Social media platforms are a great way to engage with your customers and build brand awareness, but it can be difficult to choose which ones are right for you. This blog will give you some tips on how to make the decision.
Choosing the right social media platform for your business is a difficult task. There are many different platforms to choose from and it can be overwhelming. It is important to take into account how much time you have, what type of content you want to share, and the size of your audience when choosing which platform will work best for your business.
So you already know that having a social media presence is critical for your company. Not only that, but you’re curious in the possible advantages of social media marketing and what it takes to advertise on different social media platforms.
Maybe you’ve read my previous articles on using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube to promote your small company (and if you haven’t, you should—I’ll be referring them throughout this post).
The problem is that you can’t do everything. Unless you intend to hire someone to manage your social media accounts as part of your company, concentrating on social media marketing will take time away from your other responsibilities. As a small company owner, time is valuable, so it’s critical to make the most of it.
You’ll have to pick and choose which social networks to concentrate on in the end—you won’t be able to do everything. While you may instinctively know which are excellent bets and which you should avoid, I’ll go through a few questions to ask yourself before making your decision.
There are many factors to consider when deciding which platforms are appropriate for you; I’ll concentrate on the role of your consumer demographics, your time availability, the tone and personality of your business, and—last but not least—the kind of content you want to produce.
Who are your clients?
We always stress the significance of understanding who your target market is and the need of doing market research at Bplans. Knowing who your consumers are can help you choose which social media channels will be most helpful to your company.
Is the majority of your clientele younger (for example, the desired millennials)? Instagram is most likely a safe bet. Is the majority of your clientele female? Pinterest users are more likely to be female, making it an excellent platform to utilize.
Take a look at Sprout Social’s comprehensive analysis of social platforms by key demographic variables like gender, age, and income to get a feel of what each network looks like from a demographic perspective. You know (or should know) who your consumers are, and this will help you figure out how they fit into the various social media sites.
How much time do you have on your hands?
Could you decide to have a strong social presence on each of your consumers’ favorite social media platforms? Yes, you certainly could. However, for the typical small company owner, this is likely to be much too time demanding.
The large companies that small company owners want to be like, the ones who produce excellent content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms? They have a marketing staff and, more than likely, hire someone especially to manage their social media channels.
While this may seem self-evident, it’s essential to take a step back and assess your company’s bandwidth needs. If you’re like most small company owners, keeping up with your social media accounts will require you to create your own content and manage them on your own (or perhaps with the help of another team member).
Examine how much time you have to dedicate to maintaining your social media presence. Some platforms, such as Instagram, need less time to create content, while others, such as YouTube, require considerably more.
Take a look at your current content offerings and see where you might reuse them. Do you spend a lot of time writing amazing blog posts? Focusing on a site like Twitter or Facebook, where sharing long-form material like this is encouraged, may be an excellent option.
What is the tone of your company’s voice?
Some brand personalities are better suited to one social media platform than another. Spend some time thinking about your brand and the kind of brand personality you want to develop, and then evaluate where that brand personality suits best.
Is your company’s brand built on a solid professional reputation and a more serious, helpful, and informative tone of voice? You might concentrate your efforts on a site like LinkedIn, or you could create instructive, helpful films on YouTube. A business looking to establish a youthful, lively, and snappy tone could turn to Twitter, where pithy one-liners and shared GIFs are a popular way of connecting with an audience.
This isn’t to suggest that a business with a serious attitude wouldn’t be well-suited for Twitter, or that a more humorous brand wouldn’t perform well on LinkedIn, to continue the examples above. However, it is sensible to devote some time to assessing your brand and deciding which platforms are most suited to it. The humorous brand may succeed on LinkedIn, but they’ll have to work considerably harder for it, and the effort investment may not be off in the end.
What kind of social media material do you like to make?
I’ll be honest: I’m not a big lover of making YouTube videos. I gave it a go, but it wasn’t for me. I like watching vloggers, but I dislike vlogging myself.
Now I’m a big fan of Instagram. I understand Instagram. Even though my Instagram is simply a jumble of my latest clothes, purchases, and visually appealing meals, I believe it’s a lot of fun.
This leads us to the most crucial question you should ask yourself while developing your social media marketing plan, in my opinion: What type of content do you really like creating?
Consistent social media strategy is the best approach. Building a social media presence takes time, and it may take weeks, months, or years of publishing to a particular site before you get the results you want (depending on what your goals are). Which platforms do you believe you’ll like working on the most?
Another way to look at it is to ask yourself, “What type of material do you prefer to create?” Do you like to take pictures? You may be better off using a visual site like Instagram or Pinterest. Do you like providing a variety of material and would want a place to connect back to your weekly blog posts? You might use Facebook or Twitter as a starting point.
What’s next?
Clearly, there are many options for determining which platform (or platforms) is best for your company. There is no one-size-fits-all solution; you may utilize statistics to make a choice based on demographics and user base size, or you can just concentrate on the platforms you like the most. Both are viable options as long as you keep track of and measure your progress.
It’s critical to clearly establish your objectives and have a system in place to evaluate whether you’re achieving them when it comes to monitoring the effectiveness of your social media marketing.
The tools you employ will be determined by your requirements and budget; in general, you can perform some basic social analytic monitoring inside each platform, but you may discover that you need to subscribe to a premium solution to track your social data at some point.
To help you get started, I’ve compiled a list of websites that will guide you through the process of deciding what to monitor and how to track it.
Do you have any more questions regarding small company social media marketing? Please contact me through Twitter @BrianaMorgaine and let me know.
The choosing the right platform for your business is a question that many people have. There are many different social media platforms out there, and it can be difficult to choose which one is best for your company.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose a social media platform for my company 2021?
Facebook is the most popular social media platform for businesses.
Why choose a social media platform for your business?
Facebook is a great social media platform for businesses because it has the largest audience base.
What is the best social media platform for a small business?
The best social media platform for a small business is Instagram.
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