Get Social for your Business | Part 1: Pick Your Social Media
Whether you’ve just started your business, or you are well established, there is a cost-effective way of getting your business out there on the web.
The answer is Social Media.
Now, before you start arguing with me, just stop. Social media pages take $0 to set up, make it very easy to run ads that get directly in the eyeballs of your customers for nominal fees, and don’t require a lot of expensive equipment to maintain. You can pretty much run all of them through your smartphone.
For those not sure exactly how many eyeballs are checking their social media every day, in January 2021:
- Facebook had 2.75 billion active users
- YouTube boasts 2.29 billion active users
- Instagram has 1.22 billion active users
- Pinterest has 459 million active users
- Twitter has 353 million active users
- LinkedIn has 300 million active users
- TikTok is the newest bauble on the social media scene, with 689 million active users
Now admit it: you actually know at least one person who is constantly checking a social media channel every day, don’t you?
But how do you make social effective for your business? That’s where we are here to help! In this first blog of our series on business social media, we’re going to help you pick the channel that’s right for YOU and your business. The first step is knowing all of our demographic numbers. See the latest info from Retail Coach
Unless you’ve got an assistant that is tech savvy with all of the time to devote to your digital marketing, then don’t feel like you need to be on all of those channels I just mentioned. Look at your target audience and pick the channels that best align with your business goals. Maintaining a channel well is far, far more important than being on every channel just for the sake of being on every channel.
How do you pick what channel is good for you? See this great breakdown of social media statistics to match up your target audiences with the channel(s) you should be focusing on!
What content works best for each channel? Think about what you are wanting to promote most:
- Events: Facebook | From posting about shopping outings to customer appreciation nights, Facebook Events are the best way to get the word out about what you’ve got going on. Your public Facebook page (not a private Facebook group) should be where your events live. Don’t forget to invite your friends and family – every time someone responds to an event, it ends up in their timeline for more free impressions!
- Product pictures: Instagram and Pinterest | Great sales tools that are extremely visual mediums.
- Customer service: Twitter | Engage directly with your customers.
- How-to videos: YouTube | Showcase new or existing products with a great YouTube video – with more than 90% of users learning about new products or how to troubleshoot existing technologies, YouTube (the second-largest search engine on the internet) is your spot.
- B2B Connections: LinkedIn | If your outreach involves reaching out to others in the same industry, LinkedIn is a great spot to start.
*Although TikTok is the second-most downloaded app in the world as of January 2021, it is really hard to gauge the longevity of TikTok, but if your audience trends towards Gen Z, you should give a very long look at this platform, especially if you are skilled with video and the latest pop culture trends
(Psst: a great way to gauge whether or not to be on certain platforms? Check out your biggest competition and see what they’re doing.)
Now, think about your average customer. And start giving some thought to how your business outreach might translate to these platforms!
This is part 1 in our series on getting your business to translate to social media! Keep your eyes peeled for future blogs on content creation and planning, digital advertising strategies, platforms to schedule your content and more!