ages 25-34 make up the largest user base. If your business aims to tap the audience from 18 years and onwards, Facebook is a worthwhile investment. Also, Facebook records a higher number of female users. You guessed it right; all the girlie products can be advertised here. The best feature of Facebook advertising is targeted boosts. Here marketers can feed some money to Facebook to boost (make visible) to a specific targeted audience. From age to profession to interests, marketers can choose their desired audience who must see their advertisement. Facebook allows marketers to upload Photos, Videos, and GIFs, giving you enough variety throughout your Social Media campaign. Facebook not only allows you to upload, target and advertise but also allows you to view a full campaign analysis report. Here the marketer can view the success parameters of a campaign like clicks, likes and much more. This analysis tool helps the marketer to dis-invest in campaigns which dint give desirable results and channelize investments towards successful campaigns. Another reason why Facebook rules over other social media marketing platforms is because of its e-commerce integration. Facebook makes it easier for users to purchase from your company. It also allows the brand to interact with the customer through Facebook messenger increasing user experience.

Instagram:

Owned by Facebook, Instagram is another social media platform that claims to be the second-best platform for business in 2019.

Instagram – For Marketers:

With 1 billion active users, Instagram allows you to post photos and videos. This is not only personal sharing but also brands. In fact, according to Ad Expresso, 80% of users interact with brands on Instagram. Similar to Facebook’s demographics, Instagram also has maximum female users. Being a young social media platform it attracts a young crowd from the age of 13 to 30 years. The best feature of Instagram is that it allows the marketer to tell his/her brand story in various unique and engaging ways. Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram focuses on visuals, included both photographs and videos. Instagram story, is the most unique feature of this social media platform. This feature allows you to post continuous photographs in a chronological order which tells the viewer a story. Instagram allows brands to go live, you can upload live video or photograph and post it as a great engagement tool. The brand can also directly communicate with its audience on Instagram chat. If these marketing features excite you, Instagram is the best social media platform for your business.

LinkedIn:

A Microsoft product, LinkedIn is the best social media platform for professionals. This platform is used mostly for job openings, company-related updates and also a case study sharing platform.

LinkedIn – For Marketers:

Being honest, this is a professional platform that is best used for B2B brands that aim to reach professionals with decision-making abilities. Throwing some light on the demographics of this social media platform, it has users from the age group of 25-50. The best feature of this social media platform is that the audience is business-minded. This opens up various professional networking opportunities and always thriving for ways of business improvement. You can boost ads on LinkedIn (Little more expensive than Facebook boost) which allows B2B businesses to reach specific industries that are targeted. LinkedIn also allows you to connect and interact with professionals with similar interests by joining or participating in various groups. This is the best social media platform for professional networking.

Twitter:

Twitter is one of the fastest and most concise way of networking. Allowing you to type only 140 characters, it is a plethora of information that is ready to be read, clicked, followed and re-twitted. With around 310 million registered users it is growing social media platform marketers must consider leveraging soon.

Twitter – For Marketers:

Twitter on average generates over 175 million tweets daily. This encourages marketers to share bits of quick information and photos to drive the audience to their landing page on their website. Marketers need to keep in mind that they have to make each word count as they have a limit of 140 maximum characters. Twitter allows you to upload photos, GIFs, short videos and also allows you to start a poll. This social media platform is known for its on-the-go engagement feature. The ability to share quick thoughts and respond to your audience is a great relationship-building activity marketers should take advantage of while designing social media campaigns on Tweeter. You must utilize hashtags (#) on Tweeter to reach a wider audience (other than your followers) who are searching for common information that your business provides. Before keying in your hashtags we recommend you do some research on what keywords are your buyers using to search for you. 

YouTube:

YouTube is the leading platform in the world when it comes to video-sharing. Cisco in a research paper recently mentioned that, by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic – 15 times higher than it was in 2017. 87% of marketing professionals today use video as a marketing tool.

YouTube – For Marketers:

A marketer can leverage video sharing opportunities on YouTube. You can create, edit, view and encourage discussions by uploading relevant and engaging videos on your company YouTube channel. Since YouTube was taken over Google in 2006, it also allows you to maintain good SEO practices while uploading a view to reach the right audience searching for you. YouTube as a social media marketing platform allows you to give a face to your brand. YouTube emphasis on quality of the video so keep in mind you dedicate time and effort on the same. YouTube is a hub for the education industry knowing the increasing demand for online education. As a marketer you can upload webinars and videos which impart knowledge, this could be product knowledge or textbook knowledge.

Pinterest:

Pinterest, you know from where the name comes? It comes from the trend of pinning your interest. This is the most unique and new social media marketing platform. We know about how the attention span of our audience is deteriorating year by year. So addressing this challenge Pinterest allows you to post a photo with limited text.

Pinterest – For Marketers:

Pinterest is a platform that works on exterior appearance. Hence, as a marketer on Pinterest, you need to upload high-quality photographs to please your viewers. You are allowed to link back a blog or a page to your image, grasp this opportunity to increase traffic on your website. Coming to the content that goes with the photo, make sure it is keyword optimized as search engines cannot crawl images. This image caption is how your brand page can be pinned while people are searching for you. Pinterest added a business analysis tool recently to track exactly which images are encouraging clicks and which aren’t

Now that you have enough information on the top 6 social media marketing platforms and each of its unique features, you are ready to kick start your social media marketing journey. 

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