How to Use Social Media Marketing: Know Your Platform

Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and more are great resources for businesses to promote their brand online. The platforms themselves are free to use, but have paid advertising options as well. This is great for brands that want to reach even more new audiences. However, just because your business needs to be on social media, doesn’t mean you need to be on every network. Choose and nurture the social platforms that work ideally for your business, so that you don’t spread yourself too thin. We will briefly discuss discuss social media marketing on the most popular platforms.

Creating a successful social media strategy requires you to familiarize yourself with how each network runs, the kinds of audiences you can reach on that network and how your business can best utilize each platform.

Social Media Marketing Platforms

Facebook

Facebook provides a casual and friendly environment that requires an active social media marketing strategy. This begins with creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. Pay careful attention to the layout, as the visual component is an essential factor of the Facebook experience.

Social media marketing for business pages revolves around furthering your conversation with audiences by posting industry-related articles, images, videos, etc. Facebook is a place where individuals go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly.

Twitter

Twitter is the social media marketing tool that allows your company to broadcast updates across the web. If you follow users in your industry or related fields, you should gain a steady stream of followers in return.

Consider mixing up your official-related tweets about specials, discounts and news updates with some fun and quirky tweets interspersed. Make sure to retweet when a customer has something positive to say about your company. Also, don’t forget to answer individual’s questions when possible. Utilizing Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication. Therefore, be sure to interact as much as possible.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites for businesses. One great venue for entering into a professional dialog with individuals in similar industries is LinkedIn Groups. This provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals.

With LinkedIn, you can encourage your customers and clients to give your business a recommendation on your profile. These recommendations allow your business to appear more credible and reliable for new customers. In addition, browsing the Questions section of LinkedIn and providing answers can help establish your business. This can also help to earn trust.

Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the latest social media marketing trends among businesses. This image-centered platform is great for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes.

Pinterest allows businesses to showcase their own product offerings while also developing their own brand’s personality with some unique pinboards.

Instagram

Similar to Pinterest, Instagram is a visual social media platform based entirely on photo and video posts. The Facebook-owned network has more than 600 million active users. Many of this users post about food, art, travel, fashion and other similar subjects. This social media platform is has unique filters and photo- and video-editing options. Unlike other platforms, Instagram is almost entirely mobile. While there is a web version, you cannot take photos or create new posts on it.

Succeeding with Instagram requires that the person managing your account has a good eye for detail and at least basic photography skills. Therefore, the photos and videos posted to your account are high-quality. Similar to most platforms, Instagram also has a hashtag feature. You will just need to find the right hashtags to latch onto and post intriguing photos.

YouTube

YouTube is another social media platform that can be great for marketing your business online, if done right. This platform is the number one place for creating video content, which can be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool.

Many businesses will try to create video content with the aim of having their video “go viral”. However, in reality, those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive “how-to” videos for your customers and clients. These also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google. Therefore, don’t under-estimate the power of video content!

 

No matter what social media platform you decided to use for your business, for social media marketing to be successful, content marketing and a successful SEO strategy are essential for digital marketing and can be done with a website that continues to grow and evolve with your business.

Centennial Arts can assist with your SEO Strategy, as well as content marketing through with our Search Engine optimizing process to ensure your business appears as the top of search results, no matter what social media platform. Contact us with the link below for more information!