Social Media Debate: What Platform Is The Best For Small Business?
If you’re anything like us, browsing social media and keeping up on various timelines is something that takes up a good portion of your week. This shows that the potential reach for any business to achieve is quite dramatic. Any business worth its salt is one that follows careful social media protocol, and it might be that you yourself have noticed exactly what business engagement efforts work with you or not. Perhaps you’ve even retweeted the odd joke given by a brand on Twitter, as their conversational efforts may have actually elicited an unexpected laugh from you.
We couldn’t blame you. Everyone enjoys a little warmth and humor. But is this is the only effective route in which a firm can connect with its clientele on social media? We’d hope not. Could you imagine how tiring it would be if every business tried to wisecrack or use pressing jokes in order to get what they wanted from us? We’d barely be able to use our social media feeds without rolling our eyes so often we become dizzy.
If you’re a business trying to approximate these results, where do you begin? Well, thankfully, this is obvious. A small business must first look at the platforms on offer. We have itemized them ahead, and offer a range of suggestions as to how users may expect social media conduct to be given from their favorite brands, working out a solution from there. Please, consider:
Instagram, owned by Facebook, is a fantastic tool for brands to use in order to gain a following, so are these Instagress alternatives. No other platform allows for the routine and continual beautiful promotional photography to be published every day, perhaps multiple times a day, because this is exactly what this platform is used for. Additionally, sponsoring or hiring influencers to discuss or take pictures with your product can be a great idea. However, remember that the newest legislation surrounding social media advertising means that a hashtag #ad MUST be used if that is the direct purpose of the quote, or if they are being sponsored. A failure to approximate this will result in punitive charges. While Instagram can serve as a worthwhile promotion tool, note that it’s not a great place for direct communication or support with your clients, unlike:
Facebook is perhaps one of the most well-known social media sites out there, and for good reason. In fact, despite the reason #DeleteFacebook controversies surrounding the use of private data to influence targeted political advertisements during the Brexit an 2016 US Elections, the platform is still going strong. Facebook direct messaging features allow you to use this as a viable IM support option for small businesses with a limited web presence. Not only that, but a Facebook group can give thorough information about your business, open you up to Facebook reviews, and allows you to post and respond to your customers accordingly. As it is the most wide-reaching social media platform, a versatile content approach should be used.
Pinterest is known mostly for its listing features, but like Instagram, remember that it can be a great place to promote your goods if not a great place to connect with your audience. For example, a cookware company may curate and publish many infographics regarding the best recipes to craft with their new item, perhaps encouraging those who follow ‘cooking’ as a topic to become introduced to your product line as you produce well-reasoned and formatted content. You would be surprised how effective this can be, as when the Pinterest community appreciates good content, they share, save and publish that of their own accord time and time again. Interested in Pinterest? Jonathon Spire has this guide to buying followers: 15 Best Sites to Buy Pinterest Followers, Pins, & Likes (2020).
TikTok
TikTok is a social media juggernaut, boasting over 500 million users globally. It’s not hard to see just how stunning that figure is. TikTok allows for the curation of small videos up to 14 seconds in length, allowing users a wide array of editing options to curate a hilarious, stylish or insightful piece of content. The main user experience of TikTok is relatively ad-free however, only injecting ads once or twice at most per browsing session, and this is easily skippable. This may mean that reaching out to influencers could be a more tactful approach than going through official advertisement channels. Additionally, funny or promotional content you approximate yourself is likely to be looked down upon, as the app is considered to have a youthful and very informal tone. How this may translate to your brand remains to be seen.
Twitter is perhaps the king of social media for businesses. This is because customers needn’t hold an account to see your profile, and that means updating with support requests, talking about your products, or making statements relating to downtime or struggles you are going through can be achieved at the click of a button. Formatting with hashtags allows you to create your own conversations or contribute to those upcoming, and Tweetdeck functionalities within your firm offer the instant-messaging support features that more and more brands are using to connect with their client base. Overall Twitter and its associated features, as well as direct targeting ad opportunities, is one of the best platforms you can curate as standard.
With these outreach efforts, we hope you can select one or more social media platforms perhaps for your small businesses.
About the Author
Christopher Porteus Chris Porteous is a veteran in the tech space, founding Framestr and writing about his experiences scaling startups. When he's not working, he's writing about the latest tech products and providing insights on how to utilize technology to improve your life.
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