discussion week 9 blog on social media candle business

Invest in a smart mix of channels

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- You need to be active on every social network. We've all heard that before, but that statement is a myth and also bad advice. The right approach to social media is investing in a smart mix of channels as opposed to trying to be everywhere with no cohesive strategy. As a part of your social media strategy, you want to make informed decisions about which channels make the most sense for your organization to use to reach your customers. The reason your choices are so important here is because having an impact on a social network and driving business value from your presence there requires a serious investment of time and resources. You don't want to waste your limited bandwidth on maintaining the wrong social networks. Instead, you should focus on selecting ones that are best suited to help you successfully achieve your goals, so what does investing in a smart mix of channels look like? It depends on your business. I once worked with a chain of auto repair shops and their mix of social channels consisted of being active on Facebook, Yelp, Nextdoor, and Instagram. This mix made sense for them, as these channels align with their customer base of local car owners ages 25 to 55 interested in reading reviews about the shop's repair services. While every organization will focus on its own unique mix of channels, the three part process for choosing the right social networks is similar for everyone. First, research a channel's audience to determine if your customers are actually active there. Most of the social networks provide data on their own audience's demographics in terms of size, composition, and their activity level on the platform, which you should reference. This research will help reveal high-level insights about these social networks, like how Snapchat and TikTok, for example, have younger audiences under 25 years old. Secondly, review research studies about social media provided by high-quality, third party sources like eMarketer, Pew Research, Social Media Examiner, and Business Insider Intelligence. These organizations and others provide data, trends, and analysis on how consumers and businesses use social media and the most common demographics on each of these networks. For instance, Pew Research just released a report on the usage of different social media networks, indicating Facebook and YouTube are the most widely used by adults in the U.S. Lastly, understanding what nuances make each social network distinct will help your company choose the right destination for communicating with your customers. Understanding what types of content are most often shared per channel, each platform's specific features, and the psychology of a channel's user base can help guide your decisions. You can determine these specifics by exploring channels first-hand, monitoring patterns in behavior, the types of topics most often covered, and more. It's up to you to mix research with experience to learn where it's most beneficial for your organization to spend its time on social media.

The most widely used social networks

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- Marketing has always been about creating demand for something by cleverly attracting and keeping people's attention. You are more likely to succeed as a marketer when you closely monitor where your customers are focusing their attention, and then adapt your efforts to reach them on those channels. A powerful way to earn the attention of your customers is by communicating on the most popular social networks with the largest active audiences and the widest range of business use cases. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube should be top considerations when choosing which channels are right for you because of their high number of monthly active users. Choosing a social network with a large audience is crucial because it is more likely that a significant portion of your customer base is active on at least a few of these channels. And these more widely used social networks tend to offer a broader range of use cases, as you can often communicate with people in multiple ways by sharing different types of content. Let's go down the list and define these channels by highlighting what makes them distinct for businesses using them to connect with their customers. Facebook is a good starting point. It is the most widely known and largest social network, with 2.4 billion monthly active users, and it has a wide variety of features and use cases. A business can use Facebook to share text, video, images, live video and stories, as well as use its range of advertising options to effectively target any demographic on the platform. Next is Instagram. Owned by Facebook, and arguably the most popular social media app currently available, it's main user base is a community focused on sharing visual content like images, short form and long form videos. It's considered the online mall of today's generation. According to Instagram, 60% of people surveyed say they find new products there. This is because businesses are able to share and market their offerings visually. Let's move on to Twitter. Referred to as society's megaphone, Twitter is a social messaging service where users are limited to 280 characters of text to be reposted amongst its audience. As a vital, up-to-the-minute news source for the world's current events, the platform is best used by businesses to join trending conversations and communicate with customers one-to-one. Another major social channel is LinkedIn, which is a professional network for users looking to connect with industry folks, showcase their expertise and improve their professional skills. Owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn is a business-focused platform for companies looking to target other businesses for recruiting qualified talent and highlighting a company's work culture. Last but not least is YouTube, which is the Google-owned platform for watching videos online from consumers, businesses and influencers, covering every subject from makeup to movies. Businesses can launch a YouTube channel to share their own programming and promote their offerings with ads before, during or after a popular video is played on the platform. Keep these top-tier social networks in mind as you organize your mix of channels aimed at earning your customers' attention where they're most active.

Messaging and chat-based networks

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- As more interactions on social media have gone from public to private, and more people access these platforms from their phones, social media marketers must find new and clever ways to appeal to a mobile audience. Chat and messaging-based social media networks must be a key part of a company's marketing mix to reach people where they engage privately with their closest circles. Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Snapchat are popular chat-based social media apps where consumers communicate in short messages, one-to-one, or in small group chats similar to SMS texting on mobile devices. Unlike texting, these platforms are free to use, available internationally, provide a range of features, sometimes have stronger security, and offer a private space for family and friends to connect as long as there is an internet connection. Due to their popularity, many organizations are already active on these apps, especially because these social networks tend to have a particularly active user base. Like how U.S. consumers on WhatsApp are active on the chat app for two minutes on average each time they use it to communicate. Keeping this level of engagement in mind, companies are using these messaging apps in a variety of productive ways to achieve their marketing goals. First off, Facebook Messenger is commonly used by businesses to serve relevant advertising to users by highlighting ads in a person's inbox. Another business use case of Messenger is having it act as an alternative to an email newsletter by having customers opt in to receiving messages from organizations they want to hear from. One final popular use case of Messenger and a few other chat apps is offering customer service either live, by using canned responses, or with chat bots automating different concierge experiences like booking a haircut. Secondly, there's WhatsApp. WhatsApp is also owned by Facebook and it's frequently used by small businesses to provide customer service support at scale either in real time or with automated responses. Soon, advertisers will be able to serve ads within a WhatsApp status which are similar to the idea of Instagram Stories or Snapchat Snaps that disappear in 24 hours. Snapchat is unique compared to the other messaging apps in that there's original content series on the platform in the Discover section where brands actively advertise. Companies usually advertise with short video ads in-between the Snaps a person is viewing from their friends or other accounts they follow and interact with. To get the attention of the app's younger user base, brands often sponsor the platform's unique features by releasing their own lenses and filters in addition to using Snap and Story ads. It is important to note that unlike the other messaging apps, organizations don't provide customer service on Snapchat since the content shared there expires. Keep these messaging-based social networks in mind as more conversations move from public to private channels and your organization adapts to be where your audience is active.

Niche social networks to consider

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- The point in being active on a mix of social channels is to diversify your investments, kind of like setting up a mutual fund, where the risk is reduced since you're buying into multiple stocks. It's helpful to make informed investments in niche social networks, to reach your audience in places where there's less competition and more opportunities to make an impact. A niche social network is a platform where a big audience is active, but there's not likely as large of a user base compared to Facebook, Twitter, or another more mainstream social channel. Tik Tok, Pinterest and Yelp are examples of important niche social networks businesses should consider being active on to reach a specific type of customer. These networks often cater to a particular demographic as opposed to the mainstream channels that pretty much reach everybody. For example, Tik Tok is very popular among teenagers, Yelp is great for reaching a local or regional audience and Pinterest is best used to reach people looking for inspirational visuals. In addition to a smaller audience, these channels often have a more specific use case for consumers and businesses which is why they have smaller audiences. Since these networks aren't trying to be everything to everyone, it is to your advantage to get active on niche social networks as there's less noise from other advertisers. In some cases, if you're an early adopter of a new, growing social network, then you might be able to see a significant return in terms of the amount of attention you receive if it takes off. With that said, here's a quick breakdown of some of the noteworthy niche social networks to be thinking about. Pinterest, arguably the largest niche platform, is a visual search engine to get product and design recommendations, especially when planning a wedding or taking on an interior design project. Another is Tik Tok, it's a place where users share and consume short videos of a few seconds that are typically preplanned to tell a story or align with a popular challenge that's trending. Next is Quora, a question and answer focused social network where anyone can share a question publicly and then experts on the topic chime in to answer from their perspective. I'd also recommend being aware of Tumblr and Medium, which are both a mix between a social network and a blogging platform for producing and sharing different types of messaging. Reddit is another networking take, note of that it's a news aggregator where its users share links on various topics, encouraging up votes and sometimes passionate discussions from others. And lastly, two additional niche social networks worth considering are Yelp and GIPHY. Yelp is a destination for people to leave reviews about restaurants and local businesses, while GIPHY is a database and a search engine for GIFs and other looping video formats. It's time to make a strategic investment in niche social networks, as there's an opportunity to earn a major payout in attention.