Social Media Marketing: Do I need to be on every single Social Media?

Social Media Marketing can be so confusing with all of the options out there! To make things a little clearer, we can start by asking the right questions: what do I want from my social media campaign? and what can each Social Media network do for my business?


Social Media for small business can be an invaluable resource to reduce your marketing cost while improving your sales, but you have to learn a few things first, in order to make the right choices. The very first thing you need to know, is what you want to achieve through your Social Media campaign, and what is the platform that can help you reach your goals.

Let's have a look in detail at some of the most common Social Media Q&A:

Q: How can I improve my search engine ranking?
A: try Google +, Stumble Upon, YouTube

Q: How to increase traffic to my new, fancy website?
A: definitely Facebook, but also Twitter and Pinterest

Q: How to increase my brand exposure?
A: you need to engage people, no matter what Social Media platform you're using.

So, which one is it going to be? My personal advice is to have a Facebook page no matter what, just because 500 million people do and 250 million log-in every day. If you think "I am not a social media person" that doesn't matter, because your customers are and they will be looking for you on Social Media - and if they can't find you, they will forget you.

Let's now go over each Social Media Network for a brief overview of the pros and cons:

1. FACEBOOK
pros: most popular social network, offers business tools such as stats and insight views to track audience behaviour, allows to engage audience through contests and competitions.
cons: requires time and dedication in interacting with fans and posting regularly.

2. YOUTUBE
pros: videos are more likely to be shared and go viral, and ofte a 3 minute video can communicate and shape customer's behaviours a lot more effectively than months of written campaigning.
cons: videos must be of excellent quality (which can be expensive) and YouTube has no tools for tracking audience behaviour, making it impossible to see the conversion into sales.

3. TWITTER
pros: allows you to post more frequently and, because it is designed for instant posting, allows you to answer customers questions and complaints in real time. Uses hashtags to track conversations.
cons: there is a max. 140 characters limit on each post, so you need to be very good at saying what you want to say in a few words. Because Twitter is designed for frequent, short posting, it is easier for people to miss posts.

4. INSTAGRAM
pros: quite intuitive and easy to use, plus pictures can be a very effective message - especially for those in the food industry. Uses hashtags to track conversations.
cons: if you don't have a talent for photos, better leave it alone! If good pictures can bring lots of followers, bad pictures can send many away! Instagram doesn't allow for any text of company description.