Using Social Media To Support Your Online Successes.

Social media is a great way for you to create a two-way conversation between you and your customers, along with being an additional way to direct traffic to your website.

There are so many channels you can utilise these days – but are they all suitable for each company?

Facebook

Facebook was one of the first social media channels that businesses gravitated to. The social platform made it easy for brands to easily update their page and share photos with their followers and potential customers. With over 2 billion daily users, brands find that Facebook provides great reach and access to their desired audiences, especially due to their ad platform and the capability to use paid ads to advertise their product or service.

Facebook is simple to update, which makes it easier for busy business owners to manage the page, without spending too much time away from regular daily tasks.

Twitter

Twitter has over 100 million users across the platform daily and is a conversational platform that allows brands to communicate with their followers effectively and efficiently. If you use your Twitter page correctly, you can manage any customer complaints and turn what began as something negative into a positive interaction with that customer which will not only change the mind of that customer but also the rest of your followers. You will come across as positive and proactive. People will often compliment your brand and interact with you.

It is possible to advertise on Twitter, but this wasn’t as popular with brands until May 2017, as Twitter continued to respect the Do Not Track policy up until then – historically organic reach on Twitter has surpassed paid efforts. The change in the privacy policy is beneficial for advertisers because the more information they know about their audience, the more effective ads they are able to create.

Google+

Google+ has more than 300 million users, so is the ideal place for a more professional audience to share articles. However, this isn’t to say that every business doesn’t need a Google+ profile – you do!

Google+ is necessary for brands because it is linked to your SEO efforts. It allows you to create ‘Circles’, meaning you can select where you send your social posts to – only show it to related circles/ contacts that you know will be interested and will likely engage with that content. When someone is in your ‘Circle’, anyone who searches for a keyword relating to the post you’ve created, it will directly participate in Google search results relating to your website.

Your brand’s Google+ can link to your other active profiles, which means you can create a fuller, more engaging and visual feed. You must have a Google+ account if you want to be easily found on Google’s result pages.

LinkedIn

With over 2,000,000 members, LinkedIn is considered one of the most useful platforms for lead generation. Having originated as an online resume-type website, it’s definitely morphed into a multi-faceted platform, where business are able to advertise, carry out both proactive and passive marketing efforts (referrals through being tagged in posts by friends or colleagues).

Google has been known to rank well-optimised company pages favourably, so ensure you create a page providing visitors with valuable information, that is written optimised for the web and that includes your focus keyword.

Pinterest

If your brand is very visual, then Pinterest is perfect for you. Pinterest is extremely visual so is the prime place to feature your products artistically and develop your boards. The vast majority of Pinterest users are female, so it’s always good to bear this in mind when creating Pinterest-friendly content – and when deciding if it is a beneficial social media marketing channel to utilise.

Pinterest recently introduced promoted pins, which is a great way to advertise your brand – 87% of ‘Pinners’ bought something because of an image they saw on Pinterest. Pinterest is most often used to plan and mark goals, so it’s an absolutely great idea to utilise this to keep track of people’s intentions and build up knowledge on the kind of content they are most likely to convert on.

You can also use ‘rich pins’ which (long story short) give more information to the consumer (For example, if it’s a recipe pin, it includes ingredients, timing, serving suggestions).

Instagram

Similarly to Pinterest, Instagram is an incredibly visual social platform where you can show your users still images or video clips of your products, services or general everyday ‘work-life’. Instagram has over 150 million users, and offer the possibility for businesses to create sponsored posts to have them included in the feeds of the masses rather than just your followers.
Your Instagram should be used to show what you do creatively, and to grab attention through the use of images, videos, and stories. You can reach a vast amount of followers through the use of hashtags – 3 to 5 per post is the recommended amount for businesses, and we’d recommend being consistent with your visuals, form cohesive and engaging captions, make sure to use videos and albums as well as singular still posts, and do not neglect your profile set up – this is where people will come for information, so provide as much as possible!

Snapchat

While Snapchat might not be suitable for everyone there are a whole host of fantastic reasons companies should be using Snapchat to promote themselves.

The vast majority of Snapchat users are millennials, so if your key target market is on the younger end of the scale, you really should be telling your brand’s story on Snapchat. Snapchat’s video capabilities ensure consistent, engaging content. This allows you to show your audience your product or service in action, meaning they’re more likely to convert as they have more ‘information’ about the product.

Snapchat also has an ad platform where you can offer interactive elements such as CTAs or clickthrough links. Companies can also use Snapchat lenses (facial filters) and create their own branded filters and sponsored filters (where you can send snaps from specific locations – for example from a specific company’s store, from a city you’ve travelled to, a coffee shop, and so on!).
Finally, it’s incredibly easy for people to follow your Snapchat – all they need to do is scan your QR code. Simple!

YouTube

YouTube is a platform that every business should utilise. Why? Because you can totally customise it to you – you can decide how you want your business to come across and create content to match that. You can be casual-professional, fun and tongue-in-cheek, or you can be super-duper professional and only offer insight, facts and figures. Customers love a good ‘behind the scenes’ to see how the company works as it promotes trust in the business.

YouTube can help boost your visibility and credibility, with 1,300,000,000 total users, it’s a platform you do not want to be holding back on. As comments left on a video are now linked to a Google+ channel, YouTube is now a more social and influential platform than ever before.

You should always make sure to add weight to your titles, tags and description with your focus keywords (but avoid being ‘spammy’!). Your titles should always be engaging as they are what your user will see first and foremost. Include CTAs to invite your customers to take action (even in the actual content) such as find out more, subscribe, or to follow your other social networks.

You should also let your customers do the talking as it’s a popular phenomenon on YouTube for users to create their own content in the form of ‘unboxings’ or video reviews – let them do your marketing for you!

Want to find out more? Just get in touch with the HushBots and we’ll advise what we think the best plan of action is for you – give us a buzz on 01325 361729!