ToOLOwl
If you own and small business and it is not on the social media platform, you are missing a great value. Absence on social media platforms will make you lose new customer insights and engagement opportunities with the customers.
The best part is, social media marketing is the cheapest way to reach your customers. At the same time, it provides targeting capabilities and a high reach as compared to the other means of traditional marketing techniques.
Choosing the Right Platform
Promotion on social media will surely give your business a new edge, and if you are planning to start promotions on these platforms, it is important to consider the best platforms for this purpose.
Industry experts say that not all business platforms are best for every business. It is, thus, important to see which platform is fit your business before making investments. Each of the platforms has a specific purpose, mission, and a unique audience. For instance, Instagram uses only visuals to share ideas. On the other hand, Twitter will allow you to add some personality to your social posts and create engagement with the followers.
Here is a description of some of the most popular social media platforms to help you get a better understanding.
Snapchat
This platform is available only on mobile devices and includes only visual content. Snapchat allows its users to share photos and videos in stories that disappear after 24 hours. It also allows them to make public posts. In addition, the app includes images, chats, media, events, and storage facilities. Content that is posted on Snapchat can be saved and posted on other platforms as well.
All the posts on this platform are temporary. This releases the businesses from the pressure to develop super polished or extremely high-quality content. The small and medium businesses must use the stories feature to market their Brand.
Instagram has recently become more popular and will have experienced as many as 1 billion active users in 2020. The tool offers live feature, stories, as well as posts that enables businesses to post and promote their products and services. Instagram is also a visual platform that is based entirely on photo and video posts.
Businesses must understand that this platform is also entirely mobile. The social media marketing activities must include high-quality photos and videos that can gran immediate attention of the viewers.
YouTube
This is the most popular video-sharing platform where users can upload, view, share, rate, and add comments on videos. The platform is now owned by Google and has gained popularity for news and entertainment.
The platform is highly creative in nature and can be easily accessed by anyone who uses the internet. For marketing purposes, businesses might need a video editor to produce content.
This is one of the most popular social media channels. It covers audiences from all parts of the world and from almost all age groups. It is said that all small and medium businesses must have a Facebook page to promote their business. And when this page is used in the right manner, it can accelerate the small business immensely.
Facebook pages can be used to share photos, videos, events, offers, as well as important company updates. You can also mention the hours of operation, products, services, and contact information directly with the customers.
LinkedIn is said to be the best platform for professional networking. The channel has reported 260 million monthly users. It is said to be the top place to find the best talent in the industry. Here, the users create profiles that are similar to their resumes. On the other hand, businesses create their pages to showcase their products and services. This platform is said to be the best place to share job postings and share information about the company culture.
Small business accounts can join industry-specific LinkedIn groups and answer questions. Activities such as these will increase your engagement with potential customers and will bring users to your company website.
This is a visually oriented platform that enables its users to display and save content by “pinning” them on the digital bulletin boards. These boards can be categorized as per the preferences of the users. For instance, a user who uses Pinterest personally might create a board named paintings to save all the paintings that they like. They might save a board named travel and add pins to all the places they want to travel to.
The platform can be valuable to niche businesses. They can post pictures that might fall under categories such as fashion, photography, graphics, and more. This will increase user engagement and will make them visit the business website.
Twitter can be the best place to make short updates for your business. The platform allows its users to share short tweets, images, videos, polls, and links. This is also a good place to interact with your audience by mentioning users to your post.
Twitter might not be a good place for business promotion if your business is highly visual and you do not have a strong brand voice. There are also some of the companies that handle customer services through Twitter, as people share their concerns for the products and services offered.
TikTok
This is a new platform for the users where people create and share short videos. TikTok can be a successful option for the business only it is used in the right manner. Marketing experts say that it might be difficult to use this platform for business promotion at the present time.
Why are social media promotions good for small businesses?
Business promotions over social media platforms can add several benefits. Some of them are mentioned below.
- Brand Promotion: Social media channels are used by billions of people every day. This makes them the best place for business promotions. Buyers are finding new products and services on Instagram and Facebook. This gives the perfect opportunity for businesses to engage with the customers on these platforms.
- Human Interaction: Social media channels allows businesses to develop a brand personality. Businesses gain their distinct voice and get an opportunity to engage with the customers at a more human level. The social media platform allows small businesses to showcase their brand value and engage with people.
Additionally, some of the social media platforms to promote brand offer insights into the performance of your posts. At the same time, social media presence gives an opportunity to communicate with the customers and develop a positive reputation among them.
