Overview of Social Media Channels 👏

Facebook

Facebook is a casual, friendly online environment. Getting your business on Facebook offers many advantages including branding, customer engagement, community building, market research and targeting, low cost marketing and SEO benefits - helping your business to be found online.

It has over 2.2 billion monthly active users, and the largest blend of demographics of any social media platform.

Twitter

Twitter is a public forum where anyone can read and share 280-character messages called 'Tweets'. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users to receive their tweets. This gives businesses a way to communicate directly with present and future customers in real time.

Benefits include the ability to broadcast messages to thousands of people, instead of just one. With over 300 million active users, Twitter can be a great way to connect with your customers and get their feedback.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, take a look around and review how your competitors are using the platform. If you’re still unsure whether it’s the right fit for your business, Twitter provides a guide on the basics, information on marketing with Twitter, and some success stories.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site for people in professional occupations; it is a social media platform suited to B2B (Business-to-business) marketing. LinkedIn is of a more conservative nature when compared to Facebook or Twitter. Users of this channel are generally seeking professional and informative content.

Setting up a LinkedIn company page can raise brand awareness, promote job vacancies and educate potential customers about your products and services. You can use LinkedIn to generate business leads and strengthen customer relationship by sharing company updates. To find out more about how to set up a LinkedIn company page, and how to showcase your business on LinkedIn, take a look at their online resources.

YouTube

YouTube is the most popular video broadcasting website, with almost 2 billion unique visitors every month. YouTube is also the largest search engine after Google — YouTube videos are around 50 times more likely to show on the first page of search results as part of the blended results shown by Google.

This social media channel could be right for your organisation if you can visually showcase your products or services, or would like to establish yourself as a leader in your field. YouTube is a powerful platform to tell your businesses story, and to let your customers tell their stories about your product or service.

Entertaining videos with a call to action can be an effective way to catch viewers’ attention and drive traffic to your website organically — that is, without paying for each visitor. And video is a great medium for showing your brand’s personality, explaining what your company does, or providing support by explaining how to do something.

The National Business Review provides an article on the many advantages of YouTube.

To find out more about how to get started on YouTube take a look at the Creator Hub.

Instagram

Instagram is a visual marketing platform with over 1 billion unique visitors every month. Creating a brand profile on Instagram can increase your brands visibility to an engaged audience. Photo and video content is a powerful medium for connecting with customers and creating an emotional response. 

Photos can bring your products to life. Crowdsourcing photos and videos of customers using your product can be a powerful way to connect with your audience. Instagram is a lot like window-shopping on a phone or tablet, showcase pictures of current and upcoming products to build brand awareness and increase the visibility of your latest offerings.

The Instagram Help Centre provides a guide to the basics of getting your business on Instagram.

Pinterest

It's known for its significant reach within the female demographic as 41% of online women use Pinterest.  

It is a visual channel which displays beautiful images - this can be great for businesses who have great images of their products (especially home decor, living hacks, art, food, fashion, garden design). People can store images on boards they create around their own interests. Clicking an image takes you to a website.

Snapchat

Snapchat allows you to send videos and images, which disappear after a maximum of 10 seconds.  Or a collection of images (called a story) which disappear after 24 hours.  86% of SnapChat users are under 35, so it's great if you want to target millennials.  Check out what's the point of Snapchat to learn more.  Also take a look at 10 ways to use Snapchat for business.

Want to know more?

If you have any questions or need advice, you can get in touch with the Digital Journey team at hello@digitaljourney.org.

Digital Journey works with individuals, businesses and organisations of all types across New Zealand. We provide FREE online digital assessments and resources, as well as training, coaching and project management services.

Our vision is to help everyone get the most out of the Internet, online tools and digital technology. Find out more at www.digitaljourney.org.