What social media platform should I use to promote my business?
In today’s age, it seems like a new social media platform is popping up on the scene every year and marketers are struggling to keep up. What used to work 2 years ago is not going to have the same impact, and marketers need to know which platform is best to promote their brand. So what social platform should I use?
The truth is that it will likely take a mix of several platforms in order to reach your target audience. Do some research and find out what kind of content your customers are consuming and where they are hanging out on social. Once you learn who you are targeting you can decide what platform is best to promote your business.
- Summary: Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and share with your family and friends online
- Active Monthly Users: 2,234,000,000 users
- Pros: Great tool for lead generation, targeted advertising, building relationships, sharing information and nurturing leads into customers.
- Cons: Facebook is not cheap for advertisers, the algorithms don’t favor brands, and it is also hard to break through the clutter to grab people’s attention
YouTube
- Summary: YouTube is a video sharing platform where users can watch, like, share, comment and upload their own videos.
- Active Monthly Users: 1,500,000,000 users
- Pros: Videos are effective tools for marketing and businesses with limited resources can provide reviews and demonstrate their products in action before they buy
- Cons: Certain restrictions on calls-to-action etc. limit the dynamism of promotional features which other video hosting platforms are more open and generous about
- Summary: Instagram is a photo and video centric platform that is great for giving your customers a behind-the-scenes look at your business that they won’t get in advertisements.
- Active Monthly Users: 813,000,000 users
- Pros: Gives customers a visual clarity of what you provide and easy to share the brand message
- Cons: It is a platform that does not always focus on commerce. It is also not designed for sharing written content
- Summary: Twitter is great for your business if you want to reach your followers with breaking news, announcements, and other in-the-moment information.
- Active Monthly Users: 330,000,000 users
- Pros: Twitter has a large user base. Using hashtags can help you reach an audience interested in a particular topic or in a particular location.
- Cons: Maintaining a presence on Twitter requires a time commitment and tweets can easily be missed if not timed correctly.
- Summary: Reddit is a community content aggregator where users submit posts and other users ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’. Upvotes move posts up in the rankings so more people can see it.
- Active Monthly Users: 330,000,000 users
- Pros: Strong community of users, not focused on mainstream headlines, highly interactive and timely
- Cons: User cliques can quickly bury articles they don’t agree with, some titles could be not safe for work, and must use Imgur links to share
- Summary: LinkedIn is the best platform for professional networking, finding top talent, positioning yourself as an industry leader and promoting your business.
- Active Monthly Users: 260,000,000 users
- Pros: Businesses have the ability to research potential clients, build networking opportunities, and establishing credibility with prospects.
- Cons: LinkedIn is a great way to share articles or tips, but too much content can make your audience feel overwhelmed and lose interest in your page.
SnapChat
- Summary: Snapchat is an app that allows users to take photos or videos called snaps, and share them with followers. These “snaps”automatically delete forever after a set time.
- Active Monthly Users: 255,000,000
- Pros: You need content that is trustworthy and honest. Snapchat provides your audience with visuals of the moment and makes them feel a part of your process
- Cons: There really isn’t a way to tell if you audience is engaging with your content because they have the option of skipping through or not watching at all
- Summary: Pinterest has a significant reach with women and is great for fashion, art, home decor, food, or anything else that you can create beautiful images for.
- Active Monthly Users: 200,000,000 users
- Pros: Your images aren’t all grouped together, they’re part of separate boards, so people can follow as many boards as they like, making it easier to appeal to more people.
- Cons: Brands need to assess whether they have a collection of high-quality, unique images to share. You can’t create a post on Pinterest without an image.
Quora
- Summary: Quora is a question-and-answer site where users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to answers that have been submitted by other users
- Active Monthly Users: 100,000,000
- Pros: Quora can engage existing clients, attract the potential customers, and connect with industry experts
- Cons: Target your questions to your core industry or you will get responses that are not relevant.
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