Not every social media platform is created equal, and for good reason. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and is tailored for different things. The impulsive decision is to join each and every social media outlet to foster brand awareness and get client involvement, but in reality, your business doesn’t need to use every social platform out there. Quality over quantity, friends.
Depending on what type of business you run, some social media outlets won’t exactly make sense for your company. For example, as a managed services provider, creating an Instagram account could be rather pointless. We aren’t about to go around posting professional photos of servers with natural lighting and a ceramic coffee cup displayed next to it. However, if you run a local coffee shop, Instagram is a beautiful and strong option for you.
Confused? Let’s delve into the major players a little further.
LinkedIn is acceptable for any company. It grew out of a need for social networking between professionals, so it’s a suit-and-tie version of Facebook. You wouldn’t want your boss or management seeing your swimsuit photos from that trip to the Bahamas, and vice-versa, you don’t want employees seeing your family Thanksgiving trip. Hence, LinkedIn was born.
Posts shouldn’t be lighthearted and short. They should be longer, well thought-out, and professional.
You should share things about how to work better, why your business is doing the things it’s doing, and any available positions within your company. Don’t post things about your kids or silly videos you’ve found on the Internet. Save that for Facebook, and remember, LinkedIn is the classy tuxedo of the bunch.
Facebook is on a mission to do it all—personal and professional—but when it comes to Facebook for business, you’re good to go no matter what industry you’re involved with. An active Facebook profile is good for a whole mess of things: for candidates who want to vet your company, for customers who want to contact you, for coworkers who want to share your accomplishments, and for leads who want to engage with you.
However, you should keep things short and simple. Share 1-2 lines of content at a time and as many videos and photos as you can muster up. In fact, the more videos and photos, the better. Why? Because that’s what people like to see. Too much text and interest is lost, quickly. You want something engaging that will catch the eye as people are scrolling.
Instagram is all about photography. With that being said, if your business is involved with things like clothes, food, sports, fitness, community, and education, you should definitely be on Instagram.
At this point, you should consider familiarizing yourself with some photo editing apps, free or paid depending on your need. Simple ones that allow you to add text or borders to images are usually free, while advanced editing features can cost a couple bucks to hundreds of dollars.
Be realistic about your ability and work your way up if you’re starting at the bottom. There’s nothing worse than dropping mad cash on advanced equipment and software only to end up with mediocre product due to user inadequacies.
If you aren’t a professional photographer or don’t have one on staff, start with a good smartphone camera and those free apps.
And don’t forget those hashtags, people! The more avenues people have to search for you by, the better your analytics will be.
Snapchat
As a local, smaller business, you can use Snapchat to really focus on your company’s story. Customers love feeling like part of the family and seeing the ins-and-outs of how your business functions.
Show your employees interacting with one another, what goes on behind-the scenes, or any company-wide events. Once you start acquiring friends on Snapchat, you’ll have an invaluable opportunity to build up your brand in a fun and positive way. However, you don’t want to do a lot of work for no real ROI. Make sure your business is only on Snapchat if your target market is and your community as a whole is.