It is tempting to consider social media as a waste of time, but as a small business owner it can be a valuable marketing tool. The key is to pick the right platform and work it to best fit your business model and structure. We’re going to cover three main questions you need to ask and then give a brief overview of the six main social media platforms so you can do a side-by-side comparison.
If you’d like to watch Adam explain instead of reading the summary, click on the video… otherwise, let’s get started.
First, where is my audience?
You need to determine who you’re trying to reach. Males or females (or does it not matter?), ideal age range, what their interests are, geographic location. All of those identifying features will help you figure out where you should be spending your time based on where your audience is spending their time.
Second, what is the best fit for my content?
This is less about the topics you’re comfortable discussing and more about the medium in which you share that content. If you’re more comfortable producing and editing videos, you’ll want to focus your attention on a platform that is geared toward video content. But if you’re a more confident writer and aren’t comfortable being taped, you’ll want to choose a social media platform that caters to blog posts or other written content.
Third, does the platform drive traffic?
You’ll want this to always be a yes, but there are levels of success and depending on how you maneuver your way through a particular platform you could get leads anyway.
- Skews to older female audience, but you’ll get a decent mix
- Video content is popular
- Can get decent traffic because people will follow links
- Time commitment is high due to community engagement and responding to comments
- Younger age group (>18 years)
- Focus on videos and photos
- Traffic potential is low, but excellent for brand awareness
- Not for a consumer audience
- B2B focus
- Journalists and industry experts
YouTube
- Excellent for building your brand
- How-to videos
- Building a loyal audience
- Low time commitment
- Very high traffic potential, but watch the trends
- B2B focus
- Links in your posts tend to not get featured
- Easy to find your audience
- Low effort
So, what do I do with this information?
- Choose one or two platforms to focus on.
- Create profiles for every social media platform even if you’re not going to be active. If you don’t claim your name, someone else might.
- Look at the demographics of each platform and choose whichever one matches the closest to your audience preferences and your content goals.
- Create content and push it out consistently.
- Engage with other people and business profiles. Try to make ten comments on other people’s posts every day and post your content once a week.
Here at Sparrow, we want you to succeed and part of success comes from using all the marketing tools available. Social media is one big part these days. Please reach out if you have any questions.
