Every member of your marketing department should understand the value of using social media for business and its power when it comes to spreading the word about your company, establishing authenticity online, and increasing revenue.
In today’s fast-paced society, social media is an influential marketing tool.
But many businesses, including your competitors, already have well-established social media business accounts working for them. So, how do you cut through the echo chamber of an overcrowded cyberspace and select the best social media for business?
Choosing the right platform for your brand
If your business is already present on social media, chances are you can improve your engagement.
Just having an account is not enough to make any noticeable difference. A social media presence is not a cure-all to your financial woes either. Just like any other lucrative marketing plan, social media for business requires time and a well-thought-out strategy if you want results.
Different platforms require different plans of attack, however, so a good place to start is to determine how you plan on using social media for business.
To do this, we recommend you ask yourself these questions about your company:
What does my company do?
Does your company specialize in business-to-business sales?
Do you sell direct to customers. Do you have products products for sale or do you offer services? These are some important questions to consider early on because the answers will help you determine which platform is best suited to your needs.
B2B companies should look into LinkedIn as an avenue for their digital marketing strategy.
LinkedIn’s primary purpose is to serve as a platform for networking and expanding business contacts after all, so there are likely many potential clients searching LinkedIn pages for a business service like yours. It’s also a great way to stay up to date on news about what’s happening within your industry.
Follow industry leaders, join relevant groups, and even add to the conversation with your own content. If you’re struggling to get your message across on limiting platforms like Twitter and Instagram, LinkedIn is a great place for long-form content.
B2C businesses benefit from social media platforms that grant you and your business direct access to customers and Facebook is a prime example.
Countless consumers rely on Facebook’s business pages for information like opening hours, promotions and sales, and recent product updates. This is because Facebook is so much easier (and cheaper) to keep up to date than most company websites, especially if your website is managed by someone else.
Facebook stories and Facebook live features allow you access to your entire following at once and it puts your content right at the top of their news feed. If you can get the Facebook community talking positively about your products in the reviews section, the sky’s the limit.
Companies offering products focusing on outward appearance or products that would pair well with engaging photography and video such as food (groceries, kitchen tools and utensils, appliances) or beauty products (skincare, makeup, fashion and apparel), Instagram should be at the top of your list with YouTube and Facebook close behind.
Who am I talking to?
What is your target audience?
If you implement a shotgun-effect social media strategy, you’re doing it wrong. If your posts aren’t resonating with your audience, they’re not doing you any good and can even hurt your social media marketing campaign.
Some platforms like Facebook and Instagram even have algorithms that “punish” you for publishing sponsored content their users flag as irrelevant or repetitive.
The beauty of social media for business is that many platforms have target audiences of their own, so the first step in narrowing your search is simply choosing the right platform.
For example, Snapchat attracts users primarily aged 13 to 29 with a whopping 53% of mobile phone users downloading and using the app. YouTube and Instagram are the two most popular photo and video sharing networks among U.S. teens.
The most common mistake that businesses make on social media is posting content for themselves.
Let’s face it: nobody likes being on the outside of an inside joke.
If you want your audience to pick up the phone or convert on an online purchase, you have to make them feel included. That means posting content for your audience, not for you.
What are your audience’s interests? What do they need? How much do they earn? Where do they live? These are just a few of the questions you and your marketing team should consider before launching a social media marketing strategy or campaign.
Especially if your next social media campaign is going to include paid content, you want to make sure your content is connecting you to the right people.
What do I want social media to do for my business?
Lastly, if you’re choosing to implement social media to achieve your marketing goals, you should reexamine what those goals are and how you envision it helping you to achieve them.
Each business has unique marketing goals. Maybe you just want to increase your following on a certain platform to compete with other businesses in your industry. Other companies might be interested in using social media to build brand authenticity and connect with their audience.
Can you achieve more than one goal with social media? Yes, but don’t bite off more than you can chew. Try running different campaigns, each with unique goals on various platforms and see what takes off.
With a majority of platforms providing both users and businesses with insights regarding who interacted with their content and when, it’s never been easier to monitor your engagement.
You never know who will be drawn to your photos, videos, or posts so be sure to test the water before jumping in!
Which are the best Social Media Platforms For Business?
Facebook and Facebook Messenger
Facebook is at the top of the list because it has nearly 1.2 billion users. It’s free to set up an account and paid posts are much cheaper than other traditional avenues of advertising such as print, TV, and even radio ads. Not to mention, it’s way easier to target your audience with all kinds of helpful location and demographics information.
It’s also one of the few platforms that is used across all devices, so you’re not limited to just desktop or mobile users.
Facebook Messenger is a useful tool for building a community around your business. In addition to a business page, you can use Messenger to create group chats where you can get out information immediately, reward loyal customers, announce promotions or new products, etc.
Right behind Facebook is Instagram with 500 million active daily users. Instagram is a great platform for businesses of all sizes, especially small businesses. It allows users the opportunity to be more creative than other platforms, giving you the opportunity to really strengthen your brand.
People retain 80 percent of what they see and only 20 percent of what they read, which means an attractive and on-brand post on your company’s business page could mean some serious business for you.
Don’t have time to put together a branded post every day? No worries. You can stay relevant by posting low-pressure daily updates to your story, which also allows you crosspost to your Facebook page if you choose.
Every day, nearly 2 million people save product-related pins to their personal boards. This means no matter what your business is, chances are your target audience is searching for it on Pinterest.
For many consumers, Pinterest is one of the stops on their way to making a purchase, with 87% of Pinterest users admitting they’ve purchased something they’ve seen on Pinterest.
Like Instagram and other visually-engaging platforms, this is a great platform for rolling out your branding online.
YouTube
Youtube is the second most popular search engine in the world with a staggering 2 billion users and 5 billion videos watched every single day.
Video has the power to cater to the viewer’s emotions in a way that words and even images can’t even come close to. Not to mention, approximately 72 percent of customers report that they would rather learn about a product or service by way of video compared to text or infographics.
With the added option for your audience to subscribe to your channel, you can quickly grow an eager audience that will be notified each time you upload a new video.
The reason LinkedIn is an important network for your business is that it attracts an audience that is serious about making meaningful connections.
Businesses on LinkedIn are less concerned with their following and focused on communicating, collaborating, and making business happen.
As mentioned above, especially if you run a business-to-business operation, a LinkedIn business page should be at the top of your to-do list. With the option to create and publish original content relevant to your area of expertise, you can become a thought leader in your industry and influence not only customers but other businesses as well.
So if you’re looking to edge out the competition in sales this quarter, or simply increase awareness for your brand, consider developing or redeveloping your social media for business strategy.
More people are joining popular social media networks every day and chances are your next investor, customer, or client is out there looking for your page.
This makes sense. Interesting post, indeed!
Great topic, indeed! When utilizing social media for business, we should choose the right platform for our company. This blog will be a great help to all business owners. You are awesome!
Choice of social media platform is very crucial because there is no use of working at an irrelevant platform and wasting your efforts.