How to Master Cross-Channel Engagement for Maximum Reach
2 min read
Figuring Out The Best Social Platform For Your Startup
admin 3 min read
Updated:
Social media is one of the quickest ways to start up the content marketing process. It gives you immediate access to billions of people around the world and is constantly evolving, making sure that there is an equal playing ground for all businesses involved.
However, finding out which platform best suits your startup can be overwhelming at first. There are so many considerations you need to make and each platform has its own set of nuances that makes it special. To make the choice easier for you, here is a quick analysis of the top four social media platforms that you can use and how you can make the most out of each site.
Facebook is the most diverse social media platform. Everybody is going to be connected to this platform in one way or another, regardless of their age group, location, or nationality. You are definitely going to be able to find your target audience here.
To reach out to them, the first marketing tool that you should consider using is the Pages section. This is like a personal profile, but catered towards businesses. It will be the place to go if people need more information about your brand. If they tune in to your page by “liking” and “following” it, then your Page will begin appearing in their feed as well as their Notifications tab. This means that they will start getting regular updates on whatever is happening on your Page.
The Facebook Ad Campaign platform has one of the most comprehensive metrics for launching an ad campaign. It is a great way of pinpointing the kind of people you are looking for and showing them your ads. If you are going for a general approach to digital marketing, then Facebook is a good place to start.
This social media platform is host to more than 450 million professionals around the world. Linkedin is another popular option entrepreneurs use to connect and to advertise their business.
On this platform, you will need to set up two pages. The first page is your Company Page, which details all the products and services of your business as well as other information that your audience needs to make a decision. The second will be your personal profile page.
Unlike Facebook, where you can have a separate identity from your business page, Linkedin connects the entrepreneur to their business. The users on this website are not just critical of the page but of the owner as well. They will want to know about who you are and whether you are the kind of person that they will be comfortable working with in the long run.
Working on your profile is a simple process. The site already has a guide for your to follow once you set up an account, so all you need to do is fill out all the necessary details. From time to time, take a quick look through the information you’ve provided just to keep track of everything and maybe add any new achievements or work accolades that is worth sharing.
From there, remember that Linkedin is primarily a platform for professionals to network with each other as individuals. It brings out the best of what they can offer in a formal digital setting. If you plan on advertising here, you may not have the same freedom for creativity as you would in other platforms.
Twitter is a platform of few words; but ironically, it is one of the top social media platforms for information, where people enjoy bonding over a variety of topics. From a personal capacity, it is a lot of fun to use. However, given the restrictions of this website, it is best used by businesses as a way to gather audiences and potential leads from one platform to another.
Unlike the previous platforms that were discussed, Twitter does not have a separate kind of account that you should set up for businesses. All you need to do is set up a profile for your business in the same way that you would set up a profile for yourself.
Here on Twitter, information is exchanged and absorbed at the speed of light. The 280-character limit is also a part of what makes the marketing here so unique. Because information is only available in these small pieces, they are easier to digest and to propagate around the community. The pressure to become #trending often encourages users to become more creative with what they have to say, or mix their words with a variety of visual content such as GIFs, memes, videos, or other pictures.
All this happens every single minute on the platform, so before you do anything else you need to take the time to listen in to what the Twitterverse is talking about. Use the Trending Topics features and scroll through your feed to find the right hashtags that your audience is using.
If Twitter is a social media site that is built on words, then Instagram is its counterfactual. This platform is the internet’s top choice for sharing pictures and short videos. It is very user friendly and easy to navigate. Due to its pleasing interface, you will find that there are already tons of influencers that your company can follow—and with a little more effort, you will have a chance at joining their ranks as well.
The first step to making this happen is to create a business account. Take note that a business account grants access to several features that a normal account would not have, such as reports, business analytics, CTAs, and Instagram’s local ad creation platform. Another important feature of the Instagram business account would be the Insights, a set of tools used to measure the effectivity of your organisation’s efforts on the platform.
To start off, post a few good pictures of your products and services to try and build up your audience’s interests. Sprinkle in a few relevant hashtags into the text as well—Instagram is generally more lenient with the amount of hashtags that you can put in, compared to Twitter. Remember that your pictures are forming a narrative that should be easy for your audience to follow. To bring out the best in every picture, make sure that you already have a good photographer (or a good camera) in mind.
Final Verdict
As you can see, there are so many ways you can take your first step on social media. Depending on your personal style and what industry you are in, one platform may be better than the other or you may feel like setting up in multiple sites at once. All you have to remember is that you should not spread yourself out too thin on the first try; as a startup, your foray into digital marketing should be lighthearted and fun, especially because you are still trying to figure out the exact methods that work for your business.