Social media is an investment that is worth making when it comes to your business both in time, effort and money. But how do you know which ones are really going to help you? With so many platforms popping up and then going out of style – or business – it’s important to invest your time and money wisely into the ones that are going to perform the best. Here are some tips when it comes to picking the best social media platforms for business.
Consider Your Existing Customer Data
Your customer data is helpful to look back on in order to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Not only that, but you can find out a list of details in regards to the type of person your typical customer is, from their age, their hobbies and interests. You can use this data to figure out what sort of things you need to look for in a platform, plus making sure the content you’re creating is hitting the nail on the head when it comes to what they want. So create a more tailored and specific customer profile and then find which platform that relates to the most. It might be a couple, or it could be just the one platform that is speaking out to you. The more careful planning and research you do at this stage could end up saving you a lot in the hassle. There’s nothing worse than the time that’s been wasted on something that could have been prevented earlier on.
Trial Out Each Platform
There is a saying ‘try before you buy’ which can be relatable when picking out a social media platform to work on. Before you go spending your money on advertising or outsourcing your social media management, it’s a good idea to try out the platforms first. All social media platforms are free to use and can be the best way of getting free advertising or promotion. But unless you’ve got limited funds, you likely want to do a lot of paid advertising. So look at how your content performs before you go investing in IGTV for marketing or using paid promotions on Twitter. Some platforms may seem like they’ll work for you, but then they don’t end up making much of an impact in the long run.
Figure Out What You Want To Achieve
Having goals is important in life, both in your personal and business. So what is it that you want to achieve through these channels? Perhaps you want to focus on growing your audience and defining a more specific audience group, rather than something that’s broad. Or maybe you want to utilize these platforms in order to make more money and sell more of your products or services. Have ideas of what you want because that way, you’ve got some direction on what you need to do and what will be needed of you in order to get the most out of your social media handles.
Always Look To Cross-Promote
Cross-promotion is great because the more followers you have going from your Twitter profile to your website or from your website to Instagram is essential. It means that you have more opportunities to gain more followers by cross-promoting the channels. When it comes to picking social media platforms, think about the levels of demographic you’ll get on each and how they could help each other. Instagram has features that allow you to post content to your Twitter profile, so why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that?
Find Out What’s Consistently Popular
And finally, focus on the health of each social media platform. Is there a specific platform that’s always excelling and doing well? There might be ones that have moments where they peak and then drop out of popularity, and ones that just coast. You want your commitment to be ever-lasting, so the more consistent popularity a social media platform has, the better. Instagram is a fine example of that and how it’s constantly managed to build itself so that it offers a lot more than just a grid of photos. Now there’s video content and the opportunity to create stories.
Take your time when it comes to picking out your social media platforms and ensure you’ve chosen the right ones.
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