Which Social Media Platforms Should Your Brand Be On
As a brand or business, there’s no excuse for not including social media in your digital marketing strategy. Over the last decade or so, marketing has shifted to being almost entirely social media-focused; while traditional marketing campaigns certainly have their place, you’re almost certainly going to see more success if you emphasise your social media presence.
With that said, there are several different social media platforms, and it can be hard to know whether it’s worth your business having a presence on them. In short, there’s a compelling argument for your brand being present on every major platform, but there are a few caveats and things to consider if you’re going to create profiles. Here are some of the social media platforms your brand should consider if you want to be successful in marketing.
Facebook is the primary social network, and even though other competitors have arisen to challenge its crown, it still remains the most populated social media platform in the world. It’s easy to see why; with an emphasis on traditional network-building and real name display, Facebook appeals to more demographics than other, more specialised social media platforms might.
Your brand needs to be on Facebook as a matter of course. There’s pretty much no scenario in which you shouldn’t have a Facebook page. The built-in advertising tool is incredibly powerful, allowing you to get eyes on your content and your profile across the world. It’s also important for communicating with your audience; a lot of people will want to comment or DM you if they have a query about your business, so you need to be on Facebook to make it easier for them to do so.
TikTok
TikTok is the primary social network among younger users. It’s got a huge share of the Gen Z audience, who are creating memes, comedy skits, and musical challenges on the app. It’s a pretty cutthroat environment; services like SocialFollowersFree can help you to get more followers on TikTok, and you’re going to need those services if you want to compete with some of the big guns.
We’d say that it’s generally a good idea for your business to be on TikTok, with some qualifiers. If you’re not really an image-focused business – that is, if you don’t sell a product, but provide a service that isn’t easily summed up visually – then you may not get as much use out of TikTok as others might. If, however, you sell a product, TikTok’s advertising tools and visual nature should be perfect for you.
YouTube
That’s right – we’re counting YouTube as a social network, as many others do. After all, you upload content to YouTube, and users can then like your content or comment on it, which are the basic features of a social platform. YouTube is easily the world’s most-used video service, and its ease of use and wide-ranging appeal demonstrate how it’s been able to maintain that dominance.
Much like TikTok, whether your business should be on YouTube will depend on how visual your product or service is. However, there’s more of an argument for being on YouTube even if you’re a service provider; after all, if what you do can seem somewhat esoteric to a first-time customer, then uploading handy YouTube videos summing up your business could be a great boon for you.
Yet another visual social platform, Instagram is the dominant image-sharing social platform right now. Users can upload photos and short videos, comment on each other’s work, and even put together Stories containing sequences of photos and videos. You can upload text to Instagram after a fashion; if you upload a block of text as an image, as many users do, text uploads are possible, but they’re going against the spirit of the app somewhat.
It’s usually a good idea to maintain a presence on Instagram for a brand. Instagram is the home of influencers, after all, and influencer marketing is one of the most powerful tools a brand can have in its social media arsenal. Even if you personally don’t have a presence on Instagram, you need to keep an eye on what’s going on with the platform so that you know who to contact when you need an influencer to work with.
Despite its controversial and sometimes contentious nature, Twitter is still the premier microblogging social media platform in the world right now. It allows users to create posts of up to 280 characters, also permitting the inclusion of images or videos alongside the text. Many celebrities use Twitter to update their fans on what they’re doing right now, and it’s also been used by prominent politicians as an alternative to the press circuit.
Much like Facebook, there’s pretty much no reason your brand shouldn’t be on Twitter. It’s one of the first places people will go if they want to ask questions about what you do, so expect your DMs to fill up pretty quickly. In addition, Twitter is a great way to update followers on what your business is up to right now, which can be a good method for attracting new audiences. Finally, if you’re able to be funny on Twitter – if you can hire a good social media strategist who knows how to create hilarious content – then you’ll become a social media star in the same way many other corporate Twitter accounts have done.
These are some of the social networks we think your brand should consider setting up a profile for. There are bound to be others that spring up in the future, and there’s a good chance some of these platforms could fall and make way for others, due to the way the landscape of social media is constantly changing. Did we miss any?
