Which social media sites are right for my business?
From Facebook to Youtube, there are a lot of way to get your messages out to the public.
If you own any kind of business you should already know that it is important to maintain a social media presence. There are a large number of social media sites to take advantage of, but how do you know which social media accounts you should be on? If you’re busy running your business you may not have time to keep with profiles on nine different sites. I generally tell my clients to pick two to three social media sites to get on first. I tell them to gain followers and build engagement on those sites and then think about expanding to other sites. Let’s take a look at each major social media site and break them down to figure out if it’s right for your business.
Now, before I break down the different social media sites I would like to preface this by saying that even if I don’t mention your business type next to the social media site, it does not mean that you shouldn’t be on it or use it. These are just general guidelines.
Facebook is the social media site I believe every business should be on, regardless of what type of business you have. Facebook is the most used social media sites, reporting almost 1.5 BILLION active users in 2015. That is a huge potential audience. It’s a great tool for growing and engaging your audience. It’s the perfect place to share visual content as well as text based content. Also, you’re not as limited on the amount of characters you can use when sending out a post update.
Best For: All business types
Best Content: Visual and text
Best Practices: Don’t spam your followers. Unless your business is posting breaking news or other content that requires frequent updates, it’s best to do 1-2 posts per day. The best types of posts a short paragraph of text with a visual cue (photo or video). Links to articles , fan questions and fill in the blanks are good posts to engage your content. Content that generates a strong emotion will usually generate a higher share rate.
Twitter is the king of microblogging. In May 2015, there were about 302 million active Twitter users. Twitter is best used if you’re going to be doing frequent status updates. Most business tweets are not going to be sales pitches. It’s best for posting engaging content that is more entertainment based or news based. Links to how-to articles,
Best For: All business types, but especially beneficial for news agencies, Pop Culture (people and businesses), bloggers, retailers, etc.
Best Content: Short sentences with shortened URLS that will cause the user to click to your website or other social media site.
Best Practices: Tweet often (without spamming). Content should be entertaining or news worthy. Images will do better than videos, and text performs better than images. Tweets with links tend to get more retweets than tweets without.
Instagram, now owned by Facebook, is one of the newer social media sites, but it already has over 300 million users. The majority of these users are millennials and teens. The content marketing for Instagram varies from Facebook and Twitter because it relies solely on image and video.
Best For: Lifestyle Brands (fitness apparel, makeup, any clothing retailers, etc)
Best Content: Visually engaging images that promote an ideal lifestyle or behavior
Best Practices: Short captions with engaging photo or short video. Use relevant hashtags. If you’re using more than 5 hashtags for one post, consider adding the rest to a comment below to the photo or video.
Pinterest, like Instagram relies solely on visual cues. It’s important to have high quality images that people will be likely to share. If you’re a service based business, sharing pictures of your staff and or your service isn’t really going to get a lot of repins. According to the Pinterest blog, the most popular categories on Pinterest are: fitness, technology, inspirational quotes, humor and food.
Best for: Lifestyle Brands, Bloggers, Clothing Retailers, etc.
Best Content: High quality photos with short descriptions
Best practices: Certain topics are more popular on certain days. See this article for more information. Generally afternoon and evening pinning tends to get more traction that morning pinning.
Google+
Google+ never quite gained the traction that other social media sites did, however it’s still important to be on Google+. Having a verified Google+ page with up to date business information is a good SEO booster. With Google being the most used search engine, you can bet that it’s pretty important. Like Facebook, you can post longer status updates with pictures or photos. The most important part of Google+ are the reviews. Higher ranked businesses will show up higher in search results than those with a smaller number of reviews (or those that have bad reviews).
Google+
Best for: All business types
Best Content: General business updates, news and articles
Best Practices: Any time of the day
LinkedIn is an entirely different beast than the other social media sites listed above. It’s different in that it’s more for business to business marketing and self promotion. LinkedIn is alternative place to put up online job postings and find other professionals that could beneficial to your business.
Best for: B2B companies, large corporations, entrepreneurs
Best Content: General business updates, news and articles
Best Practices: Post content that provides insight into your company, answers questions about your field, etc.
Mill Creek Creative 