Which Social Media Platform?

When choosing a social media platform for a company, it can be very overwhelming.  There are a plethora of social media platforms and each has its own unique features and characteristics.  When choosing a platform, it is important to research your target audience to determine which platform is the best for your audience.  It is also important to decide how you want to use social media for your company.  Some thing that needs to be considered is whether the company is focused on creating content or creating conversations. Another thing to consider is what is the company’s end goal with social media? What do they want to share? Below are some basic facts and demographics about the most popular social media sites.

Each of these six social media platforms has millions and even billions of users and each have their own features.  Although I think it is good to focus on one platform, I think it is also just as important to have an active presence on other platforms.  Just because your target audience is primarily on one social media site does not mean there will not be customers or followers on other sites.  It is also easy now to post content on multiple platforms at the same time. Through the use of social media management systems you can have all your social media pages on one site.  It is easy to create one post and share to however many sites you wish to share it on.  You can also post content on multiple sites at the same time from the actual social media site.  For instance, you can Instagram a picture and also have it shared on Facebook and Twitter.  With one post, you are creating content on three social media sites and reaching three different audiences. Another advantage to having multiple social media sites, besides reaching a broader audience, is that it will help your search engine optimization. According to Frasco, 2013, “But the days of easily measuring your SEO strategy are long gone. It's no longer about building X amount of links and creating Y amount of optimized content pages on your website. These old approaches to getting search engine attention are very static. The new strategy is about being dynamic, engaged, and interactive within your marketplace. Social media is the only place you can make that happen.” Not only does it help with your branding to be present and active on social media, but it also helps with your SEO.

Content vs. Conversation

When trying to determine which social media platform to use it is important to determine if it is more important to create content or create conversations.  Greenburg, 2009, says “The reality is, if you aren’t already generating a fair amount of content, it will be difficult to keep up any sort of cadence and maintain your content promise. Plus, most e-commerce marketers’ websites are specifically geared towards conversion.” It is important to create good content to have a successful social media page.  “Have something to say. Say it often. Be interesting. Sound familiar? This is essentially the content publishing model. By incorporating content development into your existing marketing calendar and production process, you can turn social marketing into an asset,” (Greenburg, 2009).

For years, content is king has been the outlook on creating content for the web, but author and activist Cory Doctorow says “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about,” (Novak, 2010).  When you start to think about what he is saying, it makes sense as to why people are attracted to and frequently use social media. “ ‘Content is just something to talk about’ puts human interaction at the centre of the picture. And it explains the rise of social media on the web, the growth of multi-user games on all platforms, and the persistence of people meeting in real life, and not just in ‘cyberspace’. Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising. It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor... and stops there,” (Novak, 2010).  The great thing about social media is that conversations can be created from content and it can spread like word of mouth advertising.  Novak, 2010, says, “I see the truth of this all the time on my social platforms of choice: Twitter and Facebook. Users are constantly sending out little bits of information, but the fun really doesn’t start unless those morsels are taken up by someone else and responded to, passed along, or even ‘liked’. And for that to happen, there has to be a conversation starter somewhere in the message.”

It is up to the company to decide if they are more concerned with content or conversation.  Some platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are more about creating content, while platforms like Facebook and Twitter are more focused on creating a conversation.  It is extremely hard to have a conversation on Instagram.  Instagram is more focused on posting pictures or videos and Pinterest is more about users pinning and sharing pins.  Facebook and Twitter are more about creating conversations with content.  These two sites are also places customers can go to start a conversation that does not have to be started by the brand.

Although I believe it is important to create conversations, I think it is equally as important to have great content.  Once you create your business social media page, you can test which posts get the most interaction and conversations started.  For instance, at my company, our followers love “Throwback Thursday.”  Although I did not original create “throwback Thursday,” I use it as a way to post old pictures and tag freelancers.  These pictures always get conversations started, and they are also a great way to get ready for an upcoming event.  We have a couple events that happen annually and by posting an old picture of the event from the 90s, it really gets people excited for this year’s event.  I also have people asking me to find old pictures from old shoots or find pictures of old equipment.  This is just one way to find content that works well and creates conversations with your followers. 

References

Frasco, S. (2013, November 9). Social media is critical to your SEO. Socialmediatoday.com Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/stephaniefrasco/1901891/6-reasons-social-media-critical-your-seo

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king