There are many benefits to creating a social media presence for your business, but it is not wise to sign up for all of them without some consideration. Being active on social media will increase customer loyalty to your business as well as provide many other benefits. Use these principles to help you decide which social media platform is best for your business.
In order to choose the best social media platform to showcase your business, you must first understand the target market you are trying to reach and the audience that each of the social media platforms reaches. With over two billion social media users, it is essential to create a presence for your business on sites that best showcase it.
A big mistake you can make as a business owner is signing up for too many social media sites and not creating quality content or spending enough time on them. It is better to be great at fewer sites than to spread yourself too thin and not excel on them. Consider the audience and the platform of each of the social media sites and how they fit your needs and target market. Facebook contains the most users and makes it easy for customers to stay updated, view pictures, and interact with businesses. People use Facebook to connect with their friends so it is important that your posts engage your followers and are not just about selling a product. When your followers are engaged and share your posts it will appear on more timelines.
You can optimize the viewing of your ads to be shown to a specific demographic. Facebook ads are viewed by the audience, location, or age of your target market.
Twitter content is posted in the moment and more often but it is limited to 140 characters. Twitter is focused around joining the conversation and keeping up with trending topics with the use of hashtags. Hashtags allow your tweet to reach a greater audience than just to your followers. This is a great site for businesses that are constantly posting and want to stay active with their followers. Adding photos to tweets and Facebook posts is a great way to increase reposts and favorites.
Businesses in a visual industry strive on sites like Instagram and Pinterest because it makes it easy to post pictures and showcase your product. Instagram is great for reaching a younger target, as over 50% of 18-29 year olds have the app on their smart phone. Unlike Facebook or Twitter where adding photos is optional, Instagram and Pinterest are designed for photo sharing. Posting on Instagram should be more frequent because followers cannot repost the content. Pinterest allows its users to find their inspiration and “pin it” so they can reference it later or click on the link attached to the image and be directed to the businesses website where they can purchase the product. Creating boards categorized to your products makes it easy for users to find it.
Facebook is not just for millennials, 63% of adults age 50 to 64 have active accounts as well as 56% of adults 65 and older. Twitter and Instagram attract a younger age demographic that enjoys posting in the moment and checking their feed constantly.
When choosing the best social media site for you business it is best to start slow and sign up on sites that you are comfortable using. Social media sites are not-one-sizefits-all, and it is important to know if the audience of the site is relevant to your target market. Consistency is key; post content relevant to your business regularly and your following base will grow.
Article by Erica Grabenstein
