Four Steps to Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business
There are more social media platforms than you can poke a stick at! And trying to figure out which of those platforms are best for your business to use as a tool of communicating with your clients can be overwhelming.
Social media, whether you love it, or hate is here to stay and it’s important that you choose the appropriate channel(s) to use that will give you visibility and enable you to communicate with your clients in an effective way that feels authentic for you and something clients will benefit from.
We have compiled the four steps for you to follow so you can select the social media channels to use. These steps take into consideration the type of business goals you want to achieve, what and how you should communicate to clients, and what your target audience is so you can capture new clients.
1. What are my objectives?
The very first thing you should be asking yourself is, what do I want to achieve using social media?
These may include:
- Increase online visibility
- Increase engagement of existing clients
- Drive traffic to your website (Related: Read here how to Drive traffic to your website in 6 easy ways)
- Product or service promotion
- Generate new leads
- Increase awareness of your industry and promote partnerships
2. What social media channels are my target audience active on?
Once you have narrowed down what your objectives are with your social media presence, it is time to do some research and find out where your clients and leads are hanging out.
Most people will have at least one social media channel they are active on and you can delve deeper by using the following:
- Who is your target audience? Are they typically male or female? What age bracket do they fall in? Average income? Local or worldwide?
- Use Google to search to look for your demographic. You can also check on sites like Social Media News to narrow it down.
- Check to see where your competitors are most active. What is the engagement like on their platforms? What posts are getting the most engagement?
- Facebook is really a given. This is the most common social media platforms that people are on and generally active. It’s a safe and easy place to start when starting out on social media.
3. What social media channels are your competitors using?
There is some research to be done in finding out the social media platforms that your competitors are using and look for opportunities that you can leverage.
- Make a list of your top competitors and find out which channels they are most active on.
- What social media channels do they get the most engagement on?
- What type of content are they posting, and does it differ on each platform?
- How often are they posting?
- Are they connecting with other businesses online and using their partnership to their advantage? What we mean by advantage is are they making the most of their business connections on social media to increase their audience.
By undertaking this research, you will get a quick snapshot of what is and what isn’t working with your target audience and be able to narrow down your choice when deciding on which channels to join and communicate with your audience.
4. What content do I want to communicate?
Different social media channels use different types of content to communicate with their audience.
There are three main types of communication used on social media.
Written content
LinkedIn and Facebook are the best channels for written content. These platforms allow you to share more in-depth posts with your audience
Image based content
Platforms like Instagram are platforms where you communicate with your audience via image. Platforms which rely on communication via image really are for a select target audience. If your business doesn’t rely heavily upon images, then it’s a channel that you can leave out.
Video content
Video content across social media channels is continuing to grow from strength to strength. It really is a popular tool where you can share directly with your target audience.
Video is across most social media channels but generally businesses are using it on Facebook and Instagram. You can also use channels like YouTube to share video content on LinkedIn.
Overall
Finding the best social media platforms for your business doesn’t need to be overwhelming. It just takes a little research and trial and error. It isn’t a platform that you master immediately, and don’t be put off by that. They are invaluable platforms for you to use to communicate with your target audience – just remember to start with one channel at first and take note of how your audience is engaging with your posts so you can fine tune what you share with them.
Sue Mills is a marketing, sales and digital specialist to the financial and professional service sector, and the owner of Sassy Marketing & Communications. With over 20 years of experience working for and with financial planners, accountants, brokers and advisors she shows her clients how to step up and out to be sustainable and thrive in their practices through adopting smart and valuable marketing strategies. Call Sue on 0477 468 888 for a confidential discussion or visit www.sassy.marketing.
