Social media has become a necessary part of any successful business’ marketing strategy, but choosing the right platform from all of the major social networks can be a challenge.
Recreationally, social media is a fun, simple, and hopefully stress relieving tool of interaction. Professionally, social media is a major opportunity that requires knowledge and strategy. Major companies and products have been started on social media and the impact of social media influencing is stronger than ever before. Social media is advertising but it’s also customer feedback and service and often recon.
One problem is that there are so many platforms and outlets for pushing content, it can get confusing.
Do you push the same content on all of them or do you cater your posts to each one?
How is one platform different than the other?
Is one more important than the other?
How does the audience of each differ and impact the network?
Constantly, these platforms are introducing more ways to share, steam, and comment and with these advances come nuances, intended audiences, and jargon. The ability to fully understand the utility of each sharing method and be able to leverage it to grow a company or message is what can cause one company to win the marketplace over the other. Needless to day, successfully navigating through the intricacies of the social media world is an asset to any company.
According to Hootsuite, “95% of U.S. Instagrammers use Youtube, followed by Facebook at 91%.” What this means to us is that it is critical to define your message and take advantage of various platforms to execute a cohesive social media strategy. Trisha Patel, our Team PG Marketing Specialist, is going to break down some of the most common outlets for social media sharing and share what she thinks of each as it related to business.
LinkedIn is the business social network. You want to be sure that you are representing your brand adequately when you are posting and interacting on LinkedIn. This is where you want to put industry-relevant, thought provoking, and/or informative content.Remember you are there to build your network and fortify your brand so keep it professional. Make sure your diction is concise and fact-forward. The key to winning LinkedIn is to add value for your audience.
FACEBOOK (dre help?)
Facebook is about maintaining your presence and keeping active.
In order to win facebook, you have to be willing to allocate resources ($).
Instagram is where a the majority of your audience below the age of 35 is frequenting the most. Within Instagram there are feed posts, story posts, Instagram Live, and IGTV. Clearly, Instagram today is not as straightforward as it seemed years ago when it came about. IGTV is instagram television and is the newest addition to the platform. This is where videos longer than one minute would live. Instagram is an extremely viable platform to facilitate conversion from viewer to follower. Instagram stories last for 24 hours and often promote a sense of urgency for your audience to engage in whatever call to action you have set in place.Your ability to cross promote one post on your story, feed, and highlights is extremely useful. In my opinion, what sets instagram apart, is the fluidity and ease of use. Keep your content clean and sharp and easy to take comprehend in a split second. Too many words on an image or an image or video that needs explaining probably wouldn’t be best for this platform. Imagery and notability are where i would focus. And of course, stay on brand!
YOUTUBE
Youtube is where all of your video content should live. Yes, you should post and promote your content across your various social media channels at relevant and strategic times; however, they should all have a home on your youtube page somewhere. Whether your video is listed, private, or public, having access to your content from anywhere in a shareable format is essential. Additionally, Youtube is still an extremely viable and trackable form of social media. Youtube also makes it easy to share your content across the various other platform.
Though twitter isn’t known for its conversion for businesses, it is important to keep your Twitter active. Twitter is extremely responsive and is paramount in times when it is necessary to join a time-sensitive conversation. When current events are happening, often times, Twitter is where the most relevant and discoverable exchanges occur.