Which Platform Will Work For Your Brand?

There’s a big difference between social media platforms and the content they offer. This makes it a little more complicated when you try to minimize the amount of work you need to put into producing content for these platforms. What works on one platform doesn’t necessarily work on another platform.

TWITTER – Fun & Community

With Twitter there’s a lot you can do, it’s a text-first platform that allows for; photos, videos, polls, audio spaces, and much more. On Twitter you can do pretty much anything, brands do all sorts of things, for example, Wendy’s which is well known for its roasts and attitude. Fans love the beef between Wendy and other fast-food restaurants, and even other Twitter users. This type of content makes people enjoy the page, growing naturally from shares, and creating engagement ament in the comments

Other brands on Twitter like Pepsi are creating all types of different content on Twitter, photos, videos, and text posts, it’s a healthy mix of content for such a large company. But their strategy is a lot more in with the crowd. The content is targeted towards a younger generation, with promotions and text leaning towards the fun side. There’s a lot of content revolving around the brand and what’s going on, for example as of writing this post, it’s almost Super Bowl time, so Pepsi is pulling all the stops to promote their brand.

You want to make sure you go into this platform with a strategy, do some research around your niche, and learn how other brands or customers are engaging on Twitter, adapt your strategy to work with what’s proven to work and make it your own, add your brands' twist, that will separate you from everyone else.

Tips for growth:

- Focus on Text-based posts

- Engage with your audience (priority)

- Use images, but sprinkle video every so often if it’s appropriate

- Leverage Twitter Spaces, provide value to your core and strongest audience

Additional Resources:

-    https://business.twitter.com/en/basics/create-a-twitter-business-profile.html

-    https://www.quicksprout.com/twitter-engagement/

-    https://blog.hootsuite.com/smart-social-media-goals/

INSTAGRAM – Professionalism & Beauty

Instagram is that social media pretty much everyone has, some even have multiple accounts. On Instagram you’ll find content is a lot more polished and “perfect” and you’ll find there are a lot of content types that are brought into Instagram from other social platforms. (Some additions are more successful than others)

There’s a lot you can learn from the perfectionist brands on Instagram, luxury car brands are great for learning how to make your products stand out. Mercedes Benz, you can see highlights all types of their cars, in many ways and environments. Now you may be thinking “okay, but I’m not a car brand” well there’s still a lot you can learn from looking at their page. Just at first glance, the product is the priority in their case. How do you make the car look its best? Prioritize angles, environments, and DETAILS! If you’re showing off a product, make sure to show your craftsmanship and the details that will make customers enjoy your product more. Make your product sexy on Instagram.

Maybe you’re not a product company, maybe you should be focusing more on the experience your business provides to its customers. Target utilizes a lot of video posts. Reels are a great way to exponentially show your brand to many new potential customers. Entice users by showing why your brand is better to shop at or service is compared to others. Make the experience the priority and make content that will stick with users even when they don’t know it.

Additional Resources:

-    https://business.instagram.com

-    https://thepreviewapp.com/how-to-build-a-brand-on-instagram/

-    https://later.com/blog/brand-yourself-on-instagram/

TIKTOK – Natural Growth & Community

TikTok is still a relatively new platform compared to the other three included in this post. Small Business TikTok pages are doing a great job on TikTok, keeping it raw and original creates naturally a layer of audience and brand connection. The TikTok platform naturally encourages and favors engagement and interaction. The app makes it super easy to just start recording videos and adding special effects (that's pretty good) with ease.

TikTok accounts that's showcasing their growth and experience starting a business are getting a lot of support, while simply for videos during the growth stage is limitless, constantly sharing what you’re learning is helpful and interesting for others to watch. Users follow the journey by @jayhoovy while he tries to build a startup, he provides value while he is going and documenting the journey. Content like this creates a sense of interest and community related to the product or business as it grows…naturally. @thompsonferrier_nyc takes a candle business and shows his 150k+ audience just how fun you can make it to post tiktoks that help others learn and share your experiences running a candle business, make it worth the watch, make sure to post content that’s going to promote your brand in the background, while your provide value in the Entertain and Educate category.

When it comes to TikTok, don’t make ads and promos, keep it simple just make TikToks, your audience will naturally grow with you while you document your daily life as a business owner. If you’re unable to follow through with making content, it would be a good idea to hire a creator or have employees help make content about your products or services. Make sure to have fun with this, TikTok can be a blessing if done right. Find your Niche and create great content that will naturally grow the account within that group.

Additional Resources:

-    https://www.tiktok.com/business/en-US/blog/how-your-small-business-can-grow-with-tiktok

-    https://blog.iconosquare.com/10-tiktok-branding-strategies-to-grow-your-business/

FACEBOOK – Personable and Mashup of Tools

Everyone knows Facebook, it’s been around for a while now. Just because Facebook has been around for so long doesn’t mean that its value of it is gone. On Facebook video also plays a big role in the timeline of users. Facebook is a giant mashup of features, Live Streams, text posts, photos, videos, groups, stories, etc. Facebook has a ton of data on its users, so it’s nice for businesses that want to ensure they’re getting the best ROI on their time spent on the platform, ensuring their reaching the right targets, and conversions are tracked. Setting up and maintaining a Facebook page can ensure your brand has a presence on one of the biggest social platforms. Content that works on Facebook is more personable content that is relatable to users, this is where playing into memes can help more than on a platform like Twitter.

Additional Resources:

-    https://www.business.facebook.com

-    https://www.facebook.com/business/news/SMB-10-Ways

Know Your Content-Type

Different platforms have a twist on how you’d see some of the content, but there’s a fundamental content strategy that will ensure you’re knowing what type of content you need to produce. There are generally 3 types of content that will help you grow an audience on any social platform.

EDUCATE

This is one of the more popular content types, you’re creating content to educate your audience about something. Simple yes, but how do you go about creating content that’s supposed to educate someone? While creating content to educate, your goal is to produce content that’s appealing to the rationality of your audience.

Not only should you educate the audience about your products or services but give them some educational content that’ll help better them. Provide content that shares experiences and lessons that you’ve learned along the way.

ENTERTAIN

This is one of the more exciting types of content to produce and watch. Who doesn’t want to be entertained? Try to be creative with the content you produce, this is perfect for video. There are different types of content you can post without video to entertain, think memes, games, branded videos, viral trends, etc.

Following topical trends in your niche but twisting it to build onto it to make it work for your business is a great way to be timely and keep up with trends.

ENGAGE

This type of content is to create a community around your brand, engaging with your audience, whether it’s asking your audience to respond, in the comments or creating content specifically from what your audience is talking about. TikTok makes this super easy to create video content in direct response to a comment. You can even create content from others’ videos.

Increasing the sense of community by creating engagement is a good way to create long-term fans of your business. Don’t hold back when it comes to creating a community that supports you and your product.

Creating a Content Strategy

Now that you know the 3 E’s (Educate, Entertain, and Engage) and the type of content you need to create for different social platforms. How do you create a strategy that will be the foundation to follow when planning content? There are a few steps you can take, and write down to keep track of your goals.

Graphics for creating a content strategy: Goals: Establish clear goals for your social media campaign. What is it that you want to get out of social media, is it to grow online, bring awareness to your product, keep fans informed? There’s many different reasons to why you’d want to start a social media campaign for your business. BE HONEST  Audience: Who is the target audience for your social media posts. Is it male teens living in the city? Local pet owners ready to spend anything to make they pets happy? This is where you need to really think and start writing down ideas for who you’re trying to market towards, get as details as you can to better understand the needs and wants for your audiences. (Audiences could chance and evolve as you progress)  Ideation: Now that you know your Goals and Audience, write down what that audience would find entertaining, think of this as your research phase, you’re either going to brainstorm ideas, talk to people on the street, or search online. Think of a few ideas to start with and keep returning to this section to find new types of content you can use online once you need something fresh.  Plan of Action: How are you going to create this content, is it going to be once a week creating in bulk, or are you creating on your lunch break every day? Remember to account for the time it takes to create, and mood you might want to be in to create the best content. Videos take longer than a tweet, blog posts might require more time in front of the keyboard, while videos and photos can be done on your phone. Find a strategy of content creation that works with you.  Distribution: How are you posting content online, are you just creating for TikTok, or are you repurposing that content for Instagram. Are you creating a long form piece of content to then break down throughout the week, what platforms are you posting on? What formats are you using on each platform, do you need to reformat video to work on a non-vertical platform? Remember audiences vary platform to platform, try to adapt to what they’re interested to see for best results.

Goals: Establish clear goals for your social media campaign. What is it that you want to get out of social media, is it to grow online, bring awareness to your product, keep fans informed? There are many different reasons why you’d want to start a social media campaign for your business. BE HONEST

Audience: Who is the target audience for your social media posts. Is it male teens living in the city? Are local pet owners ready to spend XYZ amount to make their pets happy? This is where you need to think and start writing down ideas for whom you’re trying to market towards, get as details as you can to better understand the needs and wants of your audiences. (Audiences could change and evolve as you progress)

Ideation: Now that you know your Goals and Audience, write down what that audience would find entertaining, think of this as your research phase, you’re either going to brainstorm ideas, talk to people on the street, or search online. Think of a few ideas to start with and keep returning to this section to find new types of content you can use online once you need something fresh.

Plan of Action: How are you going to create this content, is it going to be once a week creating in bulk, or are you creating on your lunch break every day? Remember to account for the time it takes to create, and the mood you might want to be in to create the best content. Videos take longer than a tweet, blog posts might require more time in front of the keyboard, while videos and photos can be done on your phone. Find a strategy of content creation that works with you.

Distribution: How are you posting content online, are you just creating for TikTok, or are you repurposing that content for Instagram. Are you creating a long-form piece of content to then break down throughout the week, what platforms are you posting on? What formats are you using on each platform, do you need to reformat video to work on a non-vertical platform? Remember audiences vary from platform to platform, try to adapt to what they’re interested in to see for best results.