Almost everyone considers social media important for business, but have you ever considered if some platforms are more suitable than others?
The ideal social media strategy relies on figuring out some parameters: what is your audience and where does it spend most of the time, what type of messages should you deliver, what frequency and tone are more suitable.
The biggest social platforms can be categorized in social networks, media sharing channels, and discussion-oriented platforms, each of them displaying distinctive features. In the general networking category, we can include some of the biggest: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn; media sharing is represented by Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, Tik Tok, Vimeo. The discussion-oriented platforms are Quora, Reddit, WordPress, Tumblr, Medium
Here are some key features to consider when developing a strategy:
Facebook - with approximately 1.65 billion monthly active users, it is one of the most popular platforms, not only for personal use but business as well
PROS:
✅ the primary source of information for a consistent part of the audience
✅ can be very engaging with the right content
✅ provides comprehensive analytics tools
CONS:
❎ brands compete with friends for attention
❎ engagement is limited to the platform, and people rarely share outside
❎ can be challenging to keep up with platform rules
Twitter - generates over 175 million tweets daily and allows you to share concise pieces of information and photos
PROS:
✅ easy to use and straightforward
✅ real-time engagement
✅ hashtags for good search results and indexing
CONS:
❎ face-paced, sometimes hard to follow
❎ fewer additional features (like events, apps, etc.)
❎ needs more time to build a consistent audience
LinkedIn - social networking service dedicated to business and used to build connections and professional relationships
PROS:
✅ niched to professionals and business-related content
✅ helps create a network of valuable contacts
✅ you can source precise information about customers and industry
CONS:
❎ requires high-quality content which can be costly
❎ generally used by older people
❎ advertising is more expensive than other platforms
YouTube - the leading video-sharing platform in the world, where users watch a billion hours of videos every day
PROS:
✅ no limit to how many videos you post
✅ has analytics tools to follow and measure the engagement
CONS:
❎ needs constant involvement to push through a large amount of content available
❎ can have higher creativity costs
❎ sometimes the interaction can be affected by distracting advertisements
Instagram - a platform that allows sharing a wide range of content such as photos, videos, stories, and live videos
PROS:
✅ enables powerful stories
✅ provides tools that help marketers
✅ generally used by a younger audience
CONS:
❎ requires good knowledge of visual content marketing
❎ optimized for mobile, but not very good on larger displays
So, as you can see, there is something out there for any brand, and exploring all the platforms can be a helpful exercise in determining the best solution for your strategy.
Some of them have become almost mandatory at this point, and everyone has them, but others are still gems in the rough waiting to make your business famous.