There was a time when connecting with people from one region to other difficult, but now as the time moving with so much pace, a new social platform tries to make it place in the world, and not only it helps people to get social but also it allows businesses, small or big, making and bringing their brands to more high.
But, the question here is how you can establish yourself on social media, the time at which when users are not stable still from one network to the other – strange, but yet real – how and what makes you to chose social network as right platform for you as well as for your business. Big questions but not difficult, if you start figuring them properly.
Twitter or Facebook? LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, or even MySpace?
Considering an example now, to date, Microsoft having 1,798,150 followers on Facebook and that’s only for its main company page, but not the separate pages as well as apps including Microsoft’s product long list of products like Windows, Windows Phone, Bing, Office, Internet Explorer and Xbox.
The question now is what, when and how the company make such a huge list of followers. I am going to discuss this in two phases, first how you can choose the right social media platform for your business? And second, a breakdown of the seven major social media platforms with which you can make your business a beneficial one with the help of these mediums.
This is a two part series; this is the first part and for second part, breakdown of seven major social media platforms, clicks here.
CHOOSING THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
Q: What exactly are you trying to achieve?
A: The first common question, what “exactly” are you trying to achieve with having a social media account. You can choose to have number of accounts, as per your own convenience (as creating the one does not require more than few minutes), but important is what your actual goals are and how you are going to define it. Some common goals might be:
- More traffic
- More sales
- More inbound links
- A viral marketing campaign to increase visibility
- And a lot more
There is no doubt, that you are not looking out to seek one to many of these things, but unless and until you put on a proper plan it is of no use, except you just put on your time that results only in failure.
Q: What your audience is already using?
A: Strange question, but still matters a most. Say, suppose, you plan to starts with Facebook as your social media tool, but you don’t know that whether it will be beneficial to you or not, you may only have a rough picture or even if you have the perfect picture, of who your customers are, still you are likely to be confused at some extent among the long list of social media sites, on which they are spending a lot more time.
In order to make this happens for you to select the proper tool, consider your search terms and start thinking beyond your brand names, as location or category may be important if you are running a restaurant or any specific niche business which is located in a specific part of town. You can also use Social Mention too, which provides you with real-time social media search and analysis report.
Q: How to determine your audience daily online habits?
A: Back in 2010, online advertising network name Chitika conducted a study to analyse after leaving social media sites, where exit traffic ended up and the results showed up a mixed figure: Facebook users ends up with news – 28%, tech – 7%, celebrities and entertainment – 9%, How-To/DIY – 13%, community – 17%, shopping – 9% and others – 17%.
The daily habits help you judge what your audience primarily do online whole day after leaving social media tech, with their varying interest from field by field. One study revealed that adults are interested in providing advice about buying products as well as services on social media sites. Similarly, other group of people love to share about mobile and gadgets on social media sites.
Q: Resources can you spare and Interaction with audience?
A: So now you have finalized to be the part of social media battlefield, what’s next strikes your mind, since creating the page on social media platforms is free of charge, but the majority important fact here is time, as this is what make you to stand your brand as big as you want. Suppose, for example, creating a Twitter account for your company, what things you require the most:
- Creating the page
- Setting of Auto-responder for your page (so that once anyone follow your brand, an auto-responder message welcomes them)
- Regularly updating it with “quality content”
- Promoting the page on your company’s main site
- Interacting with fans on your Wall
Now, since you are in with your account, what probably your next step, you are updating your social media account with content – the quality content – regularly, but what more requires. Well, interaction is something that plays an important role here. Suppose, you are putting up a lot more articles and even getting a huge big list of comments on it, but what if you don’t reply to any of them, do you think that your “that” audience will come back to you – the answer is NO – reason is simple, unless you interact, how you make your audience believe that what s/he is saying is right or wrong and how you show them, that you really care for them.
Thus, a little planning and forethought will allow you to manage your social media just like you handle other parts of your business with “results.”
Q: Can I opt for Social Media engagement tools?
A: The answer is in simple words is Yes, as social media engagement tools are also nothing more then what a way to simply reduce the time required for social platform marketing. Some of the best engagement tools include:
- Hootsuite: Use for identifying followers and fans that are worth noting for further future engagement.
- Google Analytics: Use for metrics and analysis, determining ROI and helping you to know better that whether you are reaching your target audience or not.
- TweetDeck: Updating multiple social platform status as well as monitoring interaction across multiple accounts.
(Image Source: Sustainable Journalism, YouTube TV, Twitter, Featured Image)
