There are now at least 10 major social media channels, all in which have different features, aims and styles to each other. So, how do you know which social media channels your brand should be using?
For different types of brands, or to market towards different people, you will need to be using different social networks. Every brand should be using more than one social media platform to communicate with their customers, as your customers are likely to be using more than one, and they’re going to be using different ones, for different reasons.
Facebook is still the most popular social media platform, with over 1.79billion users! Every brand should be on Facebook. You can create yourself a company profile, and on here you can be posting about latest news, offers, blog posts, videos, and loads more! Customers can also write reviews, message with enquiries and if you allow them to, they can also post directly onto the page.
On Facebook, you can also be creating paid for adverts, from brand awareness to lead campaigns. They are regularly adding new features on here, for example Facebook Canvas is one of their growing new advert styles.
The 140 character social platform is great for all brands who want to be creating a conversation with their customers. Many brands have started to have their customer service chats on twitter, over using call centres, as it’s quick and easy for customers to enquire and for you to reply back. Read more about Twitters new chatbot feature here. You can also get involved with trending hashtags, or even create your own to start a new conversation.
For brands selling products, Instagram is a great platform, especially for fashion, beauty or lifestyle brands. Instagram is a far more visual platform, and is all about communicating with your customers through visuals, rather than through text. Hashtags are also a huge part of Instagram, you can either create your own, or you can engage with existing hashtags to reach and let your customer react with.
They are also soon to be launching an in-app shopping experience, find out more about that here.
Snapchat
More brands have been using snapchat, especially through the story feature. Customers are loving behind the scenes clips, Q&As, and getting exclusive sneak peaks and discounts through this channel. With just 10 seconds for each snap, make each one pack a punch! Brands have been successfully using the story function to give their customers an insight into special events, and fashion weeks.
If your brand is offering a service, LinkedIn is a great platform to be making a presence on. Loads of businesses will be on LinkedIn to look into hiring new staff, and also to be looking at connecting with other businesses. When creating a LinkedIn account for your brand, make sure you create a company profile, not a personal profile! This means that people can look at your brands posts, without having to add you as a connection.
If you’ve got the budget, you can also create text ads and sponsored posts through LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager.
YouTube
Selling a product that requires instructions or a demonstration? YouTube is a great platform for you to be using. You can create short snappy videos, or super in-depth hour long videos. However, I would recommend a video length of around 5 minutes, as peoples attention spans are becoming shorter!
Some of the top viewed videos on YouTube are how-to tutorials, and it’s also great to be informing your customers how to use your products in a visual way, as some people can’t bare to read instructions!
A lot of brands will also feature videos of their adverts on their channel These can then be embedded into blog posts, or just to get the advert pushed onto viewers subscriptions feeds.
Vimeo
Similar to YouTube, Vimeo is a video sharing platform. You can add long or short videos, without the disruptions of adverts. If you’re allowing your YouTube videos to be monetised, you run the risk of having competitors adverts being shown before, during or even after your video plays. However, on Vimeo you don’t get this disruption, it’s a much cleaner and simpler platform.
Fashion, lifestyle and food brands work best on Pinterest. On here, customers will have inspiration boards, where they’re going to pinning images that they like. This will make the image share onto their feeds, where their followers can see them. I often use Pinterest to pin images that are inspiration for either projects I’m doing, or just for future reference. For example I have a home decor board, so if I see a really nicely styled space, I will pin this to that board. If there’s a link on that image to where I can buy the products, then I will often click-through and sometimes make a purchase.
Tumblr
Similar to Pinterest, Tumblr is great for fashion, lifestyle and food brands. Instead of pinning imagery, they will be reblogging it. Rather than the image going onto a board, like they do on Pinterest, they will instead run down on the customers Tumblr feed, for their followers to be able to see.
Some brands are also using Tumblr as their blogging platform, as you can also create written posts, alongside imagery.
Google+
Firstly, Google+ is owned by Google, so it’s highly unlikely the platform will be disappearing anytime soon. Google+ is great to post about recent blog posts, news and events going on. Posting regularly onto Google+ has a positive effect on your search rankings, and should help to improve them.
Wanting more advice on your social media? Find out what we can do for your brands social media, here at Fifteen.
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