At this point, you should already know that a social media marketing strategy is essential to your business. But on which platforms should you be active? All of them? The answers depend entirely on your business needs, target audience, and goals. For those confused about social media marketing, welcome to Social Media 101.
You can better fine-tune your social media strategy and allocate your resources wisely when you better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. There’s no sense pouring time, effort, and money into a Facebook account when your target audience is primarily on Twitter or LinkedIn. Our goal through this series of blogs is to help you attain a sense of which social media platforms fit your marketing strategy.
We will start with the most obvious contender: Twitter
Strengths:
- Going viral – With over 300 million active monthly users, it’s not surprising that it can take only a few minutes for a simple tweet to catch fire. This is great for small businesses that can leverage this type of engagement to connect with consumers.
- Easy to use – Twitter is the social media platform that is easiest to use. It’s simple to join in on trending discussions, connect with similar content, and engage with your followers.
- Hashtags – It only takes a single hashtag for a concept or an opinion to be trending in the Twitter universe. You can easily see what hashtags are trending and what movements you can connect with to increase your visibility.
- Instant updates – Twitter moves quickly, offering real-time news that satisfies the craving for instant gratification.
Weaknesses:
- Going viral – This doubles as a strength and weakness. One single PR mistake can bring an onslaught of negative comments, and the Twitter universe is ruthless. Just as a positive tweet can launch your business leads, a poorly formed tweet can dig a hole for your business that will take time to recover from.
- Content is short – Twitter has recently expanded its maximum number of characters (280), but that’s still not a lot of space to engage with your target audience. It can be hard to publish something short, sweet, and authentic, without coming across as too salesy. Twitter demands balance, so it will take some practice in managing this platform.
- Competition is fierce – The fast pace of Twitter means that your content must be unique to reach followers, otherwise your tweets will dissolve into white noise. This is where the strategic use of hashtags becomes vital to keep your content visible beyond its five seconds in the stream.
Twitter is a one of our favorite platforms, but it’s one that requires constant care. Trending topics change daily, and it’s important that businesses recognize who their followers are and how they can connect with them. The right hashtags can spark interest, but striking the right balance requires a targeted approach.
Our next blog will explore Facebook.