Social media marketing is basically the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive traffic to the website. This involves publishing unique and exciting content on your social media profiles and engaging your followers, analyzing your results, and running social media advertisements.
The major social media platforms (at the moment) are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat.
To select which social media platform is right for marketing your business, let’s look at them one by one:
- Facebook is the most popular social network among middle-aged adults and in both rural and urban areas.
- Facebook users are more engaged than users of other social networks, with 70% of users logging daily and 43% logging on more than once daily.
- Facebook allows brands to create their business page and offers the tools to be creative, such as live video, offers, and slideshows.
- If a Facebook user goes ahead and decides to ‘Like’ your page, they become your ‘Follower’ and your posts will appear in their News Feed. Over time, if this user is not interested in your posts and does not ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ them, it is possible with the algorithms that Facebook runs that your posts will disappear from your Follower’s News Feeds.
- Facebook’s Page Insights and Analytics will help your business determine if your business page needs improvement or is on track.
- Facebook is ideally suited to small businesses, as it allows you to fine-tune your target audience. You can create a big bang for little bucks if you use clever content and correct targeting.
- Instagram is like breathing for younger generations. The photo-sharing site’s users are increasing daily. More than half of it’s 200 million active users are between the ages of 18 and 29 - with most of these users visiting the site daily.
- Instagram is mostly accessed via mobile and is more heavily-used by affluent youth.
- Instagram is all about photo and video content and is a great way to build a brand community.
- Getting the content right and using hashtags (so users can find your posts) are both keys here.
- Instagram is designed for customer engagement and visual appeal.
- Instagram is excellent for clothing brands, restaurants, gyms, and make-up brands. Hairdressers also do very well on Instagram. If your products and services are image-based, then Instagram is a must.
- Twitter has become a channel for news, particularly with users between 18 and 29.
- Twitter provides a way for users to follow real-time news feeds and charges advertisers to promote targeted messages.
- Twitter is far more likely to be used by people living in urban areas and celebrities, politicians, journalists, and news outlets, it is also well-liked by businesses in the tech sector.
- Twitter allows you to ‘Tweet’ messages of a few sentences in a public way. The content should be short and to the point.
- Twitter is great for answering customer concerns in real-time.
- Businesses that want to reach journalists would benefit from Twitter.
- You can create a company page, run LinkedIn Polls, and participate in relevant groups.
- LinkedIn is often used to position your business as an ‘expert’ on a topic by sharing your business knowledge and helping others find solutions to their problems using LinkedIn Answers.
- Consistency is the key to your ability to reach and convert using LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn is a great way to target your sales prospects. Using LinkedIn’s tools, you will be able to fine-tune to reach your ideal audience.
- LinkedIn is business-focused and is excellent for networking opportunities. However, due to its solely business emphasis, it isn’t as ‘social’ as other social media platforms.
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