Social media: Where and how to concentrate your efforts

Sun, 01/04/2018 - 19:05

Social media marketing can be overwhelming. It can be difficult as a business owner – or even as a person trying to decide where to post selfies – to know where to concentrate your social media efforts. You don’t want to do too many platforms as that can feel like too much. But you also don’t want to miss out on what’s happening online. The FOMO struggle is real.

The answer is to understand where your clients are. On which social network are they spending their time? Because that’s where you need to be. For instance, young people are not on Facebook, they’re on Snapchat and Instagram. If your business depends on the buying habits and the disposable income of young adults, you need to think visually. If you’re looking to attract an older audience, you need to turn your attention to Facebook as they’re not there just to look at photos of their grandkids.

Still unsure? Here’s a little more information about the most popular platforms of today.

Facebook

Everyone’s favourite, the OG social media platform, Facebook is going through what seems to be a time of massive change. A couple of weeks ago, it announced a new algorithm change. This change would prioritise the sharing of content from friends, family and groups. That means that business’ content would be less likely to appear on users’ timelines. Many businesses have already shut their doors, blaming Facebook for dwindling customer engagement and lead generation. Others have found success by changing the way they target users when boosting posts. Whether that’s true and whether additional reactions will be felt over the long-term remains to be seen, but it’s certainly an interesting time to be investing in creating content for Facebook’s approximately 16 million South African users. 

YouTube

The second biggest search engine in the world, YouTube has certainly changed in recent years. It’s gone from being the place to look at videos of cute cats (although you can still do that!) to the first destination for finding the answer to questions. Curious about how to create the perfect duck à l'orange for dinner or how to build a stable, attractive TV cabinet that’ll wow your guests and impress your mom-in-law? Turn to YouTube. Importantly, when you, as a business owner consider creating content for YouTube, ask yourself what kind of content would be most useful to your audience. Creating the content that they’re looking for and using your videos to answer their questions is key to making YouTube a success for your business. Making video a part of your marketing strategy is essential in 2018.

Twitter

8 million South Africans are on Twitter. That means it’s a social media powerhouse which just can’t be ignored – provided your customers are there, of course. It’s the place for social discourse where users are able to access news stories and opinions. This makes it the ideal social network for business, finance and legal brands to offer insights and give opinions. People are on Twitter because they want to discuss sport and politics, their favourite TV shows and the increase in the petrol price.

Instagram

Instagram’s 4 million users are there to see beautiful photos. And with the new algorithm change, they’re now seeing them as they’re posted.  They want to see aesthetically pleasing images which brighten their days. They are not there to see badly lit photos with skew horizon lines. If you’re in the business of creating or selling beautiful products, Instagram is for you. A clothing design label, looking to appeal to customers who appreciate locally-made clothing, could use Instagram to showcase its design process, the workspaces and the people who make the clothing. That makes the story of locally-made clothing so much more believable than a company which puts a line about being “SA-based” on its website. Often, those are the brands which attempt to tell the local narrative but are really just importing goods from overseas to their Voortrekker Road warehouse.

LinkedIn

With more than 6 million users in South Africa, LinkedIn is the success story no one saw coming. It’s seen enormous growth in recent years with job-seekers and job-posters alike heading there to find new work opportunities and fill positions. Also exciting is the growth of people on LinkedIn aged between 35- and 54-years-old and the number of CEOs on the platform.

Those are the big five social media platforms of the moment. Of course, there’s also Snapchat. And, don’t forget about Vero, the newest kid on the social media block. The one everyone is just that little bit confused by. There’s uncertainty about what it should actually be used for, whether there is space for another social media platform, Vero’s Russian employees and, finally, its owner’s controversial past.

And then there were Meerkat, Periscope, Vine, Peach, Ello and Mastodon, just some of the many social networks which launched and failed to pick up traction and either fizzled out or continue quietly plodding along.

So, if you're struggling to make sense of how your business should be making use of social media, contact a reputable content marketing agency in Cape Town. Like, for instance, Rogerwilco.

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