Which Social Media Platforms Are Right For Your Business?
Houston Small Business Websites
Most startups have two major challenges: limited cash flow and very limited manpower. While the internet has created a low barrier to entry for e-commerce businesses, allowing people to start companies with just an idea and a laptop, it’s also created a world where new social media channels are popping up all the time. How does a business devote their limited time and resources to the social media outlets that will be most beneficial?
It requires some homework upfront, but that due diligence can save you hours in payroll costs and even eliminate unnecessary roles for your team if your focus is only on the platforms giving you a direct ROI.
From Snapchat to Instagram, here’s a look at how you can find the best social media platforms for your business.
Snapchat
60% of snapchat users in the U.S. are under the age of 24 and with more than 100 million users consuming 30 minutes of content every day, it's a goldmine for businesses targeting millennials. Companies creating unique video content, releasing behind the scenes footage, new collections, or conducting interviews with prominent figures can capitalize on this free marketing opportunity and gain a loyal following.
American women and men between the ages of 25 - 54 make up 32% and 29% of Facebook users, respectively. And only 9% of users are between the ages of 18 - 24. For companies whose target customer is under 24 years old, the most effective use of company time may be to forego Facebook altogether or to create a company page in order to to have a presence, provide important contact information, and use it strictly for their robust advertising platform, while not investing in any manpower to publish new posts regularly.
On the other hand, if your company targets a slightly older market, it could be very valuable since 44% of users check Facebook several times per day.
With 500 million users on the app and 59% of those users checking the app every single day, it's no doubt that Instagram has great reach. However, with their latest algorithm change, users no longer view the content in chronological order and rather through an algorithm determined by Instagram, much like Facebook's algorithm, that not many people understand. This change takes more control away from the companies posting content and makes it hard to determine how many people will be exposed to your posts. Not to mention, without any clickable links associated with each individual post, getting customers to your site from the app is a challenge.
Instagram may best be used as a brand building tool if you have a decent following and post beautiful images or videos, but if you plan to use it as a marketing tool, you will need to devise a strategic plan to capitalize on the half a billion users.
For female-focused companies, Pinterest is the way to go because of its significant reach among women; 42% of online women are Pinterest users. 34% of users are between the ages of 18 - 29 and 28% are between 30 - 49, which creates a wide demographic of women who can be reached on this platform.
If your products include fashion, art, home decor, food, or anything else that you can create beautiful images of, Pinterest should be your go-to destination to drive targeted traffic to your site. And with the Pinterest buy button, you can make it easier than ever to make a purchase with a click of a button.
Of course, staying on top of the ever-changing social media landscape is an immense task all on its own, but one worth investing the time in. If you are an early adapter of a new platform that becomes popular, you can be one of the first to gain a lot of followers easily. And often platforms like musical.ly pop up, an app that allows users to create 15 second music videos with their favorite songs, that just might be the perfect fit if your company is tied to the music industry.
Finding where your company fits on this spectrum and spending majority of time on the two or three platforms that will yield the best results is a far more advantageous option than trying to capitalize on all platforms and getting mediocre results.
Source: Forbes
About LaraNet: We are a web design firm focused to help you to grow your business and communicate with your customers and prospects using two simple but powerful tools: 1) Interactive Website and 2) Internet Marketing Strategy on social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… Whether you want to work with just a web page, or launch or improve your presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or communicate with your customers through newsletters, or improve the location of your business in the search engines through Search Engine Optimization, or start marketing your products or services online, in LaraNet we can help you.
