Understanding the rollercoaster of social media for business – words Alexa Wang
As a business owner, the world of technology and using social platforms to reach out to potential clients can sometimes be a daunting experience.
The word “connect” can evoke fear and dread to those who don’t understand how social media works and understanding that the efficiency and popularity of certain social media sites can fluctuate in terms of users gains and losses.
This can mean a significant loss or gain of clients and ultimately a change in the success rate of your company. It’s vital to understand at least the basics of social media for business to ensure that you have the best visibility and presence to bring in clients. The best social media for business depends on your needs. Once the basics are understood, you can advance yourself by undertaking Business Marketing Courses to equip you and others with more advance social media and marketing skills.
What is it: A business and employment-oriented site used globally for work and business.
Who uses it: Business people in all sectors
Best for: Networking with employers, finding jobs, showcasing your career profile.
LinkedIn is the go-to social platform for the professional world. Whether you are a large scale business, a small SEO agency, or an individual business owner, you can benefit from LinkedIn. It remains a stable network for those searching for jobs, finding career pathways, networking with potential employers and employees, and building a professional profile (similar to a CV). Having a LinkedIn page can benefit you extremely in generating leads and understanding new trends. It also helps in understanding your client/customer base and the types of connections that they are making. You can advertise job vacancies, showcase your company to industry professionals, establish competitors, and network with businesses and partnerships. It will evidently help expose your business to more of the right people which can lead to more certain clients and can sometimes eliminate the need to reach out to clients, as they will reach out to you. LinkedIn hardly suffers a downfall in users or fast gain, it’s predominantly a networking site, so won’t ultimately go “out of fashion”; a level of consistency lies in LinkedIn.
What is it: A sharing platform used for sharing pictures and videos.
Who uses it: A mixture between the public, celebrities, social influencers, and a lot of companies/businesses that have commerce e.g. Fashion brands, food companies etc.
Best for: Increasing brand exposure, selling products
Instagram has everything you need to showcase aesthetically your business or products. Websites are handy to have but since smart phones are predominantly used as the dominant form of browsing and connection, having a social media page can show how developed you are in understanding current modern technology and your clients/customers. Using Instagram can help update clients, buyers, and users with what your company is possibly up to daily. Depending on the nature of your business, you can update your profile story and engage with users on an informal level, making customer service and communication easier to manage. People are spending more and more time on social media, especially ones on their phones so using a platform like Instagram will bring you business into the modern world of social media thus reaching a group you may not have encountered before. There are also sponsorship and paid advertising that will increase your exposure exponentially; there are more than 1 million users on Instagram you’re sure to hit the right people.
Popularity depends on two things: sign ups (how many people register and account), and engagement (how long a user spends on the site)
Who uses it: Pretty much everyone
Best for: Connecting with old pals, networking with new friends
Facebooks popularity remains at the top of the pile in the realm of social media; founded in 2004, it has sparked the biggest interest in social communications and pathed the way for most of the other platforms formerly mentioned. As it is used by most of the world whom uses technology, it means that the world is your oyster on Facebook! Creating a basic page for your company will elevate your visibility on a grander scale than other social media platforms! For a business you can start campaigns to reach the right userbase and generate leads to your company.
You can also create successful Facebook marketing campaigns that can potentially reach your client base. Facebook can offer both a business end and consumer end reach, so the breadth and depth of your scope will thus be wider.
Who uses it: The general public, celebrities, businesses and companies
Best for: Showcasing an intellectual/opinion-based side of your company or self.
Twitter has always been seen as the younger sibling of Facebook but with less flexibility in terms of features. Limited to a status based and sharing network, Twitter allows you to share links and media with short and sweet status lines. However minimal this sounds, it allows you to condense elements of your content into easily consumable bites of info.
Sometimes with social media you must be aware that trends move fast and your profile will drop in views and users if not updated frequently. How to use social media for marketing changes all the time. User engagement is actually more important that sign up numbers in many cases for businesses, as active engagement on a site, playing games, seeing ads, generate leads for other businesses by attracting loyal users instead of fleeting ones. So making sure that your social media profile is both inviting and engaging is vital to generating more leads for your business.
The Marketors is a business marketing and development courses site offering high quality businesses courses to those within the marketing sector.
Understanding the rollercoaster of social media for business – words Alexa Wang
