When you are a business and you are approaching social media for the first time you may wonder what platforms you should be using for your business. With so many available it can become confusing and figuring out how to use each one to get the most advantage out of it for your business can be a minefield of information. Social media is constantly changing with new options available so deciding what will work best for your business may take a bit of research.
For any advertising or promoting of your business you want to ensure you are doing your best to reach as wide an audience as possible. Making sure your posts are reflective of your business model and promote your business in the way you would like your business to be promoted. So how as a business do you know which will work best? Do you just use all the option available or do you stick to a few?
Facebook Vs Instagram Vs Twitter
Facebook has certainly been around a lot longer than Instagram and Twitter and it has a large loyal following. You can create your own business page, add additional information about your business like your opening hours, address etc, you can advertise through Facebook, add images, content, create events and use it through your mobile phone or your desktop computer.
Instagram on the other hand is all visual, it is about capturing the moment then and there. It does have limitations and one of these is that you can only post picture or videos through your mobile application only. You can view through a desktop computer, “like” picture and videos and comment but you just can’t add images this way. When you post an image you add hashtags and a description as this will help you get found by others that are not following you. Like Facebook it is all about your followers, the more you have the better.
Twitter is very fast paced. It gives you quick pieces of information so you need to think about posts that will stand out. You are given a set number of characters to use in your post (140 to be exact). In the 140 characters you can add an image, gif, create a poll, content and hashtags. A good way to approach twitter is to use quotes or questions to get others to engage with you and re-tweet your tweets. Checking for the latest or trending hashtags if they are appropriate for your business will get you found easier too.
With any social media you want to build relationships with your followers. You want them to feel like their needs are being met so for anyone who comments on your posts, weather good or bad you should always reply back. If a question is asked or someone re-posts or shares your post, respond back to it.
The above are just 3 platforms to use socially, don’t forget there is also Pinterest, LinkedIn, You Tube, Google+ as other avenues to look at using too.