If you have tried social media marketing for your business and you didn’t get the result you expected, it might be because you were using the wrong platform.
There are a lot of social media available these days, and it can be frustrating to work with all of them, you should limit your Online works by only launching social accounts that will benefit your business immediately.
Does my business need to be on social media?
Actually yes! Any business should have a social presence because there are many benefits to using social media marketing.
- It gives you a direct way of communication to interact with your future and current
- You can get natural feedbacks from your clients online.
- You can bring traffic to your website.
- It lets you learn more about your audience.
- Your business will show up in search engines.
- You will look more modern, current and active.
This doesn’t mean that you have to create a profile on every social media platform out there.you should choose the social media that works the best for your specific business.
So before getting started, you should answer these questions:
1. Are you a B2C business (business to customer) or a B2B business (business to business)?
2. Who is your target audience?
3. What is your primary goal in the business world?
4. What type of content you typically create?
After answering these questions, you should consider these things:
1. Are you a B2C or a B2B business?
If you are running a B2C business
You should choose a social media that has potentials for attracting new customers and keeping them engaged. The success key of B2C social media marketing is to be consistent and create and share exciting content that involves your audience in some way, like videos or contests, giveaways, Q&A, etc.
It depends on your business and target audience, but the best platforms for B2C are:
- Facebook
Facebook is an excellent platform for gaining customer interaction. Your audience can like, share, and comment on your posts, and you can share a link back to your website.
You can also create a business page for your brand and ask for some feedback.
Top industries on Facebook: auto, E-commerce, fashion, entertainment, marketing, health and fitness, real state, sports, news, and education.
Average age and gender: from 25-55+, both genders.
- Instagram
Instagram has the most active users, and they are mostly from teenagers and younger people. So if your target audience is young ones, you should sign up on Instagram and start using it.
Instagram is digestible, visual and needs less writing skills.
You should craft visual posts, stick to a particular color scheme, choose a minimal or luxury theme. It’s up to your brand.
You can share photos from behind the scene of your business, like your office desk or something to make them feel involved in your brand.
You can change your account to business account and link it to your other social media like Facebook and Twitter.
You should be creative and generate a specific hashtag for your brand or start a contest to get more engagement on Instagram.
But if you don’t have enough time to be consistent on Instagram you can use Instagram automation tools to get the maximum engagement with the least effort.
There is just one problem with Instagram that you can not share links under your posts. Only one link on your bio!
But don’t worry I know a great way to solve this problem too:
You can use link generators like iLink that gives you the opportunity to create a hosting page for all of your links and generate one link to share everywhere. You can convert many of your links into one short link named after your brand and use it on Instagram and other platforms. It’s short so more comfortable to use. And you can create a profile for your brand with profile picture, contact info and all.
Top industries: fashion, health, and fitness, food, arts and crafts, fitness and diet, travel, beauty, E-commerce, photography and event planning.
Average age and gender: 18-35, mostly women/shifting.
- Pinterest
This platform has less to do with the user base, Pinterest will help your business show more on the google search. This gives you an online presence outside your website.
It is a visual platform like Instagram, and you can use it if you sell fashion, art or beauty products or if you have a business related to gardening, cooking, interior design, makeup, clothes, travel or fitness.
You should be inspirational, authentic and consistent on Pinterest to get what you want.
Top industries: health, retail, travel, fashion, arts and crafts, food, beauty, Home design, Event planning.
Average age and gender: 18-45, mostly women
- Google +
Using Google + will help your brand show on google search page. So you will get more traffic, and you will be able to be found by people who search for your products on Google. Make sure to use correct information on your profile and create a communication for your brand on this platform.
Top industries: all
Average age and gender: none specific
If you are running a B2B business
The social media for B2B business should gather leaders and generate interest in your product. You can find investors, sponsors, partners, etc.
You should have a substantial presence on these platforms to get the maximum result. - Linkedin
The best benefits of using LinkedIn are the ability to make contacts and building relationships with other business owners. You should provide valuable information and support to your connection.
You can create leadership groups and advertise by targeting location, industry, title and other demographic.
Top industries: employment, financial, science, technology, marketing, manufacturing, professional services, IT and SEO.
Average age and gender: 25–45, both genders.
- Google +
Google + is suitable for business to business brands too. Because it’s a social layer that can increase your visibility in search engines. You can create a business page so people can follow and engage with you. This is an excellent opportunity for building a strong relationship with other brands.
Top industries: all
Average age and gender: none specific. - Twitter
Twitter is a suitable way for you to get the word out and provide a link back to your website. It can displace the newswires for breaking news so you can search for mentions of your brands and get some feedback there.
Top industries: retail, E-commerce, health and wellness, news and information, telecom, finance, fashion, sports, travel.
Average age and gender: 18-29 , both genders.
2. Who is your target audience?
If you don’t know about it, you can find out about it by answering these ten questions:
When you target the wrong audience, you will waste your money and time, so it’s critical to find out who are your potential customers:
- What is the location of your audience?
- What is the gender of your target customers?
- What is the average age of your target audience?
- What’s their average income amount?
- What are their hobbies and favorite things to do?
- What challenges do they have and what problems do they want to be solved?
- Do they have kids? Are they married?
- What are their jobs?
- Are they tech-savvy or traditional? How do they get their information?
- Which one of them are your loyal customers?
This way you can profile your average customers.
Note! You can use Instagram insights to get all these information.
3. What is your primary goal for using social media?
You should find out what you want to get by using social media marketing. You should keep in mind that social media is mostly a “see” platform. People go there to see things not to do things! This makes it difficult for businesses which have a long sales cycle to make straight sales from the platform.
Your goals can be:
- Improving your customer services.
- Reaching out to new customers and increasing brand awareness.
- Learning more about wants, needs, and habits of your customers
- Increasing traffic to your site
- Boosting your sales.
4. What type of content do you create?
Every social media have their content types. So you should consider which content you want to create and share that also works best for your brand and then choose a platform working based on that type of content.
The type of your content depends on your niche, brand, target audience, etc.
What are some types of creating content: - Testimonials
- Podcasts
- Blog posts
- Ebooks
- User-generated contents (UGC)
- Videos
- Photos
- live streams
conclusion
Social media is a useful tool for a brand that wants to remain popular, gain new customers online, find new leads, getting more website traffics and improve customer service. The world is getting more and more online these days so it can be a great way to have a successful business.
source: https://il.ink/blog/social-media/which-social-media-is-best-for-my-business/