There was a time when social media simply meant MySpace and Flickr and that was about it. Today, there are numerous types of platforms accessible to the world allowing for an array of sharing and connecting opportunities. This increase in the online sharing world has also opened many avenues for marketing on social media. What does this mean for business? While there are some signs of carry-over across certain platforms such as stories, each social media forum acts in its own unique way and therefore provides different purposes for users.
The four main platforms for businesses are Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Between all four of these websites there is unlimited outreach for your content and the ability to grow your business. In order to optimize your use across all platforms, in it is important to focus your messaging. What this means is that your company should have a strategy on how it will use each forum which includes what audience it is reaching and how to communicate to that audience effectively. For Instance, Instagram might be how you aim to reach a younger audience whereas LinkedIn will be where you can connect in a more professional manner.
Let’s break down the social media networks to get a better idea on how to utilize them in the most appropriate way…
Instagram is a very visual based platform that tends to focus on a profiles aesthetic and creativity. This means that making sure your content is not only intriguing, but represents your brand in an appealing way is very important. As users scroll rapidly through their feeds and stories it will be important that your content makes a strong first impression. Utilizing the story feature on Instagram will prove to be beneficial as it is highly used to quickly and broadly share information like re-sharing posts for giveaways, contests, or simply because it was interesting and worth spreading the word. Users can also make their account a “business” account and follow insights on posts and happenings within their page.
Twitter thrives off of hashtags and trends. It is imperative that your business’ twitter feed uses appropriate and effective hashtags to help boost engagement on its posts. A unique quality of twitter is the importance of engaging with other users rather than simply focusing on the content you are curating. Although it can be very fast pace and saturated at times, spending some of your efforts retweeting, liking, and commenting on trending or industry-similar content can help your account appear more relevant.
LinkedIn will be a very information based platform for your business. This will be where you present you or your company in a professional and innovative way that is interesting and useful to other like-minded professionals. The important aspect of LinkedIn in terms of connectivity will be spending time growing your network to increase traffic and attention to your page. LinkedIn also has newer features such as “groups”. Following respective groups may enhance your page by being an active and relevant account.
Facebook has pages specifically for businesses in order to optimize certain functions useful for promoting itself on the platform. The business page acts as a social networking extension of your businesses website as it enables you to put standard information such as products and services, but also allows you to share links, images, updates, etc. This capability will enhance your engagement by giving you complete access to the normal social media tools of Facebook while also being productive in terms of business strategy.
Using social media for online marketing can be very simple when given the right tools. Once you understand the dynamic and functions of the various social platforms, your business will see the growth and positive effects it has on its followers. The main thing to remember across all of the social media sites is to be consistent and always considering the audience that is specific to the platform.
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Daniel James Consulting is a Full-Service Business Consulting Firm based in New York that designs solutions tailored specifically to the needs of your business in order to ensure you achieve continued success by designing, developing and implementing plans, metrics and platforms, be it a one-man operation, non-profit, startup or large organization. Our packaged solutions or a la carte selections include Website Design, Marketing & Advertising, Search Engine Positioning, and Graphic Design. Business Management Solutions are also available for companies of all sizes.
For more information please visit: www.danieljamesconsulting.com