While some social media is popular, not every social media marketing platform is the best for every company. Typically, it’s best to imagine the users of each type of social media to determine what your presence may do for your business. Another factor is that not all social media should be used for simply promoting your product or service. It is also a strong method to solicit new employees or to promote social causes that your company may be connected with as well. All marketing promotion should promote your brand, product or service, and any current initiatives you want to be known. Much like a press release is an announcement to the public about something specific your business or personnel are involved in, social media can act like a free outlet to promote the same.

There are essentially less than 10 platforms that are used internationally with widespread exposure, and in most cases less than that in your regional and local markets. The challenge to most companies is to determine when to catch a wave of the next trending platform while ad rates are competitive and the audience is likely to notice your ad much easier.

Our marketing consulting services in the area of social media starts by defining the most common social media marketing platforms and their likely benefit if you use the platform to promote your company or products and services.

• IF YOUR COMPANY OFFERS RETAIL CONSUMER PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
  •  FACEBOOK
    • If your company offers retail consumer products or services, this is a good platform to use for your business promotion.
  • INSTAGRAM
    • Like Facebook, this platform is a good place to target individual retail consumers. It is a powerful visual tool to capture their attention quickly with interesting imagery that evokes interaction with the viewer.
  • TWITTER
    • While it isn’t necessarily a great platform for paid advertisement, consistent posting about your company or products and services may aide in promoting your brand. However, this platform trends better for information tweets about your company’s policy updates, press releases, or to engage in dialog directly with consumers.
  • PINTEREST
    • Reaching a more prevalent female demographic, having a presence with quality images which are topical in nature is a good strategy for branding. Using the keyword combinations to join a Pinterest trend is a great way to bring attention to your brand, product, service or company.
  • YOUTUBE
    • The most widely used video based platform is a great way to showcase product videos, human interest videos related to your product, instructional or tutorial videos, or any type of video that will undergird your brand, purpose, vision, product, service or company. Having a video go viral is a tremendous method of gaining brand or product awareness.
  • TIKTOK
    • Although still new in the minds of many consumers, this platform is a favorite among young and old consumers. The goal is to provide entertaining content in1 minute or less length of video media. Using relevant hashtags to the video content and even including any trending hashtag that may help spread the video’s audience reach is a great way to help promote your message.

“The challenge to most companies is to determine when to catch a wave of the next trending platform…”

• IF YOUR COMPANY OFFERS WHOLESALE TYPE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
  • FACEBOOK
    • While paid advertisement on Facebook for wholesale type products may not gain a lot of specifically targeted results, having a company Facebook Page is critical. The non-sales related content should be showcased on your Facebook page. Hiring employees, press release type content, launching a new brand or product, social causes the company is engaged in, etc.
  • YOUTUBE
    • Video is a powerful media to leverage for getting awareness of your company, brand, product or service. Many in the business world, especially purchasing directors or senior level management of potential clients will not take the time to read pages of paragraphs of words, but will set aside 3-5 minutes to absorb a comprehensive video. Additionally, having a playlist of after sales support videos or tutorials is critical for any business wanting to maintain customer retention.
  • LINKEDIN
    • LinkedIn is the platform of professionals who share their vocational knowledge through posts as well as network with other business people. It’s the FACEBOOK of the business world where its users are more likely to focus on business related posts and promotion that affects their professional life.

While this is not a comprehensive and all-inclusive list of potential social media marketing platforms for your company, it is an overview of those which are popular and likely to provide some exposure for you. The value of each social channel is going to be predicated on the type of posts you provide, how frequently, the engagement of viewers of the post, and relevance of the content to those viewing. There are a lot of analytic tools to determine how well your posts are performing and it is very important that a specific strategy for each channel be used to gain the best possible responses.

If you would like to discuss a specific strategy for your company, please contact us to schedule a free initial consultation.