Selecting appropriate social media platforms that are best suited for the business is an integral part of social media campaigns. With a wide variety of social media platforms available, selecting the right one can be a challenging task.
In the race to beat competition, the companies can often make mistakes in using social media platforms effectively which can lead to wastage of efforts and resources.
Here are some of the social media elements which can be utilized effectively to promote the business:
Blogs: Blogs are content created by individuals, groups, or companies to express their opinions or to provide information or insights on specific topics of their choice. The most popular blogs choose topics that are of interest to a large community. However, niche blogs catering to a certain targeted audience can be successful if they dominate the “share of voice” in that particular subject area. Successful blogs have something interesting, useful, or creative to share, and do that sharing with an engaging style. Blogs may contain images, infographics, or videos in addition to text. In most cases, they are also open to comments from readers. These comments are generally directed to the author. Sometimes readers discuss a blog post among themselves, resulting in a discussion forum. Blogs are typically part of an overall content Marketing Strategy, which is about providing informative, helpful content to potential customers rather than overtly selling.
Discussion forums: These are websites used for discussing issues related to a specific topic. Participants in such forums may be asked to register. They are encouraged to ask each other questions, answer questions, and share information. Many forums allow participants to rate each other’s contributions, enabling contributors to build their reputations over time. Some discussion forums may be hosted and moderated by the company, in which case, the company would have some influence on the content of the discussion. In other cases, discussion forums are independent of a company; however, companies should be aware of popular discussion forums in which their products may be discussed and make an effort to respond to customers within those forums.
Video sharing sites: These sites allow users to share videos, audio, infographics, or images with other people. Such content can be shared with any person or group. In most social media channels that are focused on sharing such content, people can vote on or rank audio-visual content or add their comments. Thus, these channels integrate the discussion forum element into audio-visual sharing. On a social media channel for sharing videos, users can “like” or “dislike” a video, comment on the video, and reply to each other’s comments. At times, such posts from users may be misused by competitors or by people with ulterior motives, resulting in hate speech, insults, swearing, and general unpleasantness. Given the fact that these sites are vulnerable to such consumer misbehavior, forums may require moderators or restricted access protocols to ensure that discussions and feedback stay relevant, socially appropriate, and unbiased.
Hence, companies should give high importance to utilization of right social media platforms to showcase their business for the better growth of the company!
