Back to Basics: The Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

As mentioned in our “Social Media’s Importance in Your Business” article, social media allows you to expand your audience, improve customer service, establish trust with customers and increase your organic search engine rankings. As social media becomes increasingly important for business, you may be trying to decide which platform is the best for you. While it is important to cultivate as many avenues for customer engagement as possible, it is even more important to start with the platform(s) that would most align with your business needs.

Facebook: By using Facebook your company is able to answer any questions via messages or comments. As an incentive, you may offer specials for users that like your page or provide reviews. Users tend to use Facebook to look up a company and will follow brands they’re loyal to. Facebook now allows the ability to leave up to 5-star reviews which many use when doing their research for a certain product or service.

Twitter: Twitter allows you to offer easy customer support (in 140 characters or less) or via direct messages. Stay up to date on specific trends in the industry and drive traffic to specific pages on you website. Don’t let the limited character count sway you from not using this platform. Utilizing url link shortners (such as bit.ly or goo.gl) allows you to save on character count space.

G+: Before Google+ for businesses, Google Places was extremely limited on what you would be able to do. The days of only being able to add business hours, categories, contact information and location are long over. With Google+, businesses are able to add photos of their business, services, products and location. Reviews left by customers are not able to be removed, however you can reply to them which would show other potential customers that you are involved in your customer service.

LinkedIn: This platform is mostly for business to business services. With LinkedIn your business is able to improve its reputation, create visibility to businesses and generate leads.

Instagram: Instagram is perfect for businesses selling products or services by using photos. While building your portfolio with photos or videos (up to 60 seconds), create your own brand hashtags and engage with your following. Tip: Add your hashtags in the first comment of your post and keep your photo descriptions clutter-free!

For more information on this topic, read our post on why social media is important to your business. And follow us on our social media to keep up to date with our newest content!