Social Media for Business – which platforms work best?

Social Media for Business – which platforms work best?

by | Nov 10, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

Social media for business has become a very important marketing tool, offering organizations opportunities to increase brand awareness, run targeted campaigns, increase leads and build community relationships.

Like everything in life, not all social media platforms are equal; some will appeal to B2C markets, others to B2B organizations, some to younger generations, others to more mature audiences and so on.

Here is a brief list of some of the popular Social Media platforms used in business today and to which types of business they may most appeal:

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS

 

1. TWITTER

 

What is it?

Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users can post and interact with messages called “tweets”. Until recently a tweet was limited to 140 characters, however, Twitter has just recently doubled this limit to 280 characters.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Twitter is suitable to all businesses from the Sole Trader to the Multinational Corporation.

What should it be used for?

Organizations should use Twitter to highlight upcoming events, new product launches, important company announcements, customer service and much more. Due to its brevity, you can ‘link’ your tweet to a web page with much more detailed information, you can shorten the web page link address for your tweet by using services such as bit.ly and goo.gl. A great Beginners Guide on how to use Twitter has recently been published by WebClare.

When to use?

Businesses should post on and interact with their Twitter accounts on a daily basis.

2. LINKEDIN

 

What is it?

LinkedIn is a business oriented, professional networking social media service.

What type of business is it suitable for?

LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media for business platforms and is primarily suitable for businesses that operate in B2B (business to business) marketplaces and Recruitment.

What should it be used for?

Description of company and services provided, individual’s professional profile, new job postings, company and product announcements, highlighting upcoming events. LinkedIn prioritizes relationship building amongst members, do not lead with a sales pitch to a new connection, but rather build a relationship built on mutual interests or industry sectors.

When to use?

LinkedIn should not be over used as your connections may view this as spam. Posting a couple of times a week may be sufficient. As well as posting on your company’s profile you can also post on relevant LinkedIn user groups for a wider audience reach.

3. FACEBOOK

 

What is it?

Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users and businesses to create profiles, upload photos and videos and post messages. With over 1.6 Billion active users worldwide, it is the world’s most popular social media platform.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Like Twitter, Facebook is suitable for all.

What should it be used for?

Facebook can be used for increased brand exposure, targeted offers, communication platform, building a loyal brand following and community. As part of your social media for business strategy your organization can use Facebook Ads to target selected demographics, geographical locations and much more. The Marketing Crowd offer wonderful courses on best practices for Facebook Marketing

When to use?

Post on a daily basis. Try to make posts interesting and encourage audience participation, including likes, comments and shares.

4. INSTAGRAM

 

What is it?

Instagram is an internet based photo sharing application that allows users and businesses to share pictures and videos on their accounts.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Luxury brands, fashion, food and lifestyle product companies.

What should it be used for?

Sharing visual content and short videos. By using the same filters consistently your organization or brand can establish a style that will become instantly recognizable to your followers. Using appropriate #hashtags is also very popular on Instagram.

When to use?

Organizations should aim to have at least one post per day.

5. PINTEREST

 

What is it?

Pinterest is a free website that requires registration to use. Users can upload, save, sort and manage images which are known as ‘pins’ through collections known as ‘pinboards’.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Mainly suitable for Fashion, Food, Travel and DIY businesses.

What should it be used for?

This platform should only be used if your organization has great images to share. According to The Next Web Pinterest favors most recent content, pinning and re-pinning should be done on a regular basis.

When to use?

Frequently, many times a day.

6. YOUTUBE

 

What is it?

YouTube is a video sharing website that allows users to upload, view, rate, share, comment and subscribe to other users. YouTube is owned by Google, so when it comes to SEO, videos are more likely to appear in search results than other websites.

What type of business is it suitable for?

Any organization that has video content to share.

What should it be used for?

Product promotions and demonstrations, ‘how to’ guides and client testimonials.

When to use?

Organizations should try to post a new video at least once a week.

 

 

The above is a brief overview of some of the most popular social media for business platforms used today. Other platforms such as Yelp, Google+, Snapchat, Quora….. should also be considered depending on your organizations target market and demographics.

If you would like help with your social media marketing and which platforms will work best for your business contact RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions today.

How to Create an Inbound Marketing Strategy to Capture More Leads and Ultimately Sales.

How to Create an Inbound Marketing Strategy to Capture More Leads and Ultimately Sales.

by | Sep 29, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

inbound marketing strategy

Hubspot defines an Inbound Marketing Strategy as an approach focused on attracting customers through content that is relevant and helpful — not interruptive. With inbound marketing, potential customers find you through online channels like blogs, search engines, and social media.

Unlike outbound marketing, inbound marketing does not need to fight for potential customers attention. By creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, you attract qualified prospects and build trust and credibility for your business.

To establish a successful inbound marketing strategy Marketo recommends the following steps be taken:

  • Identify your target audience and learn all you can about them. Your content must be specifically targeted at their needs.

Your audience will be the prospects that will benefit most from your solution or product. Try to put yourself in their shoes and think why would your solution be a good fit (or not as the case may be) for your targeted audience. Will it solve a problem, reduce time and resources currently required by your target base?

  • Determine your unique, compelling story. Why should your audience listen to you?

This is where your content marketing should shine. Content marketing has been defined by the Content Marketing Institute as a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract a clearly defined audience.

  • Choose your delivery platforms. Will you Blog? Tweet? Use Facebook? LinkedIn or a combination?

Social media platforms are a wonderful way to deliver your content and create a loyal community following. Like most things in life, social media platforms differ greatly and play to different market audiences. For example, if you are a B2B marketer and wish to get a serious, somewhat technical message across you may find Blogs and LinkedIn Articles and User Groups work best. If you are B2C marketer with a young targeted audience you may find Pinterest and Snap Chat work best, whereas Twitter can be great for new announcements and highlights of specific events or shows.

  • Create and execute your Inbound Marketing Strategy calendar.

It is important to create a schedule that will consistently turn out fresh and relevant content that continues to engage your audience. Remember that all content should be targeted at solving a particular need of your customer and not a hard sell of your product or solution.

Having a well-oiled inbound marketing strategy should see audience participation and leads grow significantly over time (a recent Hubspot survey found that organizations who adopted an inbound marketing strategy reported an increase in leads of almost 84% within the first 7 months). Once these leads are harvested and qualified they can be forwarded to the sales team for conversion to new paying customers.

If you would like help with creating an Inbound Marketing Strategy for your organization contact RML Marketing & Business Development Solutions today.

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

The Simple Hashtag (#) – The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

by | Aug 31, 2017 | Business Development, Communications, Marketing

As the hashtag (#) celebrates it’s 10th year anniversary as a modern communication tool, we examine its popularity and use, particularly in social media. The hashtag, sometimes called the pound sign in North America, was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 the pound sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

The pound sign or hashtag then appeared and was used within IRC networks (internet relay chat) to label groups and topics. The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the then microblogging network. He posted the first hashtag on Twitter ten years ago in August 23rd 2007:

It was after a series of forest fires in San Diego in 2007 that the use of the hashtag in Twitter first, and then other social media platforms, became popular. According to Messina the intention behind the hashtag was to make it easy for users to search for content and find specific updates that are relevant without the technological knowledge to navigate the site. Therefore, the hashtag was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages

Ten years later the hashtag is no longer just the prevail of Twitter users, but has also become highly popular on other social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, giving a new lease of life to audience engagement on popular TV shows #GameOfThrones, live events #SuperBowlLI, politics #POTUS and a whole host of news and worldwide happenings.

Simply by pacing the hashtag # symbol in front of a word or key phrase, the author can highlight the key points of his or her communication. Likewise, the reader can use the hashtag # symbol for research and up to date feeds on any particular topic that may be of interest.

The quantity of hashtags used in a post or tweet is just as important as the types of hashtags used. It is currently considered acceptable to tag a post once when contributing to a specific conversation. Two hashtags are considered acceptable when adding a location to the conversation. Three hashtags are seen by some as the ‘absolute maximum’, and any contribution exceeding this risks raising the ire of other users.

So, besides search-ability and speed of information, what additional benefits does the hashtag offer the 21st century marketer and PR guru? Here is a list of some of the more popular advantages of using hashtags in modern communications:

·               Improve brand awareness by using hashtags related to service or product to enlist and grow a                                  large following and sense of community.

·               Use trending hashtags where relevant to drive additional traffic to your site.

·               Encourage interaction with customers, prospects and partners.

·               Create a brand hashtag that is unique to your business and use as a signature tag.

·               Unique hashtags are ideal for new campaign or product launches.

·               Hashtags are search engine friendly

If you would like to know how to improve your social media communications and improve your brand awareness with modern tools, email RML Marketing and Business Development Solutions today at info@rml-marketing.com

Pin It on Pinterest