Starting or growing your business in 2020? You might want to read on...
What a year it's been so far! The new decade has certainly made it's mark and it's time your business did too. Social media in today's world can make or break business. It's how many of us determine things such as the authenticity, values and integrity of a brand.
Before you rush out and start snapping pictures for your Facebook page, let's look at the facts surrounding social media use. Let's take the estimated monthly user figures for the 'big four' social platforms:
Facebook - 2.5 billion
Instagram - 1 billion
Twitter - 330 million
Snapchat - 46 million
What does this mean for your business? Firstly it's not quite as clean cut as just focusing on the biggest user count (Facebook). The reason being is that whilst you could gain more reach on this platform, it might not be relevant. What we mean by this is that you need to establish your target audience carefully. For example, Facebook may be seeing a decline in the teenage audience as the 13-17 year old range saw a 2.6% decrease when compared to Q2 in 2019. Whilst this percentage doesn't seem much to write home about, it's important as in perspective that equates to a loss of just over 72 million users - more than the entire monthly user base of Snapchat! In short, if you're selling the next teen craze, it's probably time to asses what platform will create the opportunity for the highest return on investment, both in terms of your time and cash. Another example of this is the fact that only 5% of Instagram users are in the 55+ age bracket, meaning that if you're promoting the new La-Z-Boy chair, your efforts might be best placed elsewhere.
Let's look at one of the newest forms of social media marketing - stories. Both Instagram and Snapchat have a very similar feature which in essence broadcasts imagery to followers for 24 hours. In fact, the feature is so popular on Instagram that 500 million users post to their 'story' each day. Snapchat isn't too far behind with over 400 million 'stories' created every day. So, what's the point? Using stories, in our opinion, is a great way to add some personification to your brand. Keeping your strategic campaigns for the feed means that you can interact with your followers and spark some emotion - perhaps showing off your team or snapping some more nonchalant pictures of your business makes your audience feel as if they're gaining more of an insight into the people behind the logo. We've previously worked with a Hotel group who had their receptionists snap 'in the moment' images and videos around the ground which they could then use on stories to show the 'human' element of the business. It was a great way to keep their guests informed, intrigued and entertained.
At Dimension, we've found that Twitter's place in all of this has somewhat changed over the years. I remember when the platform first launched, it was the go-to for everyone from teenagers to CEO's. Now, it seems that Twitter (in our opinion) goes hand in hand with services such as LinkedIn. Why? Because U.S. Twitter users tend to be younger, have more education and more income than the general population. This tends to point towards a user base which are most likely to present a more conservative and professional profile on the platform. This could in turn present an interesting situation for marketing your business. On the one hand, you may find that it's a perfect fit for your target audience (for example, if you were a luxury clothes brand), however, if a large percentage of that audience are seeing your content on Twitter, they may be less inclined to interact if they were to deem it 'inappropriate' or 'out of line' with their professional persona. It's an interesting area which many people will have views on, however we have found that using Twitter for content such as business news and updates seems to be more fitting of the platform in 2020.
In conclusion, there is no easy way to promote your business on social media. Sometimes the best way is some good old-fashioned trial and error, that will soon help you to hone in on your focus areas and platforms. Having an active social media presence could generate leads and traffic from sites and platforms that you never would have expected. However, having an in-active social media profile could actually work against you for those reason we mentioned at the start - social profiles go a long way to help customers determine you authenticity, values and integrity.
If you're looking to promote your business across the various social media platforms but you're unsure that you have the resources to take the internet by storm, why not see how we might be able to take your business to the next level.
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