Part of being ahead of the game in the digital realm is knowing which social media and blogging platforms you should use for your kind of business. Attracting the right audience is talking the talk and walking the walk.
Social Media Tools
Facebook. One of the most used social media networking websites that every business should have.
- User Background: Ages tend to vary, but skew more towards young adults and adults. Both men and women.
- Level of Engagement: Very high. Being that many people use it for daily entertainment and social needs, it reflects a lot of clicks, likes, and shares from consumers.
- Who is it for? Really.
Twitter. Like Facebook, it is an extremely popular tool used to network and socialize.
- User Background: A younger audience, filled with a mix of men and women.
- Level of Engagement: Often attracting “information junkies,” Twitter gets a high level of engagement with its easy ability to retweet and favorite.
- Who is it for?
LinkedIn. The professional version of Facebook for all your business needs.
- User Background: College students and older, mostly younger professionals with a good blend of senior level officers.
- Level of Engagement: LinkedIn groups help vastly with engagement between peers. Status updates seem to generate not as many likes and shares as would its fellow networking website competitors.
- Who is it for? B2B companies.
Google+. A cross between Yelp and social updates.
- User Background: Young adult people tend to frequent Google+ as a means to stay up-to-date with local businesses.
- Level of Engagement: Relatively moderate. Google+ acts as a center for information about local companies and industry news.
- Who is it for? Local B2B and B2C companies. Helps if you have business listings on Yelp, Yellow Pages, Urban Spoon, Google Maps, etc.
Pinterest. A gallery of pictures to educate, entice, and entertain your customers.
- User Background: Pinterest users tend to be middle-aged women. Recent research says that 85% of the users are women.
- Level of Engagement: As a website that uses mostly images, people “collect” photos onto their boards to revisit frequently. As a result, sharing and liking are common.
- Who is it for? A company in a highly visual industry like photography, wedding cakes, and clothing.
Vine. The twitter version of Vine: 6-second videos.
- User Background: A young audience. Videos tend to relate to trending and hilarious topics that last the span of a goldfish’s memory. The perfect recipe of younger people.
- Level of Engagement: Many vines tend to become “viral” if you make it entertaining. Sharing is a constant occurrence.
- Who is it for? B2C companies catering to younger audiences with a good amount of demo content.
YouTube. The Holy Grail of videos. This is where “viral” began to become a thing.
- User Background: People of all ages come to watch videos, all for different purposes: educational, entertainment, music, news, and so on. Users are literally everyone.
- Level of Engagement: You can like, dislike, favorite, save for later, and share. Although Youtube videos tend to require more of a manual effort when it comes to sharing, it is still highly engaging for users.
- Who is it for? Any business that can record its daily activities, demos, news, Q&A’s, interviews, etc.
Instagram. A way to prettify your pictures and videos.
- User Background: Younger audiences, leaning more towards females. Popular among urbanites.
- Level of Engagement: Slightly heavy. You can like, share, and comment on photos, but as Instagram is strictly mobile, it tends to stick to liking and sharing.
- Who is it for? Like Pinterest, Instagram is often used by companies in the visual realm.
Snapchat. The self-destructing app – videos and pictures that disappear.
- User Background: Heavy on the young adults in the 18-24 range. Often used to capture “party” or “socially hilarious” moments.
- Level of Engagement: Somewhat low. You can’t like or share snapchat content, but if the pictures and videos are good, you can gain a good reputation for being “hip” and “fun.”
- Who is it for? Companies who want to show off behind-the-scenes footage and off-hour moments like weekend fun or selfies.
Tumblr. Instagram for mobile.
- User Background: A tie between young adults and middle-aged users, with more female fans than male.
- Level of Engagement: Extremely high. Re-blogging is a high tendency for great social content, though humor tends to trump the posts without.
- Who is it for? Companies that utilize a lot of imagery and witty sayings. Tumblr users tend to steer away from promotional posts, so stay funny!
Blogging Platforms
Medium. A trending platform for posting blogs. Its easy-to-use interface allows for super simple posting and formatting. The best part is you can browse through other blogger’s submissions, follow them, and like their content.
WordPress. If you want more customization, WordPress is the way to go. It has such a large user base that so many templates exist for you to use (both paid and free).
Paper.li. This relatively newer content-generating source allows you to create articles, and they mash all the high quality ones together and send it to their users. They use a targeted method so your writing only appears to the people who can relate.
Tumblr. Like WordPress, Tumblr allows for a customizable front page. The added bonus? You get to sync with Tumblr, so if a reader has an account, they can follow you for real-time updates.
LinkedIn. Why not add authority to your business profile? LinkedIn allows you to create and share blog posts that you publish. If you’re going for the more professional crowd, LinkedIn may serve your purposes better.
Postach.io. If you like Evernote, Postach.io may be your cup of tea. It turns all your evernotes into blog posts or a tailored website using your content.
Weebly. A personal favorite of mine. Since discovering Weebly, I’ve used it for a lot of my needs – website building and blogging. It comes with analytics, too! You can track where your users come from and who your users are.
Attract the right users by knowing which places you should frequent. But what’s after that? Making good content!
Next up: Know Your Content (coming soon)
This is a blog series outlining the details of the 6 principles of Engagement Marketing: VAIRCG.
