The Social Channel Guide

With so many different social networks to choose from and so little time to spend on them all, how do you choose what’s right for your business?

The answer to that will be different for each business. Ultimately, you want to be where your audience is. This may be dictated by what you offer as well as what their habits are. Let’s take a look at the social channel guide.

For example, Linked-In is a great place if you’re a business marketing to businesses. Linked-In has features that offer professional profiles, article sharing and posting, and networking opportunities, galore! It works well for both brands and people.

Now, if you have a jewelry making business with an online store, your better fit might be Facebook where you can post a lot of pictures, and really get to know your fans. Facebook is very visually and socially driven and attracts people who are looking for quick, pretty, and witty snippets in their newsfeed. Brands with personality will do well on Facebook, but fall flat if you are a shameless self-promoter. Destinations like restaurants can also enjoy the benefit of guests “checking-in” and posting comments and pictures of their experience.

Twitter is not for the faint of heart! To be successful with Twitter, you’ll need to be ready to tweet (post) from your heart and jump on as many bandwagons as possible. And by “bandwagons” we’re talking about the world of hashtags. Hashtags are a way of categorizing posts so that you can follow or reference a certain word or phrase that pertains to your post. By placing a “#” in front of the word, your post will now list with any other post that used the same hashtag+word. Twitter is great for public personalities, or brands that work hard to develop and nurture their “voice” in the marketplace.

While Google+ doesn’t have quite the flair or popularity as Facebook, Google+, by name and nature, is all about search engine optimization. As you post on Google+, you will likely see a boost in your online ranking. A great place to post your status updates, links, and pictures–as your circles and followers grow, so will your influence on the search engine ladder.

Some businesses, organizations or public personalities may find great success on Instagram. Instagram is a simple, “image only” feed. Hashtags, tagging people, places, and short descriptions are tools that can be leveraged for promotion, but posting takes some savvy to do it in an interesting and enriching way that will attract followers.

Choosing social networks that will work for you will still take some work. Starting with one and adding on from there is a great place to start. Knowing where your audience already hangs out and feeding them content that fits the medium are both elements to keep in mind.