How to Find The Right Social Media Platforms For Your Marketing Strategy
With 2.8 billion plus people using social media by the end of 2018, brands continue to make social media a priority in their marketing efforts. While social media marketing is an excellent promotional tool and tactic, some companies do it the wrong way.
Brands and companies of different sizes make the mistake of trying to be active on popular social media optimization networks. In theory, the fact that you are on every platform means that you have the potential to reach more potential customers. However, this leads to poorly used budgets, poor content and a low return on investment.
Instead of spreading yourself, your content and your marketing budget determine which social media platforms are suitable for your strategy. After all, not all social networks deliver the marketing results that you want.
Follow These Steps to Find the Best Social Media Channels for Your Brand.
-
Identify Your Goals For Social Media
You will not be able to refine your social platform choices without knowing why you are interested in using social media.
Social media can be used to achieve a multitude of marketing goals. Brands use social media marketing strategies and their respective networks to:
- Increase qualified leads and sales
- Get involved with their target group
- Provide customer service on site
- Distribute brand content
- Build a community of loyal brand followers
- Promote product discounts / offers
- Generate relevant traffic to a company website
The promotion possibilities with social media are endless. However, without documenting your goals, you don’t know which social media platforms can help you achieve them. Before you start a fully-fledged social strategy, you must determine what you want to achieve through social media.
-
Understand Your Industry
Some social media channels work better for certain industries than others. For example, visual platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat are ideal for industries such as hairdressing, culinary and art. On the other hand, professional platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn are perfect for B2B companies that want to make connections and share information.
View the social media platforms that your competitors use. This will help you understand which channels your brand should use. Also note the tactics of social media content that your competitors implement. Having knowledge of your competitors’ social media strategy will guide you in creating your own strategy by emphasizing the opportunities and weaknesses that your brand can exploit on those specific networks.
However, when analyzing the social media strategy of your competitors, note also which channels they do not use. This can lead to a potential opportunity for your brand to take an unused position in the social media market for your industry!
-
Know the Purpose of Each Platform
Every social media network has an intended purpose.
- Image-based platforms: Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr
- “Kitchen Sink” platforms: Facebook, Twitter
- Video networks: Vimeo, YouTube
- Professional, business-oriented networks: LinkedIn
- Location-based networks: Foursquare, Yelp
- Niche networks: Reddit
When determining which networks you want to use, you must understand the purpose of the individual platform and how it relates to the content that you share. For example, a restaurant would do well on the following networks:
- Crap
- Square
Thanks to these networks, the restaurant can respond to customer reviews, offer menu updates, share tempting photos of food and drinks and provide useful information to customers. It makes no sense for the restaurant to devote its time and efforts to a LinkedIn profile when the platform is intended for professionals who want to make meaningful business contacts.
On the other hand, a marketing agency must use LinkedIn to connect with potential customers and video channels such as Vimeo to produce and share informational videos as part of an inbound marketing campaign.
Consider the content that you plan to create and distribute and use this information to help you choose the right social media platform for your strategy.
-
Go to Where Your Audience is
Ultimately, the best social media platform (s) for your company is that your audience uses. It is not wise to use your marketing resources to develop a strategy for a social channel where your target audience is not active. For example, if the majority of your target market prefers YouTube, you wouldn’t spend your time developing an in-depth LinkedIn strategy.
Wondering where your audience spends their time online? Use this comprehensive SproutSocial guide to document demographic information for each social media channel. You may be surprised at what you think! Maybe your target market uses a completely different network for social media than you initially thought.
Based on their research, SproutSocial reported the following general breakdown of the use of adult social media:
- 79% of adults use Facebook
- 32% of adults use Instagram
- 31% of adults use Pinterest
- 29% of adults use LinkedIn
- 29% of adults use messaging apps
- 24% of adults use apps for automatic removal
- 5% of adults use anonymous apps
Also consider the interests of your audience regarding your industry and the type of content you want to share. This not only helps you to select the right network, but to develop a comprehensive social media strategy.
Quick Tips for Developing a Social Media Strategy
After determining which social channels your target audience uses the most, combine this knowledge with the previous steps to discover the social media platforms that work best for your business. Remember to take into account your industry, the purpose of the social media platform and your brand goals to determine which social media networks you want to use.
Once you have decided to follow a few social networks, you must put together a social media strategy. This social plan must:
- Perform your documented goals
- Put your brand in a positive light
- Resonate with your intended audience
- Attract new fans and potential customers
Use These Tips to Create Your Social Media Marketing Plan:
Examine the Platform
Before you prepare a strategy, you must be aware of the social media networks that you want to use. Take the time to learn about best practices, the types of content that work well and how the specific ads and native analytics tools work within the platform.
Understand What Your Audience Wants
As people, we use social media to – you guessed it – be social! The last thing we want is to see a sudden advertisement or shameless content in our feeds. Understanding the content that your audience wants to communicate with is the key to a successful marketing strategy for social media.
Does your audience prefer to watch videos or read articles? Would they prefer to receive promotional discounts or start a conversation? Every audience and every industry is unique, so research and trade accordingly.
Make a Plan That You can Stick to
Try to prepare a social media marketing plan instead of trying everything on social media. If you aim too high and create content for a large number of social media channels, chaos can arise. This often leads to a company leaving its social media pages.
The huge amount of work required to launch, monitor and regularly update a social media profile on a single platform is a burden – now imagine the work that is needed when trying to get an active presence in all 7 categories of social networks!
It is fine to select one or two channels and only focus on those networks. If you can create high-quality content on these platforms, respond to customer inquiries in time and stay within your marketing budget, then that’s it!
Discover the Right Social Media Platforms for Your Strategy
Have you found the perfect social networks for your marketing plan? Excellent! Share with us which platforms your brand intends visit Digital Media Trend.