Written by ContentPowered.com
Whether you are a marketing manager for a large global corporation, or a small business owner or an internet start-up entrepreneur, you are probably wondering which social media platform you should use continuously to grow an online audience. It is without a doubt that there is always a debate between which social network is the best for marketing. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ or Pinterest, there are a wide variety of social media platforms (most of which one expert or another will tell you is best for marketing). Here is a no-BS comprehensive overview of different social media platforms and how they stack up against each other when it comes to marketing.
Facebook is certainly the largest social media network to this date. With over one billion active users (note: close to 9% of these accounts are fake according to social media experts), properly marketing your business on Facebook is definitely a win. Whether you decide to start a Facebook fan page, invest in sponsored posts, buy contextualized ads or other forms of Facebook advertising, you will definitely generate buzz and eventually sales for your business. Every serious business regardless of size should definitely be engaging in some form of advertising on Facebook.
Google+
Google+ is the second most popular social network that currently has over 500 million registered users, with half of them being active each month. Google+ is also the fourth most used app on smartphone devices. Because Google is the mother of all search engines, it only makes sense that businesses and individuals looking to improve their visibility within major search engines like Google would begin to create and disseminate content through this platform. Although Google+ does not have the visual attractiveness of Facebook nor the simplicity of Twitter, it is still a great add in your business’ arsenal of online marketing tools, especially when it comes to SEO marketing.
Twitter is the third most popular social media platform that currently boasts over 500 million users in 2012. For many people, Twitter is more of a easier and user-friendly platform to use versus Facebook and Google+. Many people like Twitter’s simplicity of creating and disseminating tweets. In fact, the company managed over a billion tweets last year. Businesses and media agencies recognize the value in integrating Twitter into their marketing strategies. Everyone is on twitter; whether it’s celebrities, popular chefs, politicians or even the Pope!
Instagram has become another increasingly popular social media tool that seems to attract people who like visual content like pictures and video over written content. With over 100 million active users, Instagram is a popular choice for businesses that would like to promote image and video-based content to online audiences. Whether you are a personal trainer, model, or the owner of a restuarant; you can leverage Instagram to share your pictures and video and apply visually appealing filters to them, giving your online content attractiveness.
If you are looking to promote yourself within tight knit corporate communities and networks, utilizing LinkedIn for marketing purposes would be highly advantageous. This social network is primarily designed to connect business professionals from across the different industries and sectors together through one cohesive and dynamic social media platform. As a business, you can do everything to similar to Facebook or Twitter like create profiles, send out small posts or messages, blog, buy advertising or sponsored posts and even create discussion groups.
Pinterest is a relatively new social media site, but is increasingly gaining momentum as it begins to rise the charts of popular social platforms. With over 48 million users worldwide, Pinterest is a very popular social network site for women, with over 80% of its worldwide usage attributed to them. This social network acts as an online pinboard that allows users to tag or pin their favorite businesses, products, services and other ideas and share it with their peers. Whether it’s recipes, gym workouts or Christmas shopping lists, Pinterest allows users to easily create and manage (or pin) information and get feedback from various users.
So which site is the best?
So back to the original question; what is the best social networking site for marketing? Well, that would obviously depend on who you are trying to target. Social media marketers who have expertise in developing comprehensive content strategies for social media platforms all recognize the unique value in all of these social media sites for a variety of reasons. Facebook would seem like the obvious choice, but then, marketers would be missing out on a huge swath of people if they totally ignored other sites like Twitter and Google+.
If anything, all of these sites are best for marketing. They should be utilized in order to maximize online marketing efforts. Interesting enough, although some of these sites seem to rival one another, they also allow their platforms to integrate with one another. It is very common for a lot of social media users to integrate their Twitter and Instagram accounts in their Facebook accounts to share content back and forth. For any business, it would be wise to first sit down and devise a marketing plan based on customer demographics and which sites your audience is most primed to use. Once any business gets a feel for which site ranks the most popular with a particular audience, then it becomes easier to create a social media marketing strategy exclusively for that platform.
Bertie Spanier
says:Facebook, hands down. I think everyone can agree that nothing else comes close when it comes to volume
satheesh wilson
says:facebook, twitter, linkedin plays a major role in social media marketing