Whether you’re a large business at the top of your industry, an independent professional just getting started or somewhere in between, you must’ve surely considered using social media to network and connect with clients and customers. Are you still wondering where to start and what to publish on these platforms? Should you just create a Facebook page for your company and upload every new product or feature update? Should you get adventurous with Instagram and post pictures from the last office party?
Here’s your guide to Top Social Media platforms and content that clicks!
Content with relevant images (to your business and your customers) gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.
Who should use it?
By profession – Creative professionals like photographer, artists, designers, bakers.
By industry – If you take pride in creating and delivering deliver visually appealing products or services, especially in the lifestyle category – Food and beverage, confectionery, hospitality, travel and tourism, arts and crafts, fashion, gifting.
What should I publish?
Good quality pictures or short videos of selective things that truly reflect your business’s lifestyle. Imagine if your business were a person and ask yourself what would he/she post on Instagram? Instagramers love content that is genuine, personal and shows that your brand is a real, creative and passionate person.
A platform where businesses can creatively glorify their products and tell their brand story uninterrupted.
Who should use it?
With over 70% percent of online adults actively using Facebook, you may find yourself wondering, why not! Right? Think again because apart from being the most popular social media platform, Facebook is also the most crowded and competitive platform. Most business can expect to get less than 10% reach on their posts, without spending on advertising.
What should I publish?
Facebook is one of the platforms that business can use as their product catalogue and gain good traction if deployed creatively. However, Facebook isn’t only about selling. The main goal of every communication on Facebook should reveal the people and their passion behind the brand. All photos, videos and posts that you publish should reinforce your brand story. From promotions to new launches, design your Facebook posts professionally and boost the ones you don’t want your customers to miss.
Before investing in social media marketing, identify the platforms where your digital audience not only hang out but can’t live without.
Who should use it?
Since its advent, LinkedIn has primarily served the purpose of a networking site for professionals and B2B reach outs. If your goal is to make connections in the business world and to add clients to your Rolodex, invest time and effort on LinkedIn. Service providers in the Financial, Legal and Educational sectors are predominant LinkedIn users, as compared to manufacturers or retailers.
What should you publish?
Unless you’re a recruiter or a University, you shouldn’t be selling anything directly on LinkedIn. Solutions, ideas and best practice cases the few things that particularly interest LinkedIn users. Many small and large businesses have benefited from sharing industry updates, company news and white papers. The senior members can become the voice of an expert in your industry by offering tips and research findings linking to your business blog. Your team members can also represent your company in relevant groups and discussions to solicit advice and spread the word about your business.
85% of the users are female and 67% are millennials. So if your brand is geared towards young women, it’s a no-brainer!
Who should use it?
This platform predominantly enjoys a creative and savvy female audience. So if your business is rich in visual imagery like – wedding planning, travel destinations, interior decorating, fashion or foods, you can say a great deal about your products and services through your stunning photos or videos.
What should you publish?
Pinterest is great for releasing and sharing regular and fresh visual content (photos and videos) that members can pin (save and share) on their boards. Save the best of your visual assets, from DIYs to creative photo shoots to conceptual renders to post on this platform.
Your tweets have approx. 18 minutes to get discovered and gain traction, after that they might as well disappear.
Who should use it?
Err. If you aren’t already on Twitter with a decent number of followers, maybe now’s not the great time to get on this bandwagon. Twitter as a platform for branded content promotion is dying as you read this. Twitter’s year-over-year increase in daily active users is -0.44%. Mostly supported by the tech industry, Twitter still remains relevant to businesses who are revered for keeping the users up-to-date with what’s happening in the world, however, it’s not the best place to try to acquire new customers.
What should you publish?
Twitter has only 100m daily active users, who are most reactive to breaking news, updates and announcements. So businesses that see an opportunity in topical marketing and benefit from breaking news, making public announcements from time to time, may want to continue tweeting. For the rest of us, there’s a sweeping trend in town – real-time conversations with Whatsapp Messenger.
Finally, a relationship building platform is here to help you understand the psyche of loyal customers.
Who should use it?
Anybody and everybody with a robust customer database! Because who doesn’t want to have a conversation with their customers, to get to know what they think about you, do they love your product/service, would they pay more for it? And aren’t emailers requesting feedback a little old-fashioned and redundant now, as they only generate 10% clicks and fewer responses?
What should you publish?
While its application as a social media channel is still at its infancy stage, that’s what makes it exciting. Businesses can innovate ways of chatting up their customers and acquiring new ones by creating relevant and impactful tit-bits that make people share. Mixed formats like photos and text or video and text can be the most powerful broadcast messages. Whereas a well written warm message can start up a one-one conversation with customers to gain invaluable feedback.
It takes time, effort and sometimes money to find out what works for your business. The key is to put your best foot forward – invest in having meaningful conversations on one platform rather than publishing mediocre content on three. And always remember, Social media only works if you stay involved.
