Social media is a key tool for any keen marketer and if you’re trying to incorporate social into your marketing strategy then you first need to decide which social platforms to use – after all, they’re not all going to work for you. But don’t panic, because we’re here to help.
To aid you in your quest, there are a few things you need to consider and the key thing to remember when developing any marketing strategy is that research is vital! But first, here is some food for thought. Eat up!
1.) Who Is Your Target Audience?
Forget about your business for a moment and instead, think about who your target audience is. If you’ve developed a detailed marketing strategy before, you will probably already know who your target audience is and if you’re developing a content marketing strategy you will have undoubtedly developed personas which represent your target audience.
If you haven’t defined your target audience or key personas then you might be surprised at how long it can take to define well-rounded personas which represent your target market. To get you started this is the type of research you need to perform in order to do just that:
- Affinity Mapping
- Focus Groups
- Demographic Data
- Quantitative Research
Now you have the information about your target audience, you can start to think about which social platform they are likely to use. After all, you want to be where your target audience is – don’t you?
To help you, it might be worth looking at this infographic which explores the demographic data of each social platform.
Top Tip: if you haven’t already developed personas to represent your target audience, then I suggest you do this before proceeding any further with your marketing strategy.
2.) What Platform Would Support Your Business Objectives The Best?
So, you’ve successfully placed your customers before the business, but now you need to think about the best way to portray your business and whether the social platforms your prospective customers are on will do this effectively? For instance, if you’re a B2B business then LinkedIn and Twitter are naturally going to support your business objectives better than let’s say….Facebook?
But then again, if you’re a retail/ecommerce website then Pinterest would really work for you, but only if you’re very image-driven. So think about the different aspects of your business and how they would work on each social platform you’re considering.
3.) Do You Have Time for ALL of Those Social Platforms?
When you’re in the first stages of developing a marketing strategy it’s easy to underestimate the amount of time and effort needed to get your social presence off the ground. Social media, contrary to popular believe, is hard work and it will take time before you will see any valuable results for all of this hard work. But try not to lose sight of the many, many benefits of developing a social presence online.
With this in mind, select the core social media platforms which you believe are essential for your business. Once you have established a social presence on these social platforms you can begin to extend to the other social platforms which are relevant to your business.
4.) What Are Your Competitors Doing?
While this definitely shouldn’t dictate which social platforms are right for your business, it’s worth having a look and gauging what social tactics they are using, how successful they are on their chosen social platforms and deciding whether or not you could do it better than them.
If the answer is yes and the platform is right for your business – game on!
Hopefully this has given you some needed advice to choose the right social platform for your business. If however, you need a helping hand please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team here at Anicca – we have a wealth of experience and we’re always happy to help.
