When it comes to social media most, brands think that they should split their time between all of the main social networks which isn’t a good way to utilise your time. As a small business, you really need to think about the kind of network suited for your business as well as where your ideal target market hangs out so here are some things you need to consider.
Looking at the content you share on social media, what is most effective for your business? Is it Images? Video’s? Articles? Or just plain text? There are some social networks that are suitable for the four types of content I just mentioned but for others, their main content source is just one of the options. Really think about the kind of content your consumers will want to see and work with the networks to give you the best outcome.
Once you have decided the kind of content you want to share, you then need to think about what your goal is for social media. Are you using social media for SEO purposes, traffic, brand exposure, or customer engagement? Once you have defined your ideal outcome, you can then chose your network accordingly. For SEO, as we all know, Google owns Google+ so there is no question that this is the best network for SEO however, if you also want to achieve the most traffic to your website, you should consider Twitter, Pinterest or even Facebook.
If your main social media focus is to reach the most people you will need to look at how many users there are on each social network. Facebook leads the way with YouTube and Twitter in second and third place respectively. Facebook may seem like your best bet but you really need to think more about where your target audience likes to hang out. Just because there are more Facebook users than Twitter, it doesn’t necessarily mean your sales will increase.
To answer the above regarding target markets and where they spend most of their time, as you can see below that 0-18 year olds spend most of the time on Pinterest, the 18-24 year olds and 25-34 hold a high percentage of users with Google+, the 45-54 year olds use Facebook and the 55-64 unsurprisingly chose LinkedIn as their desired network.
Finally, you need to look at the most used social networks based on gender. Females are mainly on Pinterest and Twitter with males on LinkedIn and Facebook. These may change over time but to give you an idea of where you target market really hang out, you can always do some research, just like I did.
Thank you Warren, have finally taken the plunge and set up Google+
Its has been very useful,thank you
My pleasure Eva, pleased to see you here… Finally being more social online