So, you want to get started with social media marketing? Congrats, it’s a great idea since social media marketing will help you reach out to your customers and improve sales. However, which social media platform are you planning to use? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram? Confused about the options available?
Most people get confused about which social media platform to use for their marketing. Some people try to do the marketing on all platforms, which can be overwhelming. To make your marketing work easy, we have a guide to help you. We tell you how to choose the right social media platform to get started with social media marketing.
Guidelines to choose the right social platform
1. What is the nature of your business?
What is the nature of your business? Based on this factor, you can decide on the social media platform. If you are into B2B, you are engaging with other businesses. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter won’t help you. The best platform is LinkedIn. It is a platform for professionals. You will find decision-makers of B2B companies on this platform. YouTube is another platform for all kinds of businesses since video content is the most popular today.
2. Know your customer
You can decide the right social media platform to use depending on who your customer is. If your customers are teens or young adults, then they are most likely to be on Instagram. You must have a presence on Insta. If your customers are slightly older, they are more likely to be on Facebook. If you are dealing with professionals, then LinkedIn is the platform to choose. However, you must be aware people have an average of 6.6 social media accounts. So, you may need to be active on more than one account.
3. Your branding and strategy
Based on your brand profile and marketing strategy, you can choose the right social media platform. For example, if you use a lot of visual content like photos and graphics, then you can use Instagram. If your preference is for text content, you can consider Twitter. Facebook is ideal for both text and visual content. If you are making videos, then you must have a presence on YouTube.
4. Research the competition
Before you decide on your social media marketing strategy, find out what your competitors are doing. Identify the competition and search for them on various social media platforms. You need to invest some time in this. Check out which social media platforms your competitors are using. Also, find out on which platforms they are more active. Know the strategies they are using and get data about their followers and engagement. All this information will help you choose the right platform and also devise your strategy.
5. Plan keeping your resources in mind
Social media platforms are free to use. But they require investments in terms of time. If you decide you want to have a presence on all the social media platforms, then you should be able to devote time to it. You need to be able to spend time every day on each platform. It is important to post consistently. Equally important is engagement, and you need to engage with everyone who interacts with your account. Posts have to be created, and you can do it using stock images and free tools available.
This calls for a lot of time. You may need someone exclusively to manage social media accounts. If yours is a small business, then you should restrict yourself to a couple of platforms (based on the criteria given above). Social media platforms allow for advertising. It can help you reach out to more customers and even improve sales. You will need a budget for this and have to allocate funds. It is important to keep your resource availability in mind before deciding on the platform to use.
6. Create a common strategy
Even though the social media platforms are different, the strategy you use should be the same. You will be posting the same content on all platforms. However, some minor tweaks may be required. You need to decide what type of content to post, how often to post, and the time of the day to post. Have a strategy in mind keeping in mind the platform statistics available.
7. Review and Evaluate
Once you create a strategy, implement it. Then, you need to review the strategy periodically. Evaluate if you have made the right decision. Based on the analytics you get from the platform, you can conclude if you have chosen the right platform or not. The analytics will also help you rework your strategy for social media marketing.
It’s important to identify which platforms benefit your business the most and focus on building those up for your marketing efforts. With these tips, you can better your social media marketing strategy and create a stellar online presence.
