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How To Pick A Social Platform
Top tips to help you decide which platform is best for your business
Social media can be a confusing and stressful world to navigate. Knowing which platform to use and when to use it is time consuming and mentally draining. When you start a business, there are so many aspects to consider, marketing being one of the biggest. The number of platforms out there for social media makes marketing both easier and harder than ever. You've probably heard "it's so great that you can market your business for free now" and if you've started any sort of social media you know, it's not that simple. One of the positives that come with the ability to market for "free" is that you are not alone! There are so many of us trying to grow our online community so with a little help from the professionals, we can do this together.
Let's set the scene; imagine you're walking down a street that's lined with store fronts and you're trying to decide which store you want to go in to. You'd normally decide something like this because you're drawn to a stores alluring window display or a funny sign they have sitting out front. So you go in. This is the same with social media. When there are multiple "store fronts" on display, you pick the one that speaks to you the most. This is why, before you start working on your social media presence, you need to work on your brand image.
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Having a stand out feed is what will set you apart from your competition. Through high quality images and compelling captions you can make sure your social media is speaking to your target customer. Who is your target customer? Think about what kind of hobbies they have, where do they like to eat and shop, which platforms are they using? By doing this research and knowing ahead of time who your target audience is, you'll have an easier time picking which platforms to use.
Recent Facebook polls have shown that in the last year, 44% of members between the ages of 18-29 have deleted the app from their phone. If you are marketing to the Millennial audience, Facebook might not be the best choice. However if you're marketing towards adults over the age of 55, it would be a great fit to capture your audience. Another important reason you should know who your target audience is. Facebook is great because you can choose to post photos or text and they offer paid ads which can help you reach both your current audience and a whole new one. On the flip side, when using Facebook, it can be difficult to get your posts to show up in your followers feeds; you'll likely have to pay to have your posts show up. Whether or not this will happen to you is based on engagement. If your followers interact with your posts through likes and comments, then your posts will continue to show up in their feed. Unfortunately not as many people are interacting like they once did, making this app difficult to use for business unless you have the budget to run paid ads.
Instagram has, as of June 2018, 1 billion users and climbing. While it may sound like you are more likely to get a reaction using this app, it's good to remember our above example about "walking down the street". With this many people using the app, there is a lot more competition. The important thing to remember is to keep your audience excited about your content because business accounts only average about 4% engagement from their following. It's also important to mention that if you're thinking about "buying followers", people will notice when your page has 10k followers but each photo only gets 25 likes. The disconnect shows and you risk appearing disingenuous. Our social media guru, Stacey Manikel of Mpress Marketing, states"you want to focus on building a community, interacting with your followers; engage, engage engage!** Instagram also offers the option to utilize paid ads which you can set up in both your stories and your feed, increasing your chances of being seen.
Twitter makes most of its waves with the likes of celebrities and politicians. You've likely seen it being used by people like the President or Justin Bieber to make bold statements. Twitter has less users than Instagram and Facebook, about 380 million and is mostly used for text. It has a bigger male audience than female, with 74% sharing they mostly use it for their daily news updates. This makes Twitter a great option if you're looking to create site traffic or share information with people but less desirable if you are selling clothing or food where a picture is worth a thousand words.
Overall, it's very important to do your research. Make sure you know who you are and what your brand stands for before deciding which platform is the best fit for your company. Researching your target audience will help make sure your messages and ideas are being seen by the right people, which in turn will help grow your business.
**If you're looking for more information on Social Media, join us for our upcoming workshop which will discuss this topic in detail. Click here for details.
