When you log in to your social media, what do you see? It often seems as if most of the content on your news feed includes pictures of food, political opinions, and your Great Nonna’s latest birthday congratulatory posts! Besides these most informative personal updates, social media can be a key tool in your business’s marketing strategy.
Social Media Platforms have become the norm for marketers nowadays, but what exactly are the most popular Social Media Platforms? In the 2018 Social Media Marketing Industry Report Stelzner explains how Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were the top three platforms used by marketers with Facebook leading the pack by a long shot. More than two-thirds of marketers (67%) chose Facebook as their most important platform, followed by LinkedIn (12%), Instagram (10%) and then Twitter (5%). Using the many available social media platforms can benefit your business in more than one way as Seltzer explains.
It may be hard to determine whether your Social Media Posts are really making a direct difference on your business, but the results have been proven on a larger scale. Stelzner reports that Marketers using social media for more than 1 year have reported: improved sales, increased exposure, growing business partnerships, generating leads, increased traffic, providing marketplace insights, developing loyal fans and increased thought leadership. Of these benefits a significant 87% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their business with increased traffic being the second major benefit. With all of these benefits clearly shown in the grand scale and Social Media being a free platform why not use it to its fullest advantage?
It is important to note that social media is more beneficial for B2B businesses in particular. In terms of growing business partnerships and marketplace insight B2B businesses can gain information that is extremely valuable. B2B marketers are much more likely to use blogging (67%) when compared to B2C marketers (56%) as well. The difference is that these businesses can look at what is trending on social media platforms and learn from these trends and apply them to their business. Social media can also inform businesses on how to approach other businesses by getting a look at their branding.
With all of these benefits, how do you know what content will benefit you the most? In this case it is best to go with the trends. Seltzer claims that a large percentage (80%) of businesses use visual assets in their social media marketing and in second place was video (63%). Live video is also gaining wider adoption at 35%. Visual assets provide an easy way for other businesses to recognize your brand and provide an easy insight into their business.
With all of these benefits you have to think to yourself, when did you last post?
