What are the different types of social media platforms? And which one is best for your business?

submitted 2 years ago by HowardJonet to post

Social media is everywhere in our daily lives. We see social media advertisement businesses in commercials and radio spots, on billboards and websites and on our mobile phones and other mobile devices. We can see logos for Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr on the end of hundreds of websites. We are urged to sign up to blogs, join groups, friends, share, and interact in many ways, but does this social media actually benefiting us, and are companies who use these platforms achieving tangible effects?

It's overwhelming to think of the number of social media platforms available with all the advantages and disadvantages they bring. So we have chosen to concentrate on those which we consider to be the most effective and examine their advantages and disadvantages from a company viewpoint. It is crucial to realize that not all industries should invest their time or money on social media platforms. Before you start a social media campaign it is essential to identify your objectives. After that, weighing the costs and possible profits of each platform can aid in determining the best type of social media strategy to weave into your SEO strategy.

Blogs

The first step is to start here, as instagram blogs are widely considered to be the "base" of any social media marketing campaign. Blogs are a great way to add the personality of your site and increase the perception of your business, help educate others by demonstrating your market knowledge as well as create an emotional stake in your business, increase brand recognition, and much more. Blogs can also be integrated with other kinds of social media platforms, and you can even make your Twitter or Facebook posts streams streaming live on the blog itself.

One of the disadvantages of blogs is that they have to be as authentic for their readers as you should be to your customers. People will be able to tell if you are trying to fake your knowledge of the industry if you have too much emphasis on you rather than them and also whether or not you're involved in the blog on a regular basis. In this regard, blogs should be frequently updated, which can be difficult from a time perspective. This aspect should be taken into consideration prior to deciding whether to create a company blog.

Facebook

Facebook is among the most popular and well-known social media platforms. Although trends come and go, Facebook should be the second social media tool that is used in conjunction with blogging, due to the fact that it can take brand recognition to a new level by making your logo prominent and allowing users to share information about your company to all their "friends". Your followers are constantly reminded of you through your status updates, news, and other social media interactions. Furthermore, Facebook provides an analytics tool for companies to see weekly reports that detail new followers, numbers of interactions, and types of actions taken on their pages. Facebook can also allow you to create customized tabs that allow users to link to different platforms like Twitter and blogs to your Facebook profile.

The drawback of Facebook is that, just like blogging, the time needed to keep the page up-to-date however, the time required on Facebook is much less than on platforms like Twitter.

Twitter

It requires lots of energy and time to manage the Twitter account. It can be difficult to keep track of all the people talking about your company or your product. It is possible to send 27.3 million tweets being tweeted per hour. Also, one has to keep in mind various factors such as the need to "retweet" or reply quickly, maintain an appropriate "follower to follower" ratio for optimal optimization and a variety of other factors.

However, Twitter lets users use applications like TweetDeck to monitor tweets or plan tweets to be distributed. Twitter can be an modern and efficient method to connect with customers, however this tool will only work for specific industries, in some situations, and should be regularly maintained with a good strategy in place to succeed.

YouTube

YouTube is a social media platform. Additionally, it's the second most used search engine, following Google. Yes, we did say "search engine". YouTube is used most frequently in this manner by young people, and not those who have the money to become customers. With a growing trend such as this, large companies must not overlook a branding and informational tool such as YouTube particularly when the average time spent on the site is 23 minutes. A YouTube presence can bring companies large audiences and the ability to apply keywords into videos to increase your chances of being discovered when those terms are searched. As with any social media platform, there are many variables that could affect this. But, if you already have video content for your website or blog, it is simple to establish your own YouTube channel. YouTube's limited resources makes it easy to reach a larger viewers.

Like all social media platforms the latest trend may not be the best option tomorrow. Companies need to be able to determine with precision the areas they should invest their resources and time to boost brand recognition and maintain a positive reputation on- and offline. This conservative and well-thought-out approach will assist in preparing these businesses for the next phase of social media platforms or any other type of media that is the "next biggest thing". Search engine marketing companies and their clients must consider these factors when making decisions on how and when to continue their marketing efforts.