best social media platform for business
With lives becoming busy and ever so complex, the one place it all meets, and not surprisingly is on social media platforms, the 21st century equivalent of the 19-century meetings in the bazaars be it for social or personal reasons.
Invariably all of the social media platforms including their leader Facebook started by making this easy for a closed group of people which with time and limited access increased in scope pretty quickly showing their potential to connect people worldwide. And when there are people in plenty, it’s just a question of time before business follows. In fact, these days it’s business that’s taking people to these sites, otherwise, how do you explain people forming friendships across cultural and civilizational divides to form common bonds!
That said, the last couple of years has introduced myriad social media platforms with just as many features that see substantial visitors both visiting and joining them, and which given their individual peculiarities, have started to attract business on them. You find both buyers and sellers here. With so much riding on these social media platforms, it’s a given that they would be used to market both products and services.
The trick here is to do things the correct way on each of these social media platforms which confirm to their set ideas and agendas so that marketing efforts can be maximized for higher returns.
Facebook: If it’s storytelling to sell, you couldn’t find a better place. From stand-alone posts to videos that elicit replies, comments, ideas and thoughts, this is THE social media platform when one wants to sell to the world, given that its spread is almost the entire planet.
That said, experts warn people not to HARD SELL but to use the social media platform to educate with a worldwide audience with regular and sustained posts meant to elicit responses from viewers. Hard-selling comes much later while the tom-tomming gets done most effectively here.
YouTube: More of a search engine whose results come back in the form of videos, this is one online video social media platform that gives one an edge given that the world is still to accept it like social media of the standard order. It’s monthly log-in worldwide is in the range of two billion and it gets close to 500 hours of video footage- EVERY MINUTE! Yes, that’s viewership and connectivity for you. While it’s one of the most effective mediums, it nevertheless needs some kind of strategy to get the right response.
- Have your own YouTube channel and preferably a business one that gives more user rights to access. In fact, a business entity can have more than one social media YouTube channel.
- Look at what competition does, including the class of people it approaches by accessing keywords. It would tell you exactly who the competition is and what they do (or don’t do) online. Doing so will also inform on the audience and their likes.
- Optimize content for higher viewership including the use of the right keywords and most searched keywords + clarity of video content + stronger & more appealing lines.
- Optimize descriptions with the right content, language, and situational awareness.
WhatsApp: Personalization of business messages can’t get any better than WhatsApp with the only difference that here one has to take the pain to send the message to particular phone numbers. That said, WhatsApp is best for extreme customization, but which nevertheless needs certain things to be done including:
- Never send non-personalized messages: Non-personalized messages are like spam and could take your marketing efforts a few notches down.
- First know whose number it is and if that person would entertain your message: Try and locate the owner of the number to which you are sending messages and try to know if that person could be interested in your offer.
- Keep things short but effective and come to the point fast with the use of the right language.
- Use links to explain.
- Call where possible: It makes immense sense to call a person be it after getting a reply or even if you don’t get a reply purely to know the person better.
Instagram: If pics can convey a thousand ideas, Instagram helps make entire sagas out of short videos and beautiful pictures. Pictures tell stories and stories are what sell on Instagram- even with a single snap! That said, for anything that can be sold showing pictures (essentially everything can be sold showing pics) can be sold on Instagram. That said, not every picture on Instagram has the ability to sell its underlying idea. Some in fact could just do the opposite due to wrong placement. For this reason, we tell you the right way to sell using Instagram.
- Have a content strategy in place. One good place to start could be to look at the competition and what they do.
- Plan your strategy with the right ideas and posts around those ideas.
- Uniqueness is generic to Instagram. If you aren’t unique, you don’t exist!
- Use technology to beautify your content including the use of adobe photoshop to make things look better.
- Use influencers if need be.
- Use Instagram hashtags extensively for the right connection.
- Have a clear CTA that links to your work and Instagram account!
LinkedIn: The serious kid on the block! Those using it have a perennial chip on their shoulder as they are perceived to be of a higher order. That said, it does give one a certain prestige to be present on the social media platform in a perceivable manner where you contribute to conversations while also posting original stuff that gets others to comment on your work.
LinkedIn works best for executives who want to promote a thought-related enterprise like content marketing, newer technologies, etc besides those who have aeons of experience and what to put it to good use finding others like them or finding markets online. Simple ways to use LinkedIn better is to:
– Complete profiles! Of yourself, your colleagues who matter, and most of all, of your organization. That way folks who what you do, and what was your last great project.
– Post interesting stuff! On LinkedIn, it isn’t as much about keywords as its about key ideas. If you have great ideas that you can espouse, do it with the right language and content. In time, that gets you the right eyeballs and the right appeal.
– Put comments and useful replies! LinkedIn is one place where you find original content in plenty. To get to the right set of people, even if you can’t post original, the least you can do is to like the comments of others and post some interesting replies.
– Recommend people! Good work ought to be admired. And great admirers get more of their type which is the real boon.
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