Everyone uses Social Media these days, how can you afford not to? Some work better than others, and it can depend on what type of business you have or what niche your are trying to cater to.
The Social Media networks that work well for some don’t necessarily work for others. In this article I am going to discuss the ones that I use and how they have impacted me.
Four Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself
When using social media marketing there are a few questions you should ask yourself.
- Where is my audiene?
- Where are they most active?
- Were are they searching?
- Which social media sites are right for me?
You need to determine who your audience is. Who do you want to buy your products? These are the people you are wanting to attract to your blog.
Find out which social media network these people are most active on. It could be one, two, or many. Most people may have a Facebook account. They might also have a Twitter account, Pinterest and so on. You want to be active on as many social sites as you can without killing yourself.
Your audience could be searching anywhere, but odds are, they are using Google, as it is the most widly known. This being known, you may want to include Google+ as one of your social media sites.
Your business niche comes into play now. What information are you providing, in what niche, to your customers to attact them to your blog?
Someone my tell you to join a particular site as it works for them, but don’t be fooled by this. [clickToTweet tweet=”It takes a lot of time to put these sites all together and even more time consuming to maintain” quote=”It takes a lot of time to put these sites all together and even more time consuming to maintain”].
So, unless you have someone that can just do the social media marketing for you, I would not waste a lot of time on the ones that don’t historically work for you.
You could work on one at a time. For example, for me, I gave Facebook a pretty good shot. I knew they were the ones with the biggest users, so I though, largest audience, but Facebook didn’t turn out to well for me. Thats ok, it still could work for you.
My Four Social Media Networks
There are four social media networks that I use on a regular basis, and if you were to you go to my website, @robswebdesign.net, you would see the links to follow me to those sites.
First would be Facebook. It is not my best one for social media traffic, but it has to be listed, as it is one of the top four Social Media sites according to Statistic Brain Research Institute. According to them, Facebook has over 1.3 billion users, and nearly half of these users are active everyday. So, again its hard to ignore those numbers.
I personally have not done that well on Facebook. I think it could just be the niche that I am in, but other businesses have done well, so I think you have to put yourself out there on Facebook and just see what happens. Some of your customers will probably be on Facebook, so you need to have that exposure.
Google+
Second would be Google+. I personally believe that Google+ is a much better network for businesses. I mean, if nothing else, they are owned by Google, and anything that gets posted to Google+ will show up higher in the search results.
I remember reading somewhere about a comparison between Facebook and Google+, and it stated that you wanted to use Facebook to connect with people you already knew, like friends and family. But, with Google+ you are trying to connect with people you don’t know yet.
And I can attest to the fact of meeting new people with Google+. I have made a ton of more connections with Google+ than with Facebook. My engagements have been much higher as well.
I know there are a lot of changes going on right and it seems like there is some uncertainly at Google+. But I think they will come out of it stronger than ever.
As of this writing, Google+ was the second largest social media network with over 359 million active users. Obviously, not as big as Facebook, but I don’t necessarly believe that more users equal more engagement. And thats really what it’s all about these days. How much engagement you have on your social sites. I can tell you, for me, I get the most engagement on Google+ and Twitter.
This leads me into the next social network that I use, Twitter. It comes in third with 215 million active users.
I was not a big fan of Twitter until recently. I just never understood how it worked before. But now I can already see the potential for my business with Twitter.
To make Twitter work, you have to tweet all the time. What this means is that you have to tweet almost every half hour, 24 hours a day. There is so much information that goes through the Twitter feed, that your tweet could be missed, hence the need for tweeting all the time so that someone may eventually see your tweets.
I have to admit that tweeting every half-hour is pretty aggressive, but at least tweeting on a regular basis, several times a day, will get you noticed, and also get you more follower’s.
Fourthly, the last social network that I use in Pinterest. As of today, I have over two thousand pins on 38 boards. Pinterest has about 20 million active users.
According to an eariler study, Pinterest became a more sharing platform than email. Earlier in its life, Pinterest got tagged with being a social platform for women. At first that was true, but now women account for only half of the users on Pinterest.
I know the first time I found Pinterest, and starting “pinning,” I was amazed that how addictive it was. Once I did all the things that is recommended to set up your Pinterest account, I started pinning other peoples pins and it really took off. I sicnificantly increased traffic to my blog by using Pinterest.
Well there you have it. The four social media networks that use:
- Google+
I am eventually going to start using YouTube. I am just not there yet in my stage of development of my blog. I plan to start making video tutorials, and that is when I will start using YouTube.
What Social Media Networks Do You Use?
I hope you enjoyed this article about the Social Media networks that I use. I just want to say, that these four that I mentioned, are the ones that I decided to use personally.
The ones you use may be similar, or different. You have to find and use the ones that work for you. There are a lot of others out there, I just decided to focus my energies on these four.
What Social Media Networks do you use? Which are your favorites? I would love to hear about them in the comments section below.
Robin McDonald
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I am using Facebook, Google+ and StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon is the best I have seen. Google+ is turning out to be great in terms of getting +1s.
Hey Manav,
Thanks, for stopping by my blog.
Facebook and Google+ are the big ones. Twitter is great too. I have had my most success with Twitter.
I am not a big fan of StumbleUpon, just never seen much traffic from it. And of course I am trying to keep my social networks down to a minimum, as social media can be very time consuming.
Thanks for commenting Manav and I hope you have a great week!
Robin McDonald recently posted…11 Things You Must Do Before Re-Designing Your WordPress Website
Thanks Rob!
I’m so glad you mentioned, that just because one particular expert had or has success with
one particular social media platform, that doesn’t automatically mean the next person will!
That’s really putting advice in it’s proper perspective! Still in all, you’ve offered an excellent list
of potential social media platforms to be extremely active on!
And just for the record, you mentioned wanting to (at some point) get your youtube video marketing
strategies going!
With your advanced knowledge about the inner workings of WordPress and
the advanced coding and which plugins to use and not use etc!
You’ve literally got a ton of evergreen expertise to share! And you definitely need to start creating some short 2-5 minute “how to” videos and regularly posting them on youtube.
And just be sure at the end of each video, you use some sort of “Call to Action” (CTA) and direct them back to your blog and or a separate lead capture page.
Offering them some powerful free special report and or “how to” video series of some kind!
I currently have 427 videos (and counting) and they definitely continuously help drive free targeted traffic to my blog and my lead capture page!
Great job Rob! I found your excellent site by way of my Coach & Mentor Adrienne Smith and I’m so glad I did! I’m definitely learning a lot!
Hello again Mark,
Thanks for the kind words. I do plan eventually to start putting together some video tutorials and I hope they will be helpful as well. Just got to find the time to do it. Oh, well that’s in my next development phase.
Glad to hear you have already started putting videos together. They should help you tremendously.
Thanks again for commenting and have a good weekend!
Hi Rob,
my favorites are Facebook and Twitter. I have seen several times that some post shared on G+ ranking in Google SERP. Due to this reason, I always share my post on G+ too. I am not active on Pinterest as do not get much time to be active on it.
I would like to suggest Buffer to share posts on most of the popular social media. It helps me a lot. Hope you are already using it.
Have a great day bro…
Nikhil recently posted…How to Get Your Blog Noticed by Influential Bloggers
Hi Nikhil, and thanks for the comments. Glad to hear your favorites are FaceBook and Twitter.
I am using Twitter more and more lately, but seems that FaceBook, for me, has not taken off yet.
I am also using Buffer, but not sure if that is really a social media network, it is more of a tool to manage social media. I currently use it to schedule my Twitter posts.
Thanks again, and will be talking to you soon.
I love to stay connected on Facebook and Twitter . Because Facebook is one of the largest social networking website where we can connect with all our family and business people .
On other hand Twitter , twitter is also a great social networking site and as well as micro blogging site and now they are providing feature to show all tweets on Google and it is increasing my social presence with Search engine ranking .
Thanks for Share 🙂
Thanks for your comments Sanu. Glad you enjoyed the article, and glad to hear you are doing well on Google and Twitter.
I have just recently started to build up my presence on Twitter, and I am finding that it is really a great tool to promote my business.
Talk to you later.
Hello Rob!
My favorite social media networks for my blog and my business site are Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, and Triberr (does that one count?). I use Google+ for my blog and it doesn’t seem to generate traffic or new readers. With my new business site, I will make attempts to use G+ more in hopes of grabbing the attention of a different crowd. I share to Pinterest, but that application never caught on with me, along with Instagram. I do love Flipboard so if you haven’t tried it, you might want to take a peek in there.
Thank you for sharing your favorites and allowing us to share ours. Hope you’re having a great Wednesday!
Brenda
Brenda Pace recently posted…A Day in the Life of a #Freelancer
Hey Brenda,
Thanks for the comments. Google+ seems to be a little different than most. I use it because I was told by numerous people that it is good for SEO, as lets face it, its Google and they have a tendency to favor their posts over others. I have found with Google+ that you have to do a lot of sharing of other peoples posts, but also give your own little spin on things.
Pinterest, for me, what about discovery. I started pinning, and then it seem to start bringing more traffic to my site. You do have to set up a lot of content on Pinterest though, to make it work. It can be time consuming at first. I had to choose between Pinterest and Instragram, which for me, is one that I don’t understand.
Thanks again for your comments!
Hey Brenda and thanks for the comments. I am sorry it took so long to respond as for some reason your comment went to my spam folder. I will definitely have to start watching it from now on.
Thanks for letting me know which social media networks you use and are experiencing success with. I think it helps to hear other’s experiences with the different social media networks, as we all can have different experiences with them.
I do love Triberr and am starting to get the hang of it, although it can be a challenge at times.
Thanks again, and talk to you later.
Hey Rob,
Great share here and I use three of the ones you do. I have an account on Pinterest but am just not active. I’ve recently started using LinkedIn more because I’ve found a great group of people that I want to connect with. They aren’t as social over there but I’ve made some darn good contacts so it’s been fun.
I think you do need to find where your audience is though but also enjoy the platform you’re on. I mean if it’s not enjoyable then you’re really not going to want to be on there much.
Thanks for sharing this with us and I hope we’re connected on them all. I’ll have to go and see now.
You have a great week.
~Adrienne
Adrienne recently posted…Magical Monday: Irresistible Content, Gifyt, Influencer, CTA Skin
Hey Adrienne,
Linkedin, to me, has always been more for networking from a personal perspective. Never really thought of using it for business. But a lot of people do, so I may have to revisit it later.
I agree with you that which ever ones you use, it needs to be enjoyable for you, as well as, a little fun, maybe. I really like using Google+ because of the engagement, and meeting new people. You really can communicate with people on a global scale.
Again, thanks for the comments. Talk to you later!
Hi Rob,
Good one mate!
For me, it is Facebook + Twitter (only) at the moment. Too many just kills me and I find it really hard to leverage them.
Of course, I would try my best to involve at least a little on Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram to say the least. Oh yes! LinkedIn too 😀
Thanks for sharing and this is a good one indeed!
Hey Reginald,
Thanks for the comment. Its good to hear what social media networks you are using.
I agree with you and fully understand your involvement only with Facebook and Twitter. Its so easy to get overwhelmed with all the social medial networks out there. I think you have to pick a few, that you can handle, and work on those, otherwise it can be really time consuming.
I use Linkedin too, but not for business, just hadn’t figure it out there yet.
Thanks again for the comments. Talk to you later.
I currently use Instagram, Twitter, and Google+ the most, and Facebook infrequently. I don’t get much traffic from Pinterest, so I mostly just use it for personal interest pins and for sharing my friends’ posts. Twitter & G+ generate the most traffic for me, but I really enjoy using Instagram.
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Hey Myra,
I agree with you about Twitter and Google+ as I am seeing my biggest traffic sources from them. Yes Pinterest is great just for collecting stuff for later. That is originally what go me started with it.
Talk to you later.