With new social media platforms popping up everyday, or at least it seems so, it can be hard to stay on top of the trends and data for each one. As a brand, you have to carefully select each platform as a piece of your overall strategy. Then you have to curate the content and messaging for each platform, considering what each is specifically developed to achieve and how it connects with your audience. Your strategy and content on Facebook definitely won’t be the same as it is for SnapChat simply because they are different platforms, and they serve different purposes.
All that said, you know you need to be on social media. As a medium, social media is a crucial piece to the marketing puzzle and ignoring it or, worse, squandering it, would be a huge mistake for any brand trying to expand their reach. But having a presence on a platform that doesn’t make sense for your brand or won’t achieve your business goals, is a waste of time. So how do you know where to establish yourself? Let’s break it down.
Facebook is the king of social media and a home for every brand. Because of the widely diverse user group Facebook attracts, you can reach nearly anyone on this platform. That alone makes Facebook an excellent platform to begin building a following when you’re first getting started. An engaged Facebook presence is crucial for brand credibility. Consider any new products or restaurants you have heard of…chances are, your first instinct was to look at their Facebook page for others who have had their food or tried their product. If the page is inactive, lacks content, or looks “cheap” will you still trust that brand in the same way?
Related: 4 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do on Facebook
Once you’re established as a brand and have a marketing strategy for Facebook as a platform, you can begin driving up your social ROI (Return on Investment). Facebook is likely your best bet to do so given the robust analytics and insights that their Business Manager platform provides. Additionally, Facebook gives you many more linking opportunities than its sister platform, Instagram, which we’ll be diving into next.
Instagram is the perfect platform to expand your creativity and display your brand through high quality visual assets that will captivate your audience’s attention. As a network, Instagram is a very visual platform that can have a large effect on the way your audience views your brand and company as a whole.
Additionally, you’ll have the opportunity to work with Instagram Influencers, users with large followings who typically help advocate and drive business for brands in return for an affiliate fee. However, if you want to work with Influencers they will need to have the ability to tag your account in order to increase brand awareness. But, it’s not enough to simply have an account. You’ll need to ensure your brand account on Instagram accurately represents your brand because Influencers will be pointing their droves of followers to your page to learn more. If that page isn’t up-to-date, visitors will immediately lose interest.
Related: Tips & Benefits of Instagram for Business
Instagram won’t be the right fit for your brand if you lack visual assets or are targeting a B2B platform. While having a presence might still be a good idea for brand credibility, do not expect this to be a platform to drive leads or relative engagement. Instagrammers are looking for visually appealing accounts that feed into their aspirational lifestyle.
An added benefit of Instagram? You can promote a post from Facebook onto Instagram, thus getting more bang for your buck while increasing brand awareness across both networks. Even better, if you have over 10,000 followers and are a business account you can now link from your story.
Twitter is not for the faint of heart or the fair weather marketer. In order for a presence on Twitter to be worth your while, you’ll need to commit to posting at least once every day. However, the platform will benefit you the most if you can post multiple times each day. This is due to the fast-paced nature of Twitter. With a constantly updating feed, you have to post frequently in order to stay relevant. Otherwise, your posts will quickly fall down the feed without ever being seen.
Because of the innate frequency required, Twitter can be an excellent way to share quick resources with your audience. By sharing a link to those resources, or any link to your site, you can drive audiences directly to your page. Releasing a new blog post or whitepaper, press releases, and product updates are all examples of great Twitter foder.
Related: When to Use Hashtags (& When to Leave Them Out)
Twitter can also be a great platform for outreaching to new audiences. Since Twitter does not limit a brand’s exposure and outreach to their audience like Facebook does, you can seek out new potential customers. Using a tool like TweetDeck you can set up funnels to look for keywords that show interest in your brand. For example, if you sell sneakers, you can set up a filter looking for everyone who says “I want new sneakers” then send them directly to your site.
Allowing your brand to be discovered and accessed this way by your audience will help spread brand awareness.
Like Instagram, Pinterest is a highly visual platform which lends itself nicely to visual industries like fashion, beauty, and food. For brands in these and similar industries, Pinterest can be a high conversion investment. When used correctly, Pinterest can drive traffic directly to your website by drawing in users with high quality images and linking directly to relevant blog posts, recipes, or even specific product pages.
Related: How to Setup & Promote Your Business on Pinterest
However, even if you aren’t in a traditionally visual industry, you can still seek some benefits from Pinterest if you feel so inclined. Some brands choose to share visual resources like infographics on Pinterest in order to reach a new audience, though you may not garner conversion rates as high as a visual brand would. If you’re a marketer without a lot of visual resources, think critically about your audience and who you’re trying to reach using Pinterest before investing the time and resources.
Something to keep in mind with Pinterest is that it is required to repin more than your pin your content. Pinterest likes brands to repin 5+ pins daily. We suggest creating boards that compliment your product. So, if you sell pet food and treats, consider creating a board of “Funny Pet Quotes” or “Gifts for Pet Parents”.
On the flipside, LinkedIn is an amazing platform for more traditional brands that might not have many visual assets. Built as a professional networking platform, LinkedIn is the best place to reach other brands. In other words, if you’re a B2B marketer, LinkedIn will be one of your strongest platforms.
Related: LinkedIn Advertising Strategy and You
Over the years, LinkedIn has developed a reputation of being a resource for people in the business world. Whether they’re looking for product recommendations, keeping up with former colleagues, or even asking a technical question, many users will turn to this platform to find answers. That makes it a uniquely qualified platform to help you develop and disseminate resources such as blog posts, press releases, and other articles.
In addition, many LinkedIn users turn to this platform to discover new job opportunities. It can be an invaluable asset for your company if you are actively recruiting new talent. By posting jobs and reaching out to potential applicants, you can curate a robust and qualified talent pool, maybe even turning a follower into an employee.
SnapChat
SnapChat might be the most unique platform currently available to marketers. With 86% of users under the age of 35, SnapChat is one of the best ways to reach a younger audience demographic. If your target audience member falls into that age range, you should probably be on SnapChat. Though there is one caveat: your brand or product has the ability to be explained and understood very quickly.
Related: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Snapchat
Traditional Snap Ads are limited to just 3 to 10 seconds, though the platform recently added Long Form video which gives advertisers the option to provide audiences with access to a longer video, minimum 15 seconds and no maximum, with just a swipe up. However, if you cannot grab attention and don’t explain your product in that initial 10 seconds, you won’t see many users swipe up. As a result, complicated products or services that require an in-depth explanation may not see a compelling ROI from Snap Ads.
However, that is not to say your brand cannot be represented on SnapChat. If you have a strong social media following and interact with your community frequently, SnapChat can open up a new avenue for you to make connections with users. Plus, much like Instagram, SnapChat has its own community of Influencers that you can work with to promote awareness for your brand.