Hashtags Or Connections?—Your Social Media Marketing Guide Done Right | Part 2 of 2

Social media is ever-changing, but with that change comes opportunity to come out on top for your business. In part two of our social media guide to the platforms you should be on, we discuss Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and why (or why not) it’s important to be active on them. Well, active enough that your business isn’t considered a desert landscape of random posts from years ago about one of your wacky Christmas parties. These platforms tend to be a bit trickier to get the most out of, so it’s worth your time to read to the end for some of the subtle nuances. If you missed part one, you can review our guide on Facebook and Instagram to learn how to optimize those platforms so you can become a social media guru and blast your business to the top of social media channel feeds.

Twitter

Twitter used to be for people who wanted to share every aspect of their day—and to be honest that really hasn’t changed much. However, it’s also become a place for many businesses to share promotions, business updates, and interact with their followers. In addition, Twitter upped their character limit not that long ago from 140 to 240 characters which doesn’t sound like much, but it does allow for people and businesses to be more articulate in their posts.

Reasons To Be On It:

• This one is a bit trickier. If you have photo or video content, this is an excellent platform to share your business’s updates, since, like Facebook, your content is likely to be shown more often.
• Twitter is also the birthplace of hashtags. You know, those phrases people use with the number sign in front of them like #worthit or #news. You can use this to engage with trending topics or create your own.
• This is also a great platform if your business has a unique voice. Wendy’s has particularly done well on Twitter holding no punches with their tweets. Like none. If your brand has a unique voice, Twitter is a good platform to be on.

Who It Caters To:

• Video production companies, photographers, video game companies, restaurants, and clothing businesses are all good examples of companies that can make the most of Twitter’s platform.

Worth Your Time?

This one will definitely vary by business for your social media marketing. If you can build a loyal following, and find people are often engaging with your posts or “retweeting” them, stay on Twitter. However, if you’re getting little engagement from followers, and your follower count isn’t growing, evaluate your content and see if you need to make changes. Bear in mind that Twitter typically has a younger following so cater your posts toward the 18-34 year old demographic. If you’re still struggling with results, but want to stay on the platform, consider handing your account over to a marketing agency who are well versed in social media.

LinkedIn

Like Facebook, but on a smaller scale, LinkedIn is rapidly becoming a “must have” for companies as well. Primarily, it’s a networking site and less of a social media platform focus, although it still retains the functionality to post text, photos, and video. However, it does offer plenty to smaller startups to reach out to specific people, businesses, or organizations.

Reasons To Be On It:

• While it’s not as crucial as Facebook to have a presence on LinkedIn, it’s still important to maintain as an account, as it’s seen as a more “professional” version of Facebook.
• It’s a great place to share business updates. For example, new office location openings, client satisfaction pictures and posts, events your company will be at, and news about content you’ve made available on your website.
• It’s great for posting jobs and hiring new talent. Much of LinkedIn’s platform initially had a human resources focus making it easy to hire new employees and that still applies today.

Who It Caters To:

• Mainly small businesses and people looking for a job are the target demographic for LinkedIn. It’s also great for businesses frequenting trade shows or other events as it provides an easy way to connect with people interested in working for your company or wanting to do business with you. This makes it perfect for a lot of the start-ups in Kelowna for their social media marketing.

Worth Your Time?

• While it’s worth it to set up a profile on LinkedIn to show off your company, medium to large companies may find that other than setting up a basic company page it likely won’t produce the results they’re looking for. If your business has a recent position open, it’s not a bad idea to post the job for potential hires. For freelancers, this is a great place to carve out your name, and doesn’t require constant posting to be considered “active” on the platform as much as Instagram or Facebook do. Similar to Twitter, LinkedIn success will vary by business, but creating a good profile for people to search out is a good idea to at least draw in passive results. If you want to be more active on the platform, a marketing agency can help you refine your LinkedIn voice to better engage your followers.

YouTube

If Facebook is the Internet’s oldest brother that’s always going through your stuff and showing it off to people you don’t know, YouTube would be the second oldest who gives poor recommendations for stuff you watched once. With that being said, YouTube is a platform that’s a slow journey to success. Quality videos here are important to stand out; while the platform initially catered to community work and video views, now it’s geared much more to viewing retention, and high-quality cinematography and sound. That’s not to say shorter videos can’t succeed, but in terms of YouTube SEO, they typically aren’t favoured as often.

We go over how to succeed on YouTube in 2018 in more detail in a previous blog post if you want a more extensive look into improving views and subscribers.

Reasons To Be On It:

• There’s a reason people flock to YouTube to make money—in a lot of ways YouTubers have become as popular as celebrities. If your account reaches 1000 subscribers, you’re also able to monetize your videos with ads. It’s important to have a specific demographic in mind when you’re creating videos from the 1000 subscriber point and on since advertisers want to deliver ads to the most relevant demographic. Target your content like you target your audience.
• YouTube is also like free TV which is why people spend so much time watching videos on it. If your business is easy to highlight through video, you absolutely should be on YouTube. You’re able to easily build a following with your work and it even has the potential to go “viral” if your content is interesting or engaging enough to many people.
• If you work with video games in any way, this is the platform you need to be on. Gaming has exploded in popularity particularly with online video, and people enjoy being able to watch someone play games they are interested in, and learn more about upcoming ones.

Who It Caters To:

• People who are able to upload content on a semi-regular basis. Notice I said “people” not “businesses”; YouTube is a bit strange when it comes to a business presence. The platform doesn’t quite jive with the social media identity of many companies. Those it does cater to are the people invested into making their brand exclusively on YouTube to become known as a YouTuber. If your company isn’t focused on making longer video content, and your employees are about as comfortable as a worm on a hot sidewalk in front of a camera, YouTube isn’t for you.

Worth Your Time?

• For those interested in making a career out of video work, this is absolutely the site to do it on. However, for most businesses, YouTube isn’t worth your time. Employees need to feel comfortable being in front of, and talking to, a camera consistently, and content needs to be original and creative to stand out. The platform isn’t easy to break into and it can be challenging to build a following to a point where it’s worth maintaining. Not least of all, video content needs to be good as much as possible. While you don’t need to invest in a full production set, quality audio equipment needs to be a priority. The cost of getting set up for YouTube can be a sizeable investment of both time and money and by that reasoning alone it’s important to really sit down and consider if YouTube is a platform you really need to be on. For most, the answer will be no.

The new year is sure to bring many changes to the social media world, but these guides hold true for the meantime to get started on your 2019 social media goals. Keep an eye on our blog for any new social media opportunities and trends that arise throughout the year.