There is no longer any doubt that social networks are a necessary marketing tool for any company that wants to remain relevant and visible in today’s busy online world. In fact, 92% of marketers say that social media has helped to increase exposure, which means that if you don’t use social networks to their fullest, you are missing out on a huge opportunity.
But getting started can be difficult, and even something as simple as choosing a social platform can be more complicated than you think. There are many social networks to choose from, but the good news is that you can start by limiting them to the most popular and used platforms. From there, it’s a matter of determining which platform will give you the exposure you’re looking for with the right audience and which one will help you achieve your marketing goals.
Refine your choices
There are social networking platforms for everyone and everything, including those for connecting people with common interests, similar hobbies, comparable demographics, and much more. The fact is that there are far too many social networking sites to have an online presence, and your time would be better spent focusing on the sites that receive the most traffic. Of all social networking sites, the best in terms of monthly active users include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Start by defining your goals
There are many advantages to using social networks, but it is important to have specific goals before going any further. On the one hand, your goals will help determine not only the social platform you choose, but also the content you create, the audience you target, etc. On the other hand, your goals will help determine the content you create, the audience you target, etc. Here are some of the most common benefits of using social media that you may want to focus on:
Improving your customer service offerings by providing another platform for customers to address their complaints, questions and concerns.
Identify new prospects similar to your best customers
Reaching new audiences and demographics that may be receptive to your products or services
Increase your brand awareness and expose your business to new people
Know the needs, desires and habits of your audience and customers.
Increase traffic to your site and increase sales.
Then determine which channels your audience already uses
The point of social media marketing is to put you in contact with your best audience, so it is not advisable to choose a platform where your audience is not active.
There are several ways to find out where your audience is online, and one of the simplest is a simple customer survey. Ask questions such as what social sites they use, where they get their information online and what influencers they listen to. Another way to get information about your audience is via the social networking sites themselves. With platforms like Facebook, you can really tell Facebook about your ideal customers, and they will estimate the size of the audience for you. You can also research the demographics of different social network users through Google analytics to determine where your audience is most likely to spend their time online.
Look at the type of content you typically create
Different types of content work best with some social networking platforms, so it’s essential that you consider the type of content you like to create that works best with your brand. Instagram, for example, is all about images, GIFs and videos, so it may not be the right choice if most of what you create is text content. The type of content you create will depend on a number of things, including your industry, your brand and your target audience, but the types of content you can focus on include :
- Blog posts
- Podcasts
- Testimonials
- User-generated content
- Webinars and live broadcasts
- Ebooks
- GIFs
- Videos
- Images
