4 steps to your social media presence
While lots of businesses use social media, there are still many who don't. Are you one of them who doesn't yet use social media? A recent workshop on internet marketing made us aware of the complexities of these marketing channels.
Are you currently thinking about establishing a social media presence for your business, but you're not sure where to start or which one is right for you? Or you may already have a social networking page, but you're not yet very active.
TvA recently decided we needed a bigger social media presence (you can now follow us on facebook and twitter). This forced us to review the available platforms. We thought it would be fun to share these here, whether you are an old hand or new to social media.
This run down of the most common social media platforms may help you get started.
1 The top 7 social media platforms
- Facebook- 10 years since inception, it has more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. That makes it number one in the social media platforms, and your greatest opportunity to communicate with your customers. 92% of marketers use it. The 45-54 year age bracket is fastest growing on this platform.
- Twitter has over 240 million active monthly users. Its fasted growing demographic is 55-64 year age bracket. 80% of marketers use Twitter. It is great for micro-blogging and for connecting with opinion leaders and customers.
- LinkedIn - 70% of marketers use LinkedIn. It has 300 million users, and is business oriented. LinkedIn now lets you blog straight from their platform. It is also great for Business to Business marketing.
- Blogging - 58% of marketers blog. It fuels SEO, and provides content for your other social media platforms.
- YouTube - 56% of marketers use this. More than 1 billion users visit YouTube each month. On average YouTube video views per day reach 4 billion. There are 500 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link. Great for telling your story, sharing tips, or introducing a product in short sound bites.
- Pinterest - 41% of marketers use this platform. It has 20 million active monthly users. If your business is about fashion, arts & crafts, home décor, cooking or health then this is a great visual platform for you.
- Instagram - 18% of marketers use Instagram. It has 200 million active monthly users. The site is about sharing pictures and short videos. Brands are starting to make use of this platform by posting pictures their consumers can relate to.
2 Decide on your target audience
Break down your target audience into demographics, such as age, location, interests. It goes without saying, the better you know your audience the easier it will be to choose the platform which is right for your business.
3 Set goals
One goal may be that you want to increase traffic to your website or blog. You may want to generate leads, improve your search ranking, create loyal fans, improve sales or generally increase exposure.
Whatever your goal is, be sure to determine it, so that you can review if your approach is working, and if not, you can adjust your strategy.
4 Review
Periodically check that your social media efforts are helping you reach your goals. If they aren't, change tactics. If they are pat yourself on the back and keep going.
So there you have it. These are the points we considered when we were looking at choosing what was right for our businesses, and what things we needed in place to monitor that we were on track.
How about you? Are you, or will you be using social media in your business?
Sources:
http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2093-happy-anniversary-facebook-the-network-at-10)
Social Media Examiner Marketing Industry Report
https://leveragenewagemedia.com/blog/social-media-infographic/
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-stats-2014_b54243
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/01/17/20-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2014/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxpa4dNVd3c&feature=youtu.be
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/youtube-statistics/#.U3q0OvmSwy4