What are the best Social Media platforms?

Your platform of choice inherently depends on who you are trying to market to. If the goal is to reach professionals, platforms like LinkedIn ought to be at the top of your list. If you need to reach the youth perhaps Twitter should be the top platform of choice.

There is little need to have a presence on all platforms. In fact, it does not make economic sense to have a presence on all platforms. Choosing the 2 – 5 platforms that meet your business needs ought to be sufficient. The first task should be figuring out what platforms your target customer uses. Once this information is known, then you can choose the platforms to market on.

Personal Branding for the Web

This week I have been looking more closely at how people and companies present themselves online. There may be truth to the correlation between an online personality and the person’s actual personality. Gregarious people are far more likely to tweet or update Facebook, Pinterest, etc. incessantly.

One might argue that there has to be an exception to this rule. Not all web personas are similar to real personas; unless of course the people in question have not learned to use the web platforms.

Regardless, on the web it is important to be a true representation of yourself as others may use web information to discover that you are a suitable match for job posts, volunteer efforts, and even recreation.

Customer Engagement. They like me, they like me not…

Customer engagement success is not based on the number of ‘Likes’ on a Facebook page. The ‘Like’ on a Facebook page may be for the photo or text displayed not for actual endorsement of products and services. Far better proofs of customer engagement are reviews and testimonials.

For companies to succeed at customer engagement, they need to provide customers with products and services so good that the customers feel the need to leave positive feedback. And when the feedback is provided, the companies should show gratitude for it. In addition, companies should provide tips on how to use their products and services to meet the obvious needs and perhaps some tips on solutions for needs that may be less obvious.

Regardless of the number of ‘Likes’ on a Facebook page, the amount of profit in the company bank account is a better proof success than a ‘Thumbs Up’ sign. Whether I like it or not, Facebook activity is not synonymous with customer engagement.

Social Media Content

This week I was thinking about Social Media content and advertising. While many companies do a good job of executing understandable campaigns, there are some campaigns that place all their bets on humor and innuendos.

I searched the web for examples of campaigns that had a clear focus and others that did not. For the vague campaigns I did find myself laughing. But after I stopped laughing I forgot what brand I was looking at and had to scroll to remind myself. It was refreshing to read Jasmine Henry’s article on 12 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy With Real Science.

Given the realities of the need for a Return on Investment I suppose every marketing department does what it must to succeed.