How To Choose The Best Social Media Network
Like most people, I started out my social media career on MySpace. Those days were…interesting. Top 8 friends lists, custom profile themes, auto-playing music, and more.
In any case, those days have passed and we have moved on to nice consistently designed social media interfaces. Everyone sees the same design when they look at each other’s Facebook or Twitter profile, save their banner and profile images.
Social media platforms now lack the customization features of MySpace. Most also place their own restrictions on media post types and connection settings. These restrictions have led to specific uses for each major social network.
There are networks to find friends, connect with colleagues, discuss common hobbies, share pictures, complain about work, or anything else that is going on in our lives. Each social media network seems to have found its own culture, media type, and user base.
In addition, based on the latest reports from GlobalWebIndex.net, the social media networks besides Facebook are growing, with Pinterest and Tumblr growing especially quickly.
To me, this shows that people are leaving Facebook in favor of a social network(s) that fits their individual media needs. Instead of posting anything and everything on Facebook, users now post arts/crafts on Pinterest, short thoughts on Twitter, interesting GIFs or artwork on Tumblr, etc.
Basically, instead of making a social network fit their needs, users find the social network that fits the best.
With all of the available options, it can be a challenge to decide where to focus your attention as a publisher. It would be fantastic to be fully active on each major social media network. But as a solopreneur or small business owner, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the time or energy.
So instead, it’s best to focus on just 2 or 3 social networks that are the most likely to bring you the best return on investment. In this post, I’ll walk you through picking the best social media outlets for your brand.
Focus on 2 or 3 social networks that will bring you the best ROI
Side note: I recommend that you go ahead and claim your brand’s username everywhere possible. It’s always better to take a few minutes now to claim your username than to wait until you want it later, and have it be taken by someone else.
The Goliath of all social media. Facebook is the one network to rule them all. Even though its engaged users are dropping, Facebook still has nearly a billion daily active users.
Facebook’s platform allows for a wide variety of media. You can post text, images, video, and more very easily. This makes Facebook a flexible platform that is useful in most cases.
In addition, there are many services that integrate with Facebook such as Hootsuite, Buffer, and CoSchedule. These services make it easy to post to and manage your Facebook profile or page.
Facebook also provides business page functionality. It is fairly simple to set up a Facebook page for your business. With a page, you get more control, and you aren’t restricted by your personal “friends” list.
However, be aware that once you create a page, you need to stay active. The only thing worse than not having a Facebook page is having a page that looks abandoned. Users will see this as unprofessional and won’t be as likely to see you as an authority.
Therefore, once you set up a page, make sure to post to it regularly. You should also respond quickly to any posts, comments, or other interaction from your fans.
Is Facebook The Social Media Network For You?
Yes. Whether you love it or hate it personally, you need to have your brand on Facebook. With such a large user base, you can’t afford to not be on Facebook at this point.
Ah yes, Twitter. The fast moving, 140 character, link and quote machine. Twitter is one of the must-haves for nearly any niche. There is a great deal that can be done on Twitter, as well as millions of people to connect with. No matter what you’re interested in or writing about, there will be someone else with the same interests on Twitter.
Many people use Twitter as a personal social network, so you may find it a bit hard to connect as a brand. However, with the right tone, you can be very successful.
In my niche, most people post links to content they find useful or interesting. Luckily for me as a website owner, this is very helpful. I take advantage of this by posting links to my own content every once in awhile.
If you’re in a niche that is not link heavy, find what is popular, and mimic it. If you have a particularly awesome post, then feel free to link it. But if most of the people in your niche are posting quotes, then try to post mostly quotes.
Basically, try to give your followers what they will expect, but don’t be afraid to link your content and stand out from the crowd a bit.
Twitter moves fast, so you can post fairly frequently (several times per day). I’m even moving towards posting once every 30 minutes. However, you must be careful to not spam your followers. Don’t only link to your website. Instead, mix in links to other relevant websites in your niche.
For most of us, it’s not possible to be on Twitter 24/7. Luckily, there are some tools to help out with that. Buffer lets you schedule posts ahead of time and even reports stats for you on clicks, visibility, and engagement. TweetDeck is a great tool for managing your interactions, such as mentions and retweets. With these tools, you should be able to easily manage your Twitter account, and your followers will think you’re always around.
Is Twitter The Social Media Network For You?
If you have a website or an online brand of any sort, then yes. No matter what you are trying to sell or share, you’ll find interested people on Twitter. It’s ease of use makes it a good introductory network into social media.
Google Plus
Despite morbidly low Google Plus usage, the Google owned social media platform can still be useful. There are a variety of methods to make Google Plus a viable tool for blogging.
Since Google owns Google Plus, it is still seen as a good tool for SEO (search engine optimization). Everything you post on Google Plus is almost instantly indexed by Google. So it’s a good idea to share your posts there after they go live. This way, Google will know that you’re the original source of the post.
Like Facebook, Google Plus also allows you to create a page for your brand or business. From there you can share posts officially and interact with followers.
Google Plus also has some communities with a dedicated fan base. If you can find a relevant community, it may be worth your time to engage and get to know some people.
Since Google Plus is still relatively new and Google hasn’t given up on it yet (Google is known for ditching experiments if they don’t have potential), it wouldn’t be advisable to ignore it completely. Any bit of work that you put in now may help you drastically in the future if Google Plus ever comes into favor.
Is Google Plus The Social Media Network For You?
I advise at least sharing your new posts on your profile or page. Otherwise, unless you can find an active community for your niche, don’t spend much time here.
YouTube
Google for video sharing. As a business owner and/or publisher, this is at least partially how you should see YouTube.
YouTube is another Google owned property, and therefore carries a lot of SEO weight. In addition, YouTube boasts over 1 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) unique users every month. As such, it’s a social network that is hard to ignore.
If you have content that can easily be made into a video, do it. Posting a video on YouTube gives you extra exposure that an individual blog post won’t.
Getting into YouTube will take a bit of a learning curve, and may require some expenses for equipment. However, you can get started quickly with a smartphone camera or a screen recorder.
Even if you don’t have products to show or events to film, you can still create great videos explaining difficult concepts. Pat Flynn has some great examples on his Smart Passive Income channel, such as this video:
Is YouTube The Social Media Network For You?
Does your content translate easily to video? Do you want to share concepts that are difficult to explain with writing? Then yes. YouTube is a great place to share video content, and will help you be found by a new audience that may not have heard of you before.
The social network for professionals. For quite some time, LinkedIn has mostly been a place where you share your resume in a digital format. Maybe you do some job hunting or find new employees there, but not much beyond that.
However, LinkedIn has been making some changes that are repositioning it as a social sharing platform. Posting updates on LinkedIn is becoming more popular. With the advent of LinkedIn Pulse, there is now opportunity to share long-form posts.
In addition, LinkedIn’s acquisition and further development of SlideShare is positioning LinkedIn as a platform for sharing PowerPoint-esque presentations. These presentations are an easy way to share content that is mobile friendly, and visually interesting (at least when done right).
All of these changes are making LinkedIn a more viable social platform, as is evidenced by its recent surge in usage. While it’s no Facebook killer, LinkedIn has the potential to become the go-to social media network for business discussions.
Is LinkedIn The Social Media Network For You?
Do you want to reach a market of CEOs, business owners, executives, or other management? Then LinkedIn could be helpful to you. If your niche isn’t in the business world though, then I wouldn’t spend too much time on LinkedIn right now.
Growth for Instagram has been phenomenal. And with Facebook’s acquisition, Instagram has continued to grow in user base and activity.
Since Instagram is still a young social media platform, big brands are still working out how exactly to capitalize on it to reach their markets. However, for small businesses or solopreneurs it can be very effective.
You can use Instagram either from a personal account to build your own personal brand, or from a business account. Either way, Instagram is a great way to share visual content with a young audience.
If you have clothing, gadgets, art, or anything else visually creative, you should share it on Instagram.
Make sure to take full advantage of the hashtag system in Instagram. Unlike Twitter where you should keep hashtags to a maximum on 3, there doesn’t seem to be an upper limit for Instagram hashtags. As long as they’re relevant, add as many as you can think of. This will help to spread your posts to an even larger audience.
Is Instagram The Social Media Network For You?
Do you have visual content that will be interesting to a young audience and that is resharable? Then you should get on Instagram. Even if you don’t use it personally, there is a lot of potential reach for your business on the Facebook owned Instagram.
The female dominated visual pinning network. Pinterest feels like it has been around forever, but really it is quite new. And as is evidenced by the latest stats, it is growing like gangbusters.
Right now, Pinterest is made up of a large percentage of females, and is dominated by arts & crafts and clothing pins. However, there are definitely niches of other topics.
In addition, the vast majority of pins on Pinterest are repins. This means that if you can create an image that is interesting, it is very likely to be shared over and over again.
I’m just getting started on Pinterest, and even though my boards aren’t in the popular categories for Pinterest users, I have seen a good amount of engagement.
I started out by creating several private boards, and added as many pins as I could, as quickly as I could. Then I made the boards public and let them sit.
Since then, I’ve seen a steady trickle of repins, follows, and likes, with no extra work. And this was all from simply repinning other pins or finding good imagery on other websites.
As long as you can create graphics that are visually appealing, you should post to Pinterest. Canva is good for this if you’re not a PhotoShop master.
Is Pinterest The Social Media Network For You?
If you have visual content, then you should definitely use Pinterest. If you like creating long, vertical infographics, then even better. Even if you don’t have visual content, sharing the imagery that you create for blog posts can be beneficial.
Tumblr
The Yahoo owned social media network / blogging platform. Along with Pinterest it has proved to be one of the fastest growing social networks.
Tumblr is especially popular for the younger audience, and is filled with GIFs, digital artwork, and short-form blog posts.
Similar to Pinterest, most activity on Tumblr is “reblogs”, where users reshare some else’s creation and pass it around the site. Some of the more popular posts can be reblogged dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times.
Tumblr definitely has a unique culture that takes some time to get used to. There is even a kind of unique slang that is frequently used.
Another advantage of Tumblr is its discovery platform. Unlike a self-hosted blog, users on Tumblr can find other relevant blogs through Tumblr’s explore section. This can generate some unexpected exposure, just by being on the platform.
Is Tumblr The Social Media Network For You?
If you have digital artwork, short videos that can be made into GIFs, or short blog posts, consider posting them on Tumblr. The discovery engine can be helpful in reaching a new audience. However, make sure to learn a bit about the culture first before investing too much time into interaction.
Conclusion
If nothing else, make sure to be on Facebook and Twitter. Then if you have visual heavy content, share it on Pinterest and Instagram. If you’re going for the business niche, use LinkedIn. If you have video content, be sure to post it to YouTube. If SEO is important to you, make sure to post to Google Plus. If you want to share your creativity, get involved on Tumblr.
Social networks are becoming use-specific, so make sure to pick the network that works the best for you, and focus your time and effort there to see the best return on investment.
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Originally published at smartwebsitemarketing.com on February 10, 2015.
