When it comes to social media, there are a lot of ways to market your business and increase awareness. But to be successful, you need to find what works best for you and your audience.
There can be a huge amount of pressure to be ‘everywhere’ so in this blog, we’ll look at which channels you should spend your time on so that you can get the most out of your social channels.
Having a social media presence is just as important as having a website to promote your business and reach existing and potential customers. However, it is important to select the channels that are right for you, your business and your audience. Let’s look at each of the platforms commonly used for business.
For B2B brands, LinkedIn is popular as it offers a variety of different ad types should you want to use paid media, as well as being great for keeping an eye on what your competition is doing. You can also belong to groups that are aligned with your niche, some of which allow for promotional posts which can help you spread the word.
Having a LinkedIn company page can be useful if you are a larger company but remember that LinkedIn is all about building personal connections. If you have a very active sales and business development team who are excellent at networking, then invest your time in getting them to post content ,as this will do much better organically than posts from a company page.
TikTok
Have you found yourself losing 30 mins of your life engrossed in watching strangers on the internet? It’s kind of addictive, which is why TikTok is the new home of viral marketing. TikTok isn’t just for teenagers. You’ll find accountants, lawyers, chefs, dancers, wineries – all sharing business content here.
Being successful on TikTok is about originality. Yes, using trending sounds and snappy transitions can help, but aside from all that, your content has to show off what your business is all about and why it’s unique. People want to be entertained, in awe, or feel a touch of FOMO and want to get in on the action or see behind the scenes.
Producing this kind of content can be time consuming and this is where having a creative team like us to help you really pays off.
Video marketing is still dominating, so if your audience is on Instagram you’re going to need to be creating reels and stories, as well as grid posts.
A lot of people are spending more time on Instagram now, and after a recent update roll out, users can once again choose how the content in their Instagram news feed is shown – chronologically, or favourites first. This means it’s really important for brands to get their followers to mark them as a favourite to make sure their posts get seen.
Users on Instagram very much like a highly curated and aesthetically pleasing news feed, so your posts needs to be attractive. For that reason, high-end luxury brands tend to do well on this platform as their imagery can sell the dream far more than copy ever can.
B2B and B2C brands can both do well on this platform but engaging and high quality imagery with a specific call to action is a must.
Although part of the same family as Instagram, Facebook has a different vibe. Being predominantly about keeping up with friends and family, Facebook is slightly harder work for some, especially B2B companies.
Having a business page is popular, but if engagement is what you’re after then having a Facebook group is where you will likely see more daily activity. This is important to bear in mind as having a group for your business means you will need fresh content regularly and you will need to spend time in the group actively encouraging engagement and replying or commenting on posts.
If your business runs physical or virtual events, Facebook can be really helpful for promoting these and spreading the word, allowing attendees to invite friends and easily share your content with others.
Typically users spend time on Facebook casually scrolling so as with Instagram, your imagery needs to pop and be instantly recognisable as your brand to catch someone’s eye.
Twitter seems to have the world divided. On the one hand there have been some wonderfully creative viral campaigns from B2C brands (M&S and Morrisons going head to head over Colin & Cuthbert) but many B2B brands have found it a tough place to hang out as customers have used the ‘faceless’ nature of social media to send in complaints or customer service issues.
With more than 6,000 tweets being sent every second, standing out and getting your tweets seen can be tough and requires a continuing and consistent presence. If your business operates in an industry that benefits from live or in the moment data (e.g. travel) then Twitter might be the platform for you.
YouTube
It feels like everyone has a channel these days, and there’s a good reason. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine behind Google. But what does it take to be successful on YouTube? Plenty of content and consistency.
YouTube content needs a strategy of its own and tends to work better for lifestyle or educational content that is longer than a Reel or TikTok. This content takes longer to produce and typically requires editing as well as other post production work.
YouTube can be a great place to host shorter promo videos that you can use on your website, or live stream webinars and events.
Podcasting
Similarly to YouTube, the podcast scene has exploded in recent years. A lot of people love podcasting as it is an audio only medium. No hair and makeup to worry about or whether you can capture everyone’s best angle.
A lot of consumers are also fatigued with scrolling and prefer to close their eyes and relax, or use their commute to listen, instead of having their eyes fixed to a screen. Podcasting also allows for much deeper emotional messaging which can be helpful in persuading people to purchase.
The main downside to podcasting is again, time. It takes time to plan out your content, or get guests (or you can produce solo episodes) and record, plus any editing you might need to do. Equipment is less of a problem now as there are some great audio apps and software to help with podcast production.
How to decide which platforms are best?
Each platform has its pros and cons, but our best advice is to firstly think about where your ideal customer will spend their time online, and secondly what platform(s) will you enjoy creating content for and spending time on.
You might love the idea of being wildly successful on YouTube or catapulting your business with a viral TikTok, but the reality is that it takes time and consistent hard work to be successful on social media.
Our advice is to start strong with one platform to really build a consistent presence before trying to add another channel to the mix. Better to show up well on one platform than getting social media burnout by trying to tackle them all.
Here at Vinco we’ve successfully helped many businesses with their social media strategy and content. We also provide training and consultancy, so if you want to swat up on social or need a done-for-you strategy, or need imagery that grabs attention, we can help.
