Social media is something that everyone involved in marketing needs to take into account these days. No matter what your company offers, the people you want to reach are probably signed into their accounts rights now.
Each of the different sites and platforms obviously offers different advantages and disadvantages. So which one would be right for your brand right now?
Instagram for a Youthful Following
Instagram is a social media platform that is definitely on the way up right now. It currently gets over 400 million visitors each month and is going from strength to strength all the time.
More and more brands are now looking at carrying out their marketing on Instagram and engaging with their customers on this site. Some of the companies and brands that are making a great job of building a presence here are National Geographic, Saturday Night Live and GoPro.
This is regarded as one of the best social media platforms for companies with a young, technologically aware target market. Of course, it helps if you have a strong visual aspect to your offerings and are creative enough to present things in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Having said that, social media sites like this will never be a substitute for traditional field marketing techniques in terms of getting to know your customers.
Facebook for Broad Appeal
Facebook now seems like a veteran presence in the fast moving world of online marketing, doesn’t it? The truth is that it is still a massively popular platform that has a billion and a half monthly active users all around the world.
It is commonly regarded by marketing teams as the most powerful social media option and there are certainly some reasons for thinking in this way. There is huge mixture of customers and potential customers to be found on Facebook and many people spend hours logged on every single day.
The size of the Facebook audience and the number of businesses with a presence on it means that it will take time and effort to make your marketing campaigns work. However, if you manage to build a decent presence then it could be well worth it.
Twitter for Quickly Getting a Big Following
The mirco-blogging site offers a way of getting out short, sharp messages. Millions of people love Twitter and it definitely offers a unique way of getting your message across to a lot of people quickly in order to boost your profile and ultimately your field sales figures.
You can get started quickly on this site and build up a large number of followers in little time if you go about it in the right way. However, targeting the groups that interest you can be difficult, which could prove to be a stumbling block to finding marketing success in this way.
In general, Twitter works well as a way of getting in touch with lots of people and leading them on to finding out more on your site or with a video. It is an addictive platform and many people get really caught up in using it.
Pinterest for Curating Content Quickly
This social media platform is excellent for getting a big audience through relatively little work of your own. If you are smart about curating content then you can get people interested without spending too much time on it.
It has more than 100 million monthly users and is believed to be still growing at an impressive rate every month too. Pinterest is a very useful platform if you are creative but don’t want to spend too long on creating brand new content.
Pinned items are also famously good at driving web traffic to different places. If you are still looking for the ideal approach to social media then it is definitely worth giving Pinterest a try to see how you get on.
Google +for an Online Community
Opinion is still sharply divided over Google +. Some people say it is soul-less and virtually deserted, while others will tell you that it is full of life and energy.
The real answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, though. You might never hear anyone mention Google+ or ever read about it, but it is excellent at helping to create like-minded communities.
The scope is far more limited with this site than with most we have looked at, as many people simply don’t use it at all. However, if you want to get people together online to share their passion for something then Google+ could be the solution.
With so many social media platforms and sites to choose from, it is definitely worth taking some time to consider which one is best for you. Make a smart choice and it could improve your marketing efficiency enormously with little effort.
