There are a few companies that haven’t by now recognized and, at the very least, started to harness the vibrant capabilities of social media marketing. By investing as low as 6 hours per week, over 66% of advertisers enjoy greater lead generation aids with social media. An appropriately implemented social media strategy can improve search engine rankings, get further website traffic and grow sales.
But how can you come up an with the best social media tactic when you don’t even know which platforms to go with? With an excess amount of options, it can seem overwhelming to try and decide whether your organization needs to have an digital presence using Facebook, Snap chat or Instagram, LinkedIn or Pinterest.
Below, we’ve sketched a modest step-by-step process you can go for to help you select your social platforms, and make the right decision founded on the most imperative factors.
Question yourself: What are your social media strategy objectives?
Being able to tie your social media platforms to your strategy’s high level goals is vital. If you can’t clarify why or how a specific channel will aid you to achieve your objectives, then it’s imperative that you shouldn’t go for it.
Ultimately, the purpose of your preferred social media platforms is to support the attainment of your intentional goals.
If you want to enhance brand awareness
You should think through selecting well-established platforms with a large following (avoid anything new or niche). Likewise, one of the most in effect ways for nurturing awareness and spreading reach is through paid advertising (this is an wise option, whatever your financial plan). Look into the social media advertising alternatives available to you. Facebook’s advertising platform, for example, has a boundless reputation for creating remarkable ROI, making money for themselves as well as your business.
If you want to boost lead generation
From a B2B angle, LinkedIn is popular for being a winner in social media lead generation, if it’s through fitting together in groups and join in discussions, or searching with cutting-edge filters. Facebook and Twitter are also the most effective and provide a lower cost per click (CPC) than an Ad Words campaign now known as Google Ads!
Ask yourself: What channels are your target audience using?
After you’ve lined up your objectives with your social media selection, you need to ponder where your audience is working together with you online. For instance, maintaining a Snapchat account for your organization could be a fruitless effort if your largest consumer niche consists of 60 year old women. Likewise, there may not be a predominantly convincing argument for establishing your account on Pinterest if you’re only targeting the niche of men.
The brief and most operational social media tactics are informed by social media demographics. These facts and data-driven insights will guarantee that your strategy, and the social media platforms you pick, assist you with the most appropriate, targeted strategy possible, which in turn will enhance your likelihoods of conversion.
Social media insights will make certain that you’re targeting the right audience at the right point of time.
Using a social listening tool such as Sprout Social will assist you to make an analysis of your existing followers. They’ll make available you with gender, age and location data for your recent social viewers, which will aid you to choose which social channels are worth going for, and which are a waste.
If you haven’t yet selected any platform, or you’d like to expand into previously unfamiliar channels, the Pew Research Center have conducted an examination that frameworks the key demographics for various social media channels.
For example, did you know that women are more likely to use Instagram than men (31% vs. 24%)? Or that 41% of LinkedIn users earn a salary over $75,000?
In short, when deciding on your social media platforms, always back up your choices with demographic data, rather than being led by on-going trends.
Ask yourself: What platforms are your opponents using?
Equally significant as scrutinizing the channels your target niche adopt is taking into account what social media accounts your contenders are dealing in. This will offer a reference line contrary to which you can investigate industry activity, and determine what you should be doing.
What type of content do they post? How regularly do they post it? How many likes or shares do their posts gain? Checking how active your competitors are on social media, as well as how well their followers engage with what they post, will provide you with valuable insights that you can then replicate to guarantee success for your own strategy.
Again, you can use social listening tools to ascertain which brands in your industry have the most extensive reach and largest influence on social media. Buzzsumo, for example, will let you analyze your competitors’ top performing kind of content in lieu of social shares, as well as which kind of content layouts and lengths best involve users. You will also be able to look into the social platforms from which they get the most shares.
Brandwatch Analytics lets you monitor your competitor’s social media output across Facebook and Twitter and also enables you to track any mentions of them across the internet. There are myriad social listening tools that you can use to carry out such competitor analysis, so whatever you choose, make sure you’ve thoroughly researched the tools available and are fully aware of your options.
Ask yourself: What kind of content do you want to create?
This is predominantly an appropriate question as there is a range of different content layouts – some of which will match your business objectives and brand identity, and more or less which won’t. In turn, some content formats will be more suitable to particular social platforms than others.
If you want to provide industry updates, company update and whitepapers
These content formats are conventionally suitable for B2B viewers who can be mostly found on professional channels such as LinkedIn and SlideShare. If you have a business Twitter account or an individual one that you utilize for professional drives because it also has started to provide in-depth insights, these are also ideal podiums on which to involve fellow professionals with industry-wise content.
If you want to share video content
If your video content is short-form and targeted at a younger audience, you may want to consider Instagram, Vine, Snapchat or Periscope. If it’s longer and more universal in its appeal, and with new features on Facebook can also generate high levels of engagement. Not to forget YouTube, the world’s second biggest search engine with over 3 billion searches a month.
If you want to publish image-based content
In case you’re a B2C brand with an engaging product to trade, you might be willing to consider Pinterest. According to Shopify, 93% of users go to this platform to plan purchases. Instagram is ideal for constructing an aspirational graphic brand story and Tumblr is a platform that tends to be heavily leaned towards imagery that’s suits younger demographic.
If you would like to share editorial content
For business who wants to institute themselves as a trusted industry thought leader, broad casting an article on LinkedIn’s publishing podium can expose their name to over 300 million users. Medium is another extremely prevalent publishing platform, 95% of whose readers are college graduates and 43% of whom earn six figures or more.If you can recognize the content formats that you would like to prioritize within your social media tactics, you’ll catch it easier to make your final channel selection.
Ask yourself: How many channels can you manage?
Did you know that 91% of retail businesses use 2 or more social media platforms? While it’s highly dubious that simply using one channel to showcase your brand will do, remarkable balance can be sometimes tricky. Too many, and you’ll binge yourself too lightly and dilute the impact of your exertions as a result. Too few, and your brand distinguishability and reach might get hurt.
A social media scheduling tool such as Buffer [link] will help you to save time and maximize your resources by letting you schedule posting in advance for a number of different social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. If you have more than one business you can register for Google My Business Listing. Google has just launched the latest Agencies Dashboardwhich will help organizations manage numerous Google My Business listings from one platform. You can cross-post the same content across all of your channels, or edit posts for certain platforms. Buffer also lets you add images, which is important when you consider that content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without imagery.
Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.
Whether you’re a social media manager or own a business, we want to know what you sell, what social platforms you’re using, and how they work for you! Let us know in the comments section below!.
About the Author
Ramiz Al Jalbani
Ramiz is a content writer and a supply chain professional focused on IT and Trading. He has a wide experience of using the new and latest technology to trade businesses. A true Middle Eastern and South Asian Market insider, Ramiz shares his thoughts and opinions in the form of weekly essays that you can subscribe to via subscribing to blog of Ava IT Solutions or email. He has written numerous essays, articles and blogs which have been featured and quoted in different journals around the globe. The topics range from Digital Marketing, Social Media Trends, Technology Trends and Integration of Business Processes to IT.
