Entri AdminEntrihub chats with Lesley Mallon from Think Social Media about the different social media platforms and how to find the right platform for your business.
Question 1: What are the different social media platforms?
Lesley: I would say the two biggest platforms are Facebook and LinkedIn. From a social point of view, Facebook is great it's great for small to medium businesses to get their brands exposed. From LinkedIn, it's a really great place to have your company CV or About your company. It is a very professional platform and also as company owners or people who are working for the company it's not only an online CV for yourself but it actually gives people an idea of who you are and who they might be dealing with; when they for instance go into a meeting or something along those lines. Then Twitter is also really large depending on what type of brand you have. Instagram is fast becoming one of the up-and-coming social media platforms especially with the younger generation- the Instagramming pictures and all of that hashtagging to death is something that people love on Instagram. But again, the different social media platforms not every brand needs to be on all the social media platforms or active on all the social media platforms. So, having a presence on those social media platforms is great but you don't have to be active if it's not something that's going to work for your brand or your company.
Question 2: How do you choose which platforms to be active on?
Lesley: Okay so, Facebook I think is very relevant for all companies. It's very big in South Africa. LinkedIn is also very relevant. Having your company information on both of those platforms is a great start. What I also suggest is at least putting your name on the other platforms. So, creating your tag for your company so that a) you might not use it but nobody else is going use your company name. What we do with a lot of clients is we do testing. We will be very active on Twitter and very active on Instagram and we'll see which platform gets the most interaction from people and then we'll concentrate on that. Not all companies need to be on Twitter. Twitter's a very high information, very quick. Anybody wants to know anything breaking news you go to Twitter to find out about that. For example a plumber- great to have a Facebook profile for their business where they give information maybe contacts. But tweeting for a plumber it's not particularly the best platform. Although being on Twitter is great because if anybody does want to get a hold of them they can. Instagram, again, choose your handle but make sure that people know that you're not active on Instagram. Again, I don't really know many plumbers that Instagram pictures of what they're doing so that's a that's a good example. One of the things that I can suggest is if you have a question maybe go talk to a social media expert and find out what platforms would work best for your company.
Question 3: How frequently do you need to post?
Lesley: So, this is one of the things that people I encountered quite a lot when I'm doing training with businesses who are starting out and they want you know their social media platforms to explode and go viral. The one mistake that people make is they forget about their social media platforms and then all of a sudden they'll be "oh my gosh I need to post something" and they post five things in a row. So, what happens is, as I always say to people, put yourself in your own shoes and look at your feed on your phone when you're looking through something. If all of a sudden you get five posts in a row from a company- what are you going to do? You're going to click on that little button at the top and you're going to say "hide from newsfeed." Once somebody has hidden you from a newsfeed none of your posts will ever go to that person again it's basically like somebody unliking your page. What you want to keep in mind is whenever you post on your social media platforms from a business point of view- think about the person that's going to be reading it. I always suggest to people three times a week for Facebook. It's great. Do different times so that you can see what time you get the most engagements, maybe early in the morning. If you are in the sporting world is a great time to post. If you're more towards the younger generation, later in the evening sort of like off after 19:30 that's also great. It also depends on the brand and doing a little bit of testing and seeing when you get the most engagement is obviously great. Twitter- I tweet twice a day. I tweet social media tips on all thing Socail M. It really does depend if you're going to be very active on Twitter. There's nothing wrong with tweeting 10 to 15 times a day but make sure it's relevant information. I like the term “spamming” because that's something that everybody hates- spam. Email spam it's the same thing with social media you don't want to spam the people that are trying to target with regards to your social media platforms
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