If your business has yet to tap into social media to accomplish essentials such as supporting customer service, promoting your products and/or services, engaging your community and ultimately building your brand, you’re missing out on a lot of potential.
While most of the big brands, with their extensive resources, have already established social media presences on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like, small business owners may find it difficult to devote the necessary time to create and manage content on this new medium.
With the help of a strategic plan and good marketing sense, any business can successfully set up and manage a social media presence. The key for those with little time to devote to social media is to discover which sites are most beneficial in relation to ones customer base and business model.
The following infographic from Purolator is designed to help you decide which social networks are right for you.
[Click here for full size version]
Brad Patterson
Nice infographic and a great launching pad for those getting started. Success in social media certainly has a lot to do with your client base and then the down-to-earth (and strategic) way you interact with them.
With so many social media site options it can be so complicated for small businesses to make the most of them. My advice is don’t jump on every social media bandwagon – spend time where your customers are… if you are B2B you may not necessarily need to be on Facebook, etc. It really is *OK* to not be on all of them 😉
Ti Roberts
Great infographic, David. It’s really important to test and gauge where your audience is and where you have the highest potential to drive the most traffic.
If you’re just getting into your market, one thing that you can do is check out the traffic sources of your competitors. You can do this by typing their domain name into Alexa.com and clicking on the “Clickstream” tab. This will show you the top 10 traffic sources for the website. Whichever social media platform you see is sending them the most traffic, that’s where you want to focus your efforts because that’s where your audience is.
Ti
It’s all about connecting with your target audience. If you have a niche interest then seek out those communities. If you’re looking for the widest audience possible, facebook probably works best.
I think FB and Twitter are absolute musts. The others are good, and it certainly can’t hurt to have them, but I’m always shocked when I see a business isn’t on Twitter. Such a missed opportunity.
Don Grgic
Interesting. This is a great introduction and explanation to the main players in the social media arena, however I find it funny sharing as the people who need to see it most aren’t anywhere to be found in the social media space.
Martin Lindeskog
One way of answering the question “Which Social Network Is Right For Your Business”: Where are you customers spending their time? Which social network is most popular by your ambassadors? I think you should add your own hub (e.g., blog) with content material into the mix.
I think facebook is the default choice for any type of business, but I wouldn’t discredit twitter either.