We came across this image and I thought it brilliantly demonstrated the breadth of social media offerings. Do you operate under the misconception that you have to contribute to every single one of these networks on a weekly basis? The idea may sound preposterous to some people but for sales and marketing, public relations and other media professionals that misconception is very common. It is also true for ambitious small and medium-sized businesses who want to penetrate the digital market while diving in full force to every single possible network they can get their hands on.Ever wonder why people complain of social media burnout? There’s your answer.
The truth of the matter is that there is no advantage to being on a multitude of social networks if you are not prepared to invest the time and energy to make the sharing of content and interaction there meaningful. So if you are a business person or organization that has created a Plurk (does anyone still use it?) account and you haven’t updated the thing in months or a year or more, do the world (and yourself) a favor and delete it. The net is not made better by the proliferation of empty ghost accounts in social media channels. It does not make a good impression on the business to have built a channel and then neglect it, and presents as amateur and haphazard.Most digital marketing professionals agree that you need to be on the big three social networks which include Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
There are best practices when it comes to social media updating or guidelines for most businesses to follow to satisfy their followers in terms of frequency and mixed variety of shared content on the channels. I’ll write more about that later, but as you are formulating your social media plan (yes you need a formal plan) ensure that these three giants are on the list because that’s exactly where the majority of the world interacts on a daily basis.Want some proof?
- Facebook is the most visited website on the internet (reaching one trillion page views on June 30 2011)
- Facebook reached 55% of the world’s global audience accounting for roughly 75% of time spent on social networking sites and one in every seven minutes spent online globally
- Twitter handles 1.6 billion queries per day
- Instagram has 500 million active members in its social network. Source: Web July 2016
There has been an important shift in social media in the last two years specifically, and that is a preference for creative and visual media networks that are “user generated content” focused. This includes Instagram (with the art of the selfie) and Snapchat (which allows you to customize captions, cartoon art and free drawing on your images or videos). Check out this article I shared that spotlights some incredible branding on the network by some of the most recognizable consumer products.
Snapchat actually surpassed Twitter in daily active users in July 2016, when it announced it had 150 million daily active users. Wow! But now media experts are predicting that teens and Millennials are not leveraging Snapchat, but Instagram to curate photos and life experiences (and engage in Instagram’s new in-app shopping experiences).
The important thing to remember is that generating quality content for your small business or brand takes resources. Rather than emulating a water sprinkler, it’s better to focus your marketing efforts on the channels that provide the best exposure to your target audience. Keep up with your content management and be consistent on the channels that matter most, and be clever and thoughtful about the content you share. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a lot of content to choose from, and only the really fun, entertaining and emotionally relevant and informative pieces get the spotlight in this new era, which is becoming more and more like a “content marketing” arms race.
We can help you stay ahead of the content churn, with creative visual branding, website design and social media management. Contact our team for more information.
