It's Never Too Late to Use Social Media or Diversify Your Channels
Are you new to social media? Or maybe you only have a Facebook page? It is never too late to expand your marketing! Your initial focus should be where your target market is, then you can expand from there. Today it is easy and inexpensive to expand your social media marketing. You can even do it yourself. You never know where your next client may find you. Here is some interesting information on why it may benefit you and your business to be socially diversified.
Facebook Growth and Usage in Key Demographics is Trending Down
One of the most common social media tools is Facebook. Creating your own Facebook page is quick and easy, but is it targeting your audience? According to a recent study at Pew Research Center, teens aged 13 - 17 are moving away from Facebook with a preference to Youtube, Snapchat, and Instagram. Here are some statistics on this generation of social media users.
Why Look at the Younger Generation?
The platforms the younger generation are using will be the dominant platforms of the future. If your target market includes kids, it makes sense to pay attention. Getting your branding acknowledged by this group may be the smartest thing you do!
What About Facebook Messaging?
Did you know Facebook Messenger is now an app independent of Facebook and it serves 1.3 billion MAU (Monthly Active Users) but is growing at almost 700,000 users per day according to MobileMonkey, and current trends favor messaging over broadcast apps. It may make sense to add messenger to your websites and have the app on your phone vs others.
Different Platforms For Different Purposes
First you will need to analyze your target market. Each social media channel offers a different demographic, opportunity, and reach. You can put the same info on all channels but change it a bit to make it interesting for the demographic it is serving.
For example: If you are advertising your online yoga studio, you can promote your content as "10 Minute Yoga to Energize and Invigorate Business Professionals" targeting business professionals, or maybe a video titled "Yoga for Better Studies" to target college students. You can customize these and see which channels react. You can start to build your brand on all channels slowly and track the responses. You can get creative with your offerings. Who can benefit from your products and services? How can you make them unique to each target market or demographic?
Linked In
Instagram & Instagram Stories
Youtube
Snapchat & Snapchat Stories
Facebook & Facebook Stories
Repurposing Content Across Platforms
While you should diversify your social channels, you don't need them all! Each channel targets a different audience and promotes different content. Creating quality content is key, but don't waste time creating content for social channels that aren't for you. Discover your target audience and go where they are. If you're a young musician, you won't need to focus on LinkedIn or Pinterest. Instead, you could have an Instagram with photos and videos, share those same posts to your Facebook page, upload full live video performances to Youtube, and chat with other musicians by tweeting on Twitter. Once you find where your audience tends to hang out, here is where you can save time. Repurposing your content across channels and even reusing old posts over time can make your social media cultivation easier. Like our musician example above, if you've already recorded a full video to upload to Youtube, cut up this video to create smaller posts for instagram or Facebook. Remember the quality of your message will go a long way. Create your own, unique content that your audience will find helpful, useful, and important to them.
Diversify Your Social Presence
Social media is changing all the time and can take some testing to figure out what works for your audience. You don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket! For example Google Plus shut down despite having about 300 million users. If you built your social presence exclusively there, you’d be starting at ground zero right now. Algorithms can change. Social media channels can come and go.
Creating a presence across the right major platforms can help us establish better branding, reach different demographics and draw customers from these marketing channels all with the goal of moving them to our own media, blog, website, e-store, email/SMS list, events etc. that we control.
Consider taking time starting now to get yourself out there and be more present across multiple channels! And of course, follow us online too! 😉