Choosing a social media platform for your business is not a matter of just choosing a platform with the highest number of users. It has more to do with who you are. A brand needs to understand what it stands for and what they intend on achieving.
With more than 200 social media platforms and blogs suggesting that you need to be everywhere, how do you then end up choosing what works for your business?
Well, today we will investigate this tedious task and finally break into the simple secrets of choosing a social media platform that works for your brand. Firstly, we must first understand what social media platforms are and what they are or were intended for. Social media is an interactive technology that allows the creation or sharing/exchange of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks according to Wikipedia. From this simple explanation, we can already see that social media is based on actual people than brands.
Then why should your brand even be on social media? The simple answer is that you need to be where your audience is. Here is where you need to start as a brand.
The audience is the biggest driving factor of social media as it is the driving factor of any business. A product sold will only be offered to a specific person. Social media allows you to meet your customer where they are most comfortable and where they spend their time either prospecting or trying to learn of a specific product or service. This means you need to understand who your target audience is and how they would rather spend their time. This can be explained in the following scenario.
LinkedIn is a professionals-oriented platform where users will visit the platform with intentions of learning, acquiring new skills and seeking employment. With the platforms overall focus, it is easy for brands focused on professional services to be on the platform, however, platforms focused on recreational services may have a hard time acclimating to the platform. This is because the audience on the platform is visiting the platform for a very specific goal. This does not mean that your brand will not succeed on the platform. You can focus on teaching your audience about safety or how your products work as a recreational service brand.
With this knowledge, we then see a trend where your overall business objectives are the first factor to deciding which platform will suit your brand.
The second factor that will have a significant impact on what you end up choosing will heavily be influenced by your competitors. You do not want to leave money on the table by not being where your direct competition is. If your prospective customers are on Instagram and your competitor is on Instagram, that means you left money on the table.
The last thing that you may need to consider is your resources. This means exactly just that. Do you have the resources to assign to that specific platform? You do not want to be on 20 different platforms and not be able to provide customer support to the customers with queries efficiently.
To recap, this is the simplest explanation and we will provide you with an in-depth step by step guide to get you started.
Investigate who your audience is, align your marketing objectives with your business objectives, look at what your competition Is doing and allocate resources accordingly without burning out your team. Social media can be a very powerful medium of marketing when used correctly.
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