These days, if you’re not doing social media marketing, you’re nowhere. That doesn’t mean, however, that your brand must be everywhere. The trick is to find the happy medium, limiting yourself to the social channels best suited to your brand.
“But aren’t all social sites pretty much the same?” you protest. “The more places showcasing my brand, the more people will see it.” True enough. But this is scattershot marketing, with much of your effort likely to become wasted energy. Not to mention squandered coin of the realm. As is true in other types of brand marketing, a targeted approach works best for your social media endeavors. You just can’t be all brands to all people.
Which Social Sites are Best?
If you’re a small to medium-sized business, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are where you definitely want to be. In terms of sheer volume, these are the reigning champs, pulling in the most users per month. Backed by these numbers, moderately-sized companies have an excellent opportunity to increase their fan bases, spotlight products, and build enduring relationships through responsive customer service.
But even Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest can be differentiated, with a certain one or certain ones more suitable for your brand than others. It is on the most advantageous destinations that you should focus your energies and expenditures.
Marketers can pinpoint the most suitable platforms by asking and answering some basic questions:
- How is each social site unique?
- Do its features support my brand objectives?
- What is the platform’s target audience?
- What is the optimum time investment required to generate desired results?
Facebook, for instance, is distinguished by these characteristics:
A single post can connect with a broad diversity of audience segments.
Posted ads can drive user traffic to brand website.
Stimulates conversations with users.
Presents opportunity to showcase engaging brand information, such as testimonials, brand history, and entertaining company anecdotes.
The point is, brands must do a little digging to understand the character and function of each prospective social site – well before unleashing a campaign. More often than not, this investigative effort will uncover information crucial to the development of focused marketing strategies.
If you have any questions or comments about choosing the best social platforms for your brand, or about any other brand-related topic, feel free to send them our way.