Social media today is overwhelming to say the least. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Reddit....the list goes on, and is not stopping anytime soon. Each day it seems like there is a new app or functionality that you must keep up with in order to stay ahead. Trying to figure out which platforms you should be utilizing for your business and how to best optimize your content for each channel can be stressful to say the least.
The good news is, if you're a creative entrepreneur, there are really only a handful of key social media platforms you need to maintain in order to engage with your customers and prospects. In this post, we'll cover which social media platforms you should be using and why. Here they are:
This is really a no-brainer. If your business doesn't have a Facebook page, you should stop reading this post right now and create one for it. For small businesses, it can take some time building a strong Facebook presence but with over 2 billion active users on the platform, having a page setup for your business here is a must. As you can see from the graph below provided by Hootsuite, Facebook outranks all other social media platforms by the hundreds of millions. That's huge.
Now with Facebook ads you can reach people across the world through targeted campaigns. But you don’t have to spend money to use Facebook to build your brand. As we mentioned in our last post, there are many other ways to engage customers and prospects on social media, either organically through contests and polls, or through email marketing campaigns, asking your customers to follow and like your page or write a product reviews. The opportunities are really endless here; you just need to be a little creative and invest a little time into it.
LinkedIn is the hidden gem of social media platforms. And while it's doesn't top the list you see above with billions of active users, it's still incredibly powerful especially if you're conducting B2B marketing campaigns. LinkedIn originally began as an online networking platform for professionals to connect with colleagues and those in the same fields, then expanded as a place for companies to have their own pages, post jobs, and recruit employees.
Today, it has become a powerful platform for content marketing. LinkedIn offers the capability to publish articles, post content to various groups, and conduct targeted advertising, helping businesses build brand awareness and generate leads. Companies have their own pages on LinkedIn so users can connect and get updates and see any job postings they may have available.
The platform also offers teams and groups where you can connect with other entrepreneurs and post content on their pages to spread the word about your business. Take a good look at other entrepreneurs in your area or niche that are on LinkedIn - you may be surprised at what connections and partnerships can be made by reaching out to connections there.
Instagram is the most a powerful visual platform available today. Creatives have built their careers off the platform, as they showcase their most beautiful work, teach courses, and offer tips to other creatives interested in learning new skills. For business owners, it's a highly engaging way to connect with customers to get an idea of what they are interested in. You can do so by analyzing how many likes or comments one product may have versus another. You can also conduct polls on Instagram, and reach broader audiences using the right hashtags.
Instagram now has functionality to tag items in a feed so other users can directly click through to products they want to purchase. Instagram has become famous for its use of influencers to market products and services. This is another platform that's constantly coming out with new functionalities, so it will be exciting to see what's in store for the future of Instagram.
Pinterest is essentially a visual search engine that began as a platform where users could create "boards" of products, items, artwork, and other content that they can go back to time and again for inspiration. When a user pins something to their board, there is the potential for it to get "repinned" several times, creating the viral effect that every business is looking for. Many business owners have underestimated the value of Pinterest in marketing, and according to Hootsuite, 93% of Pinterest users make purchases on the platform.
Pinterest offers both a traditional consumer account as well as a business account. You'll want to setup a business account so you can have access to the analytics on the content you post. With a business account, you can gain insights into analytics such as number of impressions a pin has received, repins, and conversions or click-throughs.
Like Instagram, Pinterest is a great way to see how consumers react to the products or content you post because you gain insights into whether or not it has been repinned, liked, or saved. In addition to posting your own content, you can create boards that showcase other company products that may be appealing to your target audience.
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, social media can be overwhelming but it doesn't have to be. Pick three or four platforms that you believe are best for your business and optimize them accordingly. In our next post, we'll dive a little deeper into how to do so.