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Which Social Media Channel Is Right For Your Business?

Guest post by: Gourab Nanda

Article Overview: Social media is growing at a frantic pace and, as fast paced businesses, we need to sing the tune along. So the question is do we go all out and join all social media platforms and try to pile on marketing mileage, or do we need to figure out the best platforms that suits our specific business needs and stay effective?

Which Social Media Channel Is Right For Your Business?

Social media is growing at a frantic pace and, as fast paced businesses, we need to sing the tune along. So the question is do we go all out and join all social media platforms and try to pile on marketing mileage, or do we need to figure out the best platforms that suits our specific business needs and stay effective? Let's answer this most ignored however highly important question by analyzing some of the most popular social network platforms in terms of their effectiveness as marketing tools. Facebook

This highest ranking website in the world can apparently draw more prospects to your business by the sheer weight of its huge fan base. A closer look may suggest it to be a great place for consumer interactions, feedback, and some cool brand exposure for your products. And as Facebook fans are more occupied with these interactions they are not easily drawn to your site, and hence you cannot see much increase in website traffic through Facebook promotions. Facebook is also not a search engine's favorite, so you may not see any significant increase in organic traffic on your website. So based on these you may use Facebook to maximize your marketing effectiveness.

Twitter

As Facebook, Twitter also provides similar marketing benefits however it is ranked better when it comes to search engine friendliness. However, the challenge here is to pack maximum effectiveness in those short messages and draw the followers to your business.

YouTube

It delivers your marketing messages in the best possible way, through videos. Though it seems an easy job, the real challenge is to be noticed in the crowd and get more relevant views. Per se YouTube offers excellent brand awareness and tremendous feedback and suggestion platform for your videos. It is also search engine friendly but not as effective a puller to your website. All these make it a mandatory channel for delivering your messages irrespective of the service and products you offer.

LinkedIn

This is more of a personal branding medium. This can help you to showcase the human resource strength of your organization. So the objectives before using this for business reasons should be clearly defined. For solopreneurs, LinkedIn is a wish come true. Not only can they connect with prospects and clients, they can also participate in various group discussions and show off their knowledge.

Every social media site is designed for different needs, creating varied marketing opportunities for businesses. So the point is, to first understand what your products or services requires and then choose the right platform. Let's look at some marketing needs and then choose relevant social media platforms.

• If your marketing involves lots of customer interactions and feedback then it is highly recommended that you go for Facebook and twitter and you can simply ignore platforms like LinkedIn.

• If promotional videos form major part of your marketing then undoubtedly YouTube would be the choice, you can then multiply the effect using Facebook and twitter.

• If you are eyeing some specific sections of professionals, then LinkedIn should be your primary choice and you can spice it up with Facebook and twitter.

• If your sole objective is to get more traffic to your website then platforms that you could pay less attention to Tumblr, Flickr and LinkedIn. Other social media sites especially StumbleUpon and Digg can rope in much more traffic to your site as they are excellent at it.

• Similarly, if you want to project an event of yours with pictures and videos then Flickr and Facebook would be a better option to choose and it will also index well in search engines.

Conclusion

The whole point is to first analyze your marketing needs and then finalize on the social channels that can best bring you the results, this surely is a great way to save unnecessary money and effort. So start analyzing and get going.

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Article Tags: online marketing, small business growth, small business management, small business outsourcing, small business tips, social media marketing



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