Social media: Which is the right choice?

Before we get into which social media outlet to use lets first define what is social media?

Social media is a catch-all term for a variety of Internet applications that allow users to create content and interact with each other. This interaction can take many forms, but some common types include:

• Sharing links to interesting content produced by third parties
• Public updates to a profile, including information on current activities and even location data
• Sharing photos, videos, and posts
• Commenting on the photos, posts, updates, videos and links shared by others

In the digital world social media, like many digital buzzwords is a moving target that gets defined according to what the individual who is using it wants it to mean.

With so many social media website should a marketer use one as its main channel, a few or all of them? There are so many social media website, and the numbers continue to grow.  According to Statista there were roughly 2.15 billion people using social media sites in 2015, and by 2018 that number is to exceed 2.6 billion.  It’s easy for a marketer to salivate at the thought of reaching so many potential users.  These users are actively connecting and engaging with brands through social media.  Implementing a social media marketing plan and having a presence on social sites is essential to tap into these customers.  Also, if executed correctly, utilizing social media can have huge benefits.

Social media is a great way for a business of any size to promote its business, engage with users, and gain new ones.  Businesses should definitely take advantage of this marketing vehicle, but it should not be on every social website.  It is important for a marketer to pick a social media website that reaches its target audience.  If you’re selling luxury vehicles like Range Rover, what social media website would be beneficial to the brand?  What about Musically, a social media website that consists of a video community that allows users to create, share, and discover short videos?  The social platform has 70 million users who post roughly 11 million new videos per day.  Sounds great!  Wrong!  The users of this social website are mostly tweens and teenagers.  This is a very popular social media website, but not every social media website is right for a brand.

How many social websites should one use?  It could be one or a few but definitely not all.  Aside from making sure the social site reaches your target demographic, here are a few important things to consider:
1. Establish a plan and do research:
Before you begin advertising what are your goals, what are you hoping to achieve, who is your target audience, what social media website or websites aligns with the target.  What is your creative message?

2. Set Goals: What do you hope to accomplish by using the website?
Are you looking to increase website traffic? Conversions? Increasing brand awareness? Improving communication and interaction with key audiences.

3. Measure results: There are about 35 key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge if your social media campaign is successful and working.  Here are a few:


• Alerts (registration and response rates/by channel/clique through rate/post click activity)
• Bookmarks (onsite, offsite)
• Comments
• Downloads 
• Email subscriptions
• Fans (become a fan of something/someone)
• Favorites (add an item to favorites)
• Feedback (via the site)
• Followers (follow something/someone) 
• Forward to a friend


4. Test: Be sure to test various creative messages to see how your customers react to them.  If you’re not sure which image or creative to use, testing will let you know which your clients prefer.  There are many elements you can test via social media, but here are a few:

• Headlines
• Calls to action
• Images
• Reviews

Almost anything on a marketers website can be A/B tested, so anything that affects visitor behavior its wise test before releasing.

Finally, there are the thoughts on content versus conversation when is comes to social media engagement.  Content marketing takes place both online and offline created and shared for the purpose of directly or indirectly promoting a business. More people and businesses are aware of content marketing due to the accessibility of online social networks and social media tools that allow anyone to publish WOW, share-worthy content. This empowerment of publishing content has drastically changed the online environment.

Then there are those who believe social media is a conversation. It’s a way for folks to talk about anything in public, ranging from current events, life’s successes and failures, or even about our passions like sustainability. It’s just another medium to have a conversation.  Some may say that social media isn’t a conversation at all, but rather a form of publication. It is a way for anyone to publish anything from anywhere on the Internet.  Who is right?

While content is an important part of social media, more so, social media itself thrives not on the act of content, but rather on sharing and conversing about that content.  From that tidbit, it seems we can assume that we need to content to start the conversation   Content marketing establishes credibility, trust, and loyalty because the organization is helping people and/or supplying content that interests them.  That content is then shared, liked and retwitted which is causing the user to be engaged and start a conversation.  Also, I agree that conversation is an important aspect for engaging users on social media that is why many people are visiting social media website.  Both are beneficial, and a company can choose to do both or either.  Again that’s where testing comes in to play to see what your users are interested in content or conversation.

Here are the top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites as derived from our eBizMBA Rank which is a continually updated average of each website's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast."*#*" Denotes an estimate for sites with limited data.