More than half (52%) of marketers say Facebook is the most important social network they use to grow and market their business, according to a recent report from Social Media Examiner. social media marketing university The 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report was based on data from a survey of 3,720 marketers; 61% of survey participants focus primarily on attracting consumers (B2C), and the other 39% primarily target businesses (B2B).Some 21% of respondents say LinkedIn is the most important social network they use to grow and market their business; Twitter ranks third (12%), followed by YouTube (4%) and Google+ (4%).Though Facebook is considered the most important social network overall, LinkedIn takes the top spot with B2B marketers: 41% say it is the most important network they use (30% pick Facebook). One of the most common business dilemmas is figuring our where to start with social media marketing. Today I would like to introduce a few high level ideas to help you decide where to put your time for the best results for your business. As with anything in life, there is often a trade-off between effort and business benefits and social media is no different.I need to make a very important point right up front. There is NO common solution or strategy that fits every business. What I am proposing here should not be taken as “The Gospel.” This post contains broad generalizations — you still have to use common business sense to determine what fits best for you. OK? Let’s get started. There are lots of amazing things a business can do to create benefits from the social web — customer service, business intelligence, and creating awareness to name a few. But today I want to assume that your primary goal is to create an actionable audience — that is, develop an online community who will create some business benefit for you over time. A common misconception is that “audience” equals “action. It does not.
If you are reading this post, you might have discovered it through Twitter or Facebook. But if you have no emotional connection to me as a blogger, are you going to hire me? Buy my marketing books? what is social media marketing No. Social media marketing simply opens up the door for connections through weak relational links. You still have to do the hard work to turn those folks into buying customers. My friend Jay Baer coined a term I like very much: “reliable reach.” If you tweet something, it’s kind of like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean, isn’t it? You don’t really know who will read it … or if anyone will. However, if somebody subscribes to a blog or YouTube channel, they are asking for your content. There is a good chance they will actually see it. The goal of social media marketing is to direct more audience member to subscriptions — reliable reach — over time, There is generally a relationship between the time you put into social media and the level of reliable reach you attain. Content is the catalyst that leads to awareness on the web. Awareness may then lead to engagement and engagement may lead to trust, and even loyalty over time. Creating, curating, and distributing content is the economic driver of social media success. The different platforms require different types of content, some simple, some complex. This is important for a business to consider. The default position for social media marketing seems to be Facebook. While Facebook is undeniably important, let’s stack it up to the other platforms in the context of our ultimate goal of building an actionable audience. In this analysis, I am covering the top social media platforms based on visits, plus a few others like Slideshare and Meerkat for fun.
The platform is great at making initial connections which can lead to reliable reach on another platform like a blog or podcast. social media and marketing One of the reasons this platform is so popular is that it is so easy to use. Snap a photo and post. This is one of the reasons that Instagram is used at work more than any other platform (85% of its users do so!). In fact it is probably unique among platforms in its opportunity to create connection with relatively little work. Another advantage is that there is no timeline editing. Every subscriber has an equal chance of seeing what you post. But like Twitter, your content is somewhat ephemeral as it slowly sinks to the bottom of the news feed. Pinterest is the only platform in the box of “low work, high reach.” Primarily, you are creating audience value by curating content (rather than creating content) from other sources on the web into logical pages that will inspire and entertain. And if you do an excellent job with curation, you can build a very loyal audience. One sign of the platform’s ability to create an active audience is that “pinned” items drive more web traffic than any other platform. Google+ is the most mysterious of all the platforms. Is it vital and vibrant? Or, is it a desolate ghost town? The answer is, “both.”Despite the cries of its stalwart defenders, Google+ is simply not a mainstream public platform. Most people simply don’t care about the SEO benefits. It’s never mentioned on TV, you don’t see businesses asking for a follow on G+, and it’s not on the radar screen of Millennials. So your access to mainstream consumers is extremely limited. We profiled the top social media platforms, so you can learn how to utilize each one for your business and determine which ones fit your needs.
To find out more about Facebook for business, check out our guide. Twitter is another social network where mostly anything goes. social media marketing company With Twitter, you can post short (140 characters or less) text updates along with videos, images, links and more. You can also easily interact with other users by mentioning their usernames in your posts, so Twitter is a great way to quickly connect with people all around the world (the platform has more than 500 million users worldwide). Because of this, Twitter is not only a great way to market your business; it's also an effective channel for handling customer service. For example, if you maintain an active Twitter presence, then customers who are also active on the platform will seek you out to express concerns or share their praise. If you have interesting content, Twitter is also a great tool for quickly spreading the word. Retweeting and sharing other users' content is incredibly simple, and if a user with a lot of followers retweets you, your content has the potential to go viral. But with Twitter, it's important to remember to find balance — don't simply share your own links or media; make sure you are also sharing a lot of interesting, relevant content from other Twitter users so your audience doesn't think you only care about what your business is doing. This platform consists of digital bulletin boards where users can save and display content they like in the form of pins. Users create and organize their boards by category, so for example, as a personal user, one might have a board dedicated to food where they pin recipes, another board dedicated to photography they find interesting and so on.
If you are reading this post, you might have discovered it through Twitter or Facebook. But if you have no emotional connection to me as a blogger, are you going to hire me? Buy my marketing books? what is social media marketing No. Social media marketing simply opens up the door for connections through weak relational links. You still have to do the hard work to turn those folks into buying customers. My friend Jay Baer coined a term I like very much: “reliable reach.” If you tweet something, it’s kind of like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean, isn’t it? You don’t really know who will read it … or if anyone will. However, if somebody subscribes to a blog or YouTube channel, they are asking for your content. There is a good chance they will actually see it. The goal of social media marketing is to direct more audience member to subscriptions — reliable reach — over time, There is generally a relationship between the time you put into social media and the level of reliable reach you attain. Content is the catalyst that leads to awareness on the web. Awareness may then lead to engagement and engagement may lead to trust, and even loyalty over time. Creating, curating, and distributing content is the economic driver of social media success. The different platforms require different types of content, some simple, some complex. This is important for a business to consider. The default position for social media marketing seems to be Facebook. While Facebook is undeniably important, let’s stack it up to the other platforms in the context of our ultimate goal of building an actionable audience. In this analysis, I am covering the top social media platforms based on visits, plus a few others like Slideshare and Meerkat for fun.
The best social media platform for your organization
If you were to draw an arrow from the lower left quadrant (low time required, low audience ownership) to the upper right quadrant (high time required and high audience ownership), social media marketing jobs it would also present a useful continuum of the less complex content to more complex content requirements. Let’s look at each platform starting roughly from the lower left to the upper right. Streaming video is hot right now but at this point the genre is limited in its ability to attain reliable reach. You can stream live from an event or from your home but it has a limited opportunity for sustaining an audience because who you reach is dependent on who is available in that moment. But keep your eye on this space. I think over time, these platforms will improve in their ability to create reliable reach as users figure out creative new uses for regularly-scheduled programming and even integrating with traditional media. Of all the platforms listed here, I think this one has the most potential to shift to the upper right in terms of sustaining an actionable audience. A lot of people still love to visit old school forums and Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers. Recent research from Edison suggests that more people visit forums than blogs. However a forum is somewhat limited in creating a sustainable and actionable audience. You might answer questions for an entirely new audience each time you visit the site. In this case, Yahoo really owns the audience, not you. Twitter is not as simple as it might appear. Although you are limited to 140 characters, it can be quite difficult creating something meaningful in that small space.Twitter stands alone in its ability to create a huge, relevant audience quickly, but since you cannot target groups of followers with messages (at least yet), it sometimes feels like you are throwing a message out to a big silent world.The platform is great at making initial connections which can lead to reliable reach on another platform like a blog or podcast. social media and marketing One of the reasons this platform is so popular is that it is so easy to use. Snap a photo and post. This is one of the reasons that Instagram is used at work more than any other platform (85% of its users do so!). In fact it is probably unique among platforms in its opportunity to create connection with relatively little work. Another advantage is that there is no timeline editing. Every subscriber has an equal chance of seeing what you post. But like Twitter, your content is somewhat ephemeral as it slowly sinks to the bottom of the news feed. Pinterest is the only platform in the box of “low work, high reach.” Primarily, you are creating audience value by curating content (rather than creating content) from other sources on the web into logical pages that will inspire and entertain. And if you do an excellent job with curation, you can build a very loyal audience. One sign of the platform’s ability to create an active audience is that “pinned” items drive more web traffic than any other platform. Google+ is the most mysterious of all the platforms. Is it vital and vibrant? Or, is it a desolate ghost town? The answer is, “both.”Despite the cries of its stalwart defenders, Google+ is simply not a mainstream public platform. Most people simply don’t care about the SEO benefits. It’s never mentioned on TV, you don’t see businesses asking for a follow on G+, and it’s not on the radar screen of Millennials. So your access to mainstream consumers is extremely limited. We profiled the top social media platforms, so you can learn how to utilize each one for your business and determine which ones fit your needs.
Social Media for Business: Marketer’s Guide
Should your business be on social media? Absolutely. social media marketing agency But should you have an account on every platform? Not necessarily.Your social success depends largely on the type of business you run and how much time and effort you intend to put into your strategy. Some networks, like Facebook, are more low-maintenance and work for every type of business, while others, like Instagram, require more dedication, working best for businesses in certain niches.Want to create an enviable social strategy? Familiarize yourself with all of the social networks at your disposal, figure out which features will work best with your business and focus on the platforms that best reflect your business's mission. Facebook is the biggest social network out there, both in terms of name recognition and total number of users. With over 1.39 billion active users, Facebook is a great medium for connecting people from all over the world with your business. And Facebook is not only the biggest network, it's arguably the most versatile one. In the 11 years since it launched, Facebook grew from a simple website where college students could keep in touch into a multifaceted Web and mobile social-platform where anyone can connect with not just their friends and family, but also with celebrities, organizations, businesses and more thanks to the Pages feature.Since Facebook has a wealth of options for any type of organization, it's a great starting point for your business, regardless of your industry. You can use it to share photos, videos, important company updates and more. Additionally, Facebook is a lot more low maintenance in terms of posting frequency — whether you post several updates a day or only a few a week won't make much of a difference in terms of what your fans think of you.To find out more about Facebook for business, check out our guide. Twitter is another social network where mostly anything goes. social media marketing company With Twitter, you can post short (140 characters or less) text updates along with videos, images, links and more. You can also easily interact with other users by mentioning their usernames in your posts, so Twitter is a great way to quickly connect with people all around the world (the platform has more than 500 million users worldwide). Because of this, Twitter is not only a great way to market your business; it's also an effective channel for handling customer service. For example, if you maintain an active Twitter presence, then customers who are also active on the platform will seek you out to express concerns or share their praise. If you have interesting content, Twitter is also a great tool for quickly spreading the word. Retweeting and sharing other users' content is incredibly simple, and if a user with a lot of followers retweets you, your content has the potential to go viral. But with Twitter, it's important to remember to find balance — don't simply share your own links or media; make sure you are also sharing a lot of interesting, relevant content from other Twitter users so your audience doesn't think you only care about what your business is doing. This platform consists of digital bulletin boards where users can save and display content they like in the form of pins. Users create and organize their boards by category, so for example, as a personal user, one might have a board dedicated to food where they pin recipes, another board dedicated to photography they find interesting and so on.
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