Social media platforms is frequently used by marketers to build traffic, create leads, and raise brand awareness.
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If you’re in charge of developing a social media strategy for your business, you might be unsure of the platforms you ought to use. Depending on your audience, you might vary your platform of choice.
What Purposes Do Social Media Serve?
Social media is used by people to express themselves, talk about their hobbies, make connections, and advance their jobs. There are unique uses for many social media networks. Examples include sharing one’s creativity on TikTok or Instagram or advancing one’s profession on LinkedIn.The number of social media sites is expanding, and popular sites like Facebook are constantly changing and introducing new features. It might be challenging to decide which social channels to use with an overwhelming number of platform options and an increasing requirement for a social presence.While you might not want to manage a channel on every conceivable platform, you also don’t want to pass up valuable brand-awareness possibilities.This essay will walk you through some of the most important categories of social media, illustrate platforms that fall into each category, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each type to help you decide which platforms to utilize. By the end, you ought to know much more about the social media plan that will perform best for your company.
Types of Social Media
- Social Networking
- Photo Sharing
- Video Sharing
- Interactive Media
- Blogging/Community Building
1.SOCIAL NETWORKING.
Major Platform Examples of social networking are has follows. Facebook has 2.6 billion active monthly users.166 million people uses Twitter every day. LinkedIn has 160 million users worldwide.Perhaps the oldest type of social media is social networking. Because they permit user accounts to engage with each other in a variety of different ways, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are frequently referred to as “Networking Platforms”.
Commercial Uses A social media network like Facebook could be an excellent location to start your social strategy if you own a small business like a restaurant. You can create a business profile on Facebook that contains information about your menu and connections to your website.Once your profile is complete, you can update it frequently with information about your company, “like” other pages, and respond to messages or comments left by customers.Facebook users can also provide reviews for you when you have a business page.
LinkedIn is a fantastic resource for publishing companies, B2B enterprises, and businesses wishing to provide professional services to their clients.LinkedIn places a focus on networking for careers.
With LinkedIn businesses can create business profiles, categorize them with industry types, and then utilize posts and messaging to publish updates in order to grow an audience of experts from a particular field.
In order to communicate with their viewers or people who leave comments on their postings, they can also use the messaging and commenting tools.
Having a Twitter account could be beneficial for businesses across a variety of sectors, from entertainment to e-commerce. Similar to other platforms, this one lets you make a profile where you can list and link information about your business.Then, you may use Twitter to publish about business updates, mention other businesses or clients in posts, retweet flattering client tweets, and answer client queries in tweets or direct messages. You can submit content like images or videos, just like on Facebook.
Users of all three social media platforms can quickly interact with one another by doing things like commenting, tagging, using hashtags, private messaging, reacting to postings, and sharing material.
In addition to social interaction, newsfeeds on popular social networking sites are made to display a variety of text and graphic information rather than just one main type.The ability to experiment with many content types before moving on to platforms that demand more specialized content types makes social networking platforms simple to start a social strategy on.These platforms might be a terrific place for anyone who wishes to experiment with video or graphics to test out their new work.
Many companies have started rolling out more sophisticated capabilities, including Facebook Stories and Twitter’s live broadcasts, in response to the expansion of video marketing.Additionally, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have begun to strongly promote native video and photo uploads. Facebook even just changed its algorithms to encourage the uploading of live video and images. This has led to more user engagement for certain kinds of native content.
Cons and Benefits
Some of the social media platforms that are most widely utilized are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Scheduling applications like HubSpot, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck frequently interact with social networking sites.Video and photo capabilities are available on all platforms.ConsThose who are only interested in sharing links can find it more difficult to generate engagement than those who upload photos and videos.Some networks, like Facebook, prioritize user-generated content over commercial content in newsfeeds.
2.PHOTO SHARING Platform
Major Platform Examples ,1 billion users are active monthly on Instagram.367 million monthly active users on Pinterest,Instagram and Pinterest are two of the most popular photo-sharing platforms.
Instagram provides a visual feed with posts that include captioned photographs and brief videos. Additionally, users can share live video or make Instagram Stories that vanish after a day. Users can communicate with one another through tags, likes, comments, and direct messages, just like on the social networking sites mentioned above.
Commercial Uses
This platform would be useful for businesses like restaurants or shops who want to present and inform people about their cuisine, goods, or items in a tidy, professional manner through photography and display.
Influencer marketing has found a home on Instagram, where 93% of campaigns were conducted in 2018. Due of its highly attractive style, it also provides options for advertising and e-commerce.Instagram places a greater emphasis on images than other social media sites and does not permit posting links directly in posts. Instagram’s entry-level users are limited to sharing links in their bios. Links can be posted in Stories by verified users or accounts with more than 10,000 followers.
Instagram has made an effort to make the network even more welcoming for ecommerce enterprises by introducing Shoppable posts, despite the fact that basic users have few connection choices.
Businesses who would prefer a location to display sharp independent product photographs with links and ecommerce companies selling home items should use Pinterest.
Similar to that, it enables posts that can include both a photo and a brief description in a photo-based feed. It allows all users to link directly to websites or product landing pages in postings, unlike Instagram.The ability of users to “love” other people’s postings or add them to a themed “board” is an intriguing feature of the platform. For instance, users may create boards with the topics “Inspirational Quotes” or “Bedroom goods.”Other users are able to follow boards once they have been created. A company might create a board with posts about its own items or discover its products on the board of another user.Before beginning on either or all of these platforms, you should decide whether your objective is to increase link-based traffic or brand awareness.
While both Instagram and Pinterest can be useful resources for product photography and raising brand exposure, Instagram has a far more engaged audience than Pinterest. Additionally, Instagram has housed more than 25 million company profiles.You might wish to take your bandwidth needs for content into account when selecting a platform. Both demand visual content, but your Instagram approach may also need to incorporate the production of videos. This excellent guide shows what it takes to increase your Instagram following.
Benefits
Platforms like Instagram aid in increasing brand recognition. About 60% of users claim to have discovered items or services via Instagram.You can display visual material or product images on Pinterest and Instagram.You can also experiment with graphic or brief video material on sites like Instagram.
3.VIDEO SHARING Platform
More than 2 billion people use YouTube each month. 240 million people watch Vimeo each month.
Commercial Uses
About 88% of marketers claim that video has a significant ROI for them, and 90% believe that there is now more rivalry in the video market. Your brand may appear more current and you may stay one step ahead of your rivals by incorporating a video platform into your social media plan.A wide number of sectors can benefit from using video. A technological company might base its video strategy around product demos, but a restaurant might have a vlog with cooking tips.Check out our video marketing guide to assist you in determining a plan of action suitable for your business and service.The two most popular outlets for long-form video are Youtube and Vimeo. Although Youtube has a larger viewership and better SEO, Vimeo’s smaller platform is far more community oriented.While Vimeo gives users the benefit of no pre-roll advertisements, Youtube also seems to offer more prospects for sponsors and income.See this head-to-head comparison of Vimeo and YouTube’s business capabilities for a more comprehensive list of similarities and contrasts.Along with Vimeo and Youtube, the more established social networking sites have also started to aggressively adopt video marketing. Facebook just introduced Facebook Live and Facebook Stories, as well as a button for video in their mobile app. In the meantime, Twitter has made it possible for users to start Periscope-powered live video streaming.
Cons and Benefits Platform
Longer than on other social media networks, videos can be.Both platforms include the ability to link to other websites.Analytics are frequently available on sites like Vimeo and Youtube.Both Vimeo and Youtube include search engine optimization tools.It can cost more money and more time to produce content.With these platforms, more backend work, including SEO, is necessary.
4.Interactive Media Platforms
Major Platform Examples 229thousanfmd daily active users on Snapchat100 million people use TikTok every month alone in the United States.
Users can exchange photographs and videos using apps like TikTok and Snapchat, as well as a number of distinctive interactive features. These two apps include interactive games, musical overlays, and AR/VR filters. Their fan bases are largely made up of Gen-Z.
Commercial Uses
Marketers who are just starting a social strategy don’t need to prioritize these interactive apps before traditional social networking platforms because mostly large organizations are just starting to experiment with these new applications.Large businesses on these platforms typically produce content at a high production level. Brands with sizable fan bases may also post Snapchat Stories or fan-curated videos.
These tactics could be challenging for a business that is just getting started on social media without a large budget or massive internet following.On these apps, brands and influencers frequently target the younger audiences with their content. On Snapchat, for instance, you might see stories that provide news, fashion updates, wellness advice, or fashionable new products.
There are still a few viable ways to participate in TikTok or Snapchat if you’re really interested in interactive media.While well-known companies like VICE and BuzzFeed have joined Snapchat Discover as partners, the typical company can still set up a Snapchat business account that people can search for and friend. Just like with individual accounts, you can send and publish short tales using this account. But people who have a business account can also buy advertising space.
if you’ve already created an account.TikTok, a short, repeating video app (similar to Vine), offers five different types of advertising choices for companies. Smaller businesses may be more interested in “In-Feed Ads,” which are 9–15 second segments that users can skip, while larger firms may find value in all five.
One well-known company that has made advantage of its account to develop popular campaigns with current hashtags is Guess.Influencers have also written blogs for Universal Pictures to promote its movies.If you decide to experiment with these platforms, you would want to make sure that your niche and content appeal to the younger age group. Additionally, you should make an effort to accurately anticipate the time and resources that could be required to keep these accounts current and pertinent.
Cons and Benefits
Cons Regular content creation could be costly and time-consuming.On the Snapchat UI, business accounts are not front and center advertised. Because visitors would need to use your Snapcode or username to find you, you might wish to advertise your channel on your website or other social mediaplatforms.
TikTok and Snapchat are only available on mobile devices and are less user-friendly.
5. Blogging/Community
Major Platform Examples Tumblr Reddit Users can post on intriguing specialized subjects including memes, events, politics, and pop culture on both Tumblr and Reddit. These platforms let users write posts, which other users can then share or respond to with their own comments.
Commercial Uses
Those who seek to promote conversation around extremely specialized businesses or topics may find blogging and community-building platforms useful. For instance, you might find conversation about anything on these sites, from alternative medicine to machine learning.
By blogging, you can create articles about subjects related to your sector and link them to your website or product. Although many people have a blog on their website, you can also check out what other people in your business are writing about on websites like Tumblr if you haven’t set up this option yet.You may share a link or a post about a particular topic on a forum dedicated to your sector using a discussion website like Reddit and observe how members react.
If a subject you want to promote debate on doesn’t already have a board, you may create one.These two sites actively promote online discussion and user-generated content from others who share the same interests.Both websites let users follow you or subscribe to your blogs’ or Reddit boards’ feeds so that they may see your stuff.
Here is an illustration of what a Reddit feed may look like.On Reddit, people can vote something up or down after it has been posted. Reddit feeds prioritize posts that have received more upvotes, whereas downvotes have the reverse effect.The feeds on Tumblr are arranged according to time.
However, when other people re-share a post, it may rank higher. A note is left when a user interacts with or shares your Tumblr content. They have the choice to add a comment to the post that is put to a thread when they reshare.
Cons and Benefits
You can share text posts, images, and videos about your company, brand, or personal ideas on both networks.With the help of these sites, you can initiate discussions on a subject.Both platforms enable external website connecting.ConsLonger blog posts could require more planning and writing time.Your posts could not be noticed if they get downvoted on Reddit or receive no response from Tumblr users.Your target market can be overly specialized or restricted to users of the particular platform you utilize.
A Few Things to Think About
Be sure to take into account the following things before you begin checking in and creating accounts on other platforms:
- How much time can you commit to planning a social media campaign?
- Do you have the means to produce visuals or videos?
- Do you want to increase traffic and sales or brand awareness?
- Will it be simple to manage this platform, or will you need to hire more staff?
Once you’re using one or more platforms, make sure to keep up with their changes and what other marketers are doing.
Drop your comments and contribution in the comments section.You can also check out the difference between inbound and outbound marketing
