While most companies use social media marketing to enhance their business, here at Three29, we have chosen social media marketing as a business, and we are experts in helping you decide which common social media platforms are right to grow and promote your company.
Whether you are looking to gain followers, increase sales, or attract high quality employees, we can help you save money, gain market insight, and increase traffic to your social media sites all while enhancing your brand awareness.
Determine Your Target Audience
The first thing you need to do when choosing which common social media platforms to use is to determine who your target audience is. Your target audience may be a certain age, be composed of a particular combination of interests or demographics, or live in a certain location, and depending on those factors, you can usually determine which common social media platforms they will most often use.
Identify Your Goals
Once you have figured out who your target audience is, you want to define the specific reasons that you are using social media in the first place. Is your goal to simply increase brand awareness? To get more customers through your doors? Are you trying to entertain, increase online sales, or are you merely using social media as a way to offer another venue for customer service? Your answer might contain one of those factors or incorporate all of them, but regardless, defining your specific goals can help determine which common social media platforms you should focus on.
Gain a Clear Understanding of Common Social Media Platforms
Once you have identified your target audience and your goals, it’s essential that you understand in detail each of the common social media platforms so that you can choose the ones most beneficial to your company. While each one is nuanced and there is a learning curve, understanding the basics can usually help you find a relatively high degree of success.
#1. YouTube
YouTube is an excellent platform if you have long, informational video content, you are posting how-to demonstrations, or you need to talk directly to followers to either educate or entertain. YouTube consistently rates as the second most popular search engine, following Google, and another way to use it besides creating entertaining and educational videos, is to create video reviews from your clients about your products or services. These video reviews can support text on your website, within blogs, or in email campaigns.
#2. Instagram
Instagram is commonly known as a platform to share photo-heavy content with shorter captions than Facebook. Using Instagram live, creating selfie-style videos, talking directly to your followers, using Reels to create photo montages or quick and catchy videos with sound, or advertising new services or products through visually stimulating posts is a great way to connect to mostly young and middle-age users. There are over 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram to reach! In addition, an e-commerce store is also possible on Instagram, and this feature allows clients and customers to view your products and purchase them without ever leaving their Instagram accounts.
#3. TikTok
TikTok has quickly caught up and surpassed Instagram with its over 1.1 billion active users a month, and it is particularly trendy with the younger generations. Tiktok is excellent for marketing, and it caters to people with short attention spans using videos that last between just 15-60 seconds. If you have a lot of short video content, this is a great platform to entertain and captivate new and existing clients.
#4. LinkedIn
The most professional of the common social media platforms is undoubtedly LinkedIn. Yes, it still has the recruiting and networking features that it began with years ago, but it is now also a wonderful social media site to share informational posts with customers and clients. You can even link your posts to your website or your merchant stores on other platforms, (like Instagram as mentioned above) to drive traffic to your website and attract new customers. Clients can also leave reviews and recommendations on your LinkedIn profile directly, which boosts not only your reputation, but also your brand.
#5. Pinterest
Pinterest is unique out of all of the common social media platforms because it is commonly thought of as a social media “bookmarking” tool, where people can browse and save DIY projects, interior design inspiration, vacation ideas, cute pet photos, recipes, and more. If you have a business relating to the lifestyle industries, such as a do-it-yourself company, a fashion, food, or decor business, or a travel agency, Pinterest would be an excellent platform choice for sharing and getting the word out about your company. Pinterest is also primarily used by females, so if women (or those who identify as female) are a large part of your clientele, Pinterest would be an excellent social media tool to consider.
#6. Facebook
Facebook is undoubtedly the largest of the common social media platforms with over 2.5 billion users who are active in any given month. Facebook allows you to create a page for your company, create ads to specifically target different audiences, post articles, and share blog posts along with photos and videos. It is a highly interactive site which means people spend a good deal of time commenting and interacting with posts. Facebook appeals to both men and women, and is generally good for middle aged to older people, though it is still used by a large percentage of the younger generation as well.
Why Choose Three29 for Your Marketing Needs?
At Three29 we’ve chosen social media marketing as a business, and we are eager to help you determine the best social media platforms for your goals so that we can assist with driving brand awareness and increasing sales. Give us a call at (916) 243- 5003, or you can take a look at the varying types of services we provide here on our website. We also offer a quick and easy online form to contact us directly so that we can consult with you about all of the ways we can effectively market your company.
