One of the most exciting aspects of a social marketers job is discovering new tools that will make their lives easier and their results better. Each social platform has its own set of tools and choosing which ones to use and which ones to ignore is all part of the strategy. Experimenting with these tools and their varying options is the best way to see which ones work for you as a digital marketer.
As I regularly talk about in my blog posts, social media for business is becoming an ever essential aspect of running a successful business. Today I am going to discuss how best to choose the appropriate platform for the purpose of your business. Having a strong and effective presence on a social media platform that does not best serve your needs is not an effective use of your time or resources.
Before we discuss how to find the correct platform or platforms for your business, let us first touch quickly on a few key concepts that you should always pay attention to.
Pinterest is inching ever closer to its vision of allowing users to purchase products directly on the site. The benefits that this will bring to both Pinterest and businesses who utilise the platform for advertising are huge. The web giant currently has over 70 million active users, many of which come to the site for inspiration and ideas in regards to things they are contemplating purchasing.
At the beginning of July this year, Pinterest head of partnerships, Tim Kendall, presented their plans at the MIT Emtech Digital Conference. His presentation allowed those in attendance to gain a better understanding of how this service would work and be implemented.
These days the majority of business owners understand the potential benefits of a solid social media presence. It has become increasingly common for businesses to hire someone to manage their social media activity in-house rather than outsourcing it to professional agencies. When social media is approached in this way it opens up far greater possibilities for the entire company to work together and for creativity to flow.
When it comes to the ROI of social media activities, it is fair to say that different companies have of course experienced varied rates of success. Many companies are now gaining a large portion of their business from customers they have accrued through social media. Similarly, many companies are investing a lot of time and resources into social marketing without reaping the rewards.
This visual discovery and storage website has experienced rapid development recently and is still only five years since its birth at the hands of Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp and Ben Silbermann. Pinterest has evolved from a closed beta site, available to just 5,000 users initially, to a globally accessible site that was listed by Time Magazine in the ’50 Best Websites’ list. Pinterest now has over 300 employees.
By using pinboards, users are able to save images that they find on the web as well as images they have stored on their own devices. Other users are then able to discover these images and save them to their own pinboards. If an image is on the internet then it is possible to ‘pin it’ to Pinterest. There is now the option to share these pins on Facebook and Twitter as they are added to boards.
The social media boom has brought customers closer to businesses than ever before. If you have purchased a faulty product, want to complain about a service or simply want some advice or technical assistance with something you’ve bought, then having access to somebody who works in this department is essential. However, historically this hasn’t always been an easy process which has inevitably left many people frustrated. Thanks to our ever-evolving digital era, it’s now possible to have real-time conversations online with the relevant person of a company. That’s a dramatic change from writing letters or spending a large amount of time on hold to reach someone by telephone.
Though the reliance on brick-and-mortar establishments is never likely to cease, the increasing prevalence of websites for company promotion is becoming hard to ignore.
The first port of call for many consumers and companies for information on any product or service is likely to be online. According to leading marketing experts, a huge 91% of adults using the internet are using search engines to find information. With statistics like this, it’s clear that having a web presence is extremely important for business success. Doing a bit of online PR can make revenues soar, simply because a company’s client base is extended to cover the entire globe. Anyone can access the company’s offerings with the click of a button, and this ease of access is proving to be the way of the future.
