Social media strategy for your business

We live in an age where social media plays a crucial role. It dominates the way people communicate. You can use social media to promote your business to attract customers, Social media strategy is another key for those promoting business. When so much of your business is now influenced, even dependent, on your social media success, having a plan is essential.

You have to be careful about the content you share on social media as life doesn’t come with instructions. Select a social platform that best fits in your brand. What can you do to avoid blunders on social media? What are some of the common mistakes that companies, especially startups, make while defining and executing their social media strategy? Here are a few:

Incorrect platforms

Facebook has over a billion active users, but you can’t have the whole universe as your target audience. In today’s time and age, the most important marketing decision you need to make is defining the target audience. Targeted marketing is the key of the game; you need to clearly define your target audience. Once that is done, you need to identify the platforms on which your target audience is active.

Nobody searches for a job on Facebook or looks for a hotel review on LinkedIn; you review a website based on what you’re looking for. Being present on the most popular platform does not make sense if your target audience is not active there. Here’s some quick help when it comes to popular platforms:

Facebook – It’s a good platform when:

• You have highly visual content
• You want to leverage the community effect
• You want to build trust in the minds of the users by leveraging their friends’ network’s
• You are ready to spend on ads as recent changes in Facebook’s algorithm have made it very difficult to organically reach out to fans

Twitter – It is a good platform to:

• Broadcast your message
• Join the on-going conversations
• Connect with leaders and people that matter to you
• Build a position for yourself

LinkedIn – Consider using it when:

• You are a B2B(business-to-business) company
• You want to connect with a professional audience and establish your thought leadership within a group of homogeneously targeted audience
  

Google+ – Good platform to:

• Help you with your SEO efforts
• Participate in Google communities to connect with like-minded people
  

Pinterest – You can use it when:

• Your primary target audience include women
• You have highly visual content to share.