Digital Marketing Resources
Picking the right Social Media Platform
Picking the Right Social Media Platform One of the most important things to remember about social media is that you are never required to use every single platform available to you. In many ways, it is actually better to have a core two or three in which to give your content the best engagement possible. Most organisations in Northern Ireland don’t have the luxury of having a dedicated marketing or social media coordinator. It would be counterproductive to the amazing work you’re doing to overstretch yourself or your colleagues. Before you begin, ask yourself a simple question: what do you actually use social media for? • Selling tickets? • Creating brand loyalty? • Creating awareness of your new organisation? Revisit this question often. You may find yourself using it for more than just the points above and the answer may sometimes change as your marketing goals evolve, but it always helps to have an idea or initial focus when you first set it up. As time goes on, don’t be afraid to experiment either. The main three social media platforms: • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram Film Hub NI will supply individual resources for each of these platforms. Before you dive into them, however, here’s a simple breakdown of the pros and cons of each from an organisational point of view. All of them are free for any organisation to set up.
Facebook PROS • Facebook has the largest social media audience, by some distance! Facebook has over 1.8 billion unique users. Twitter, by comparison, has just over 300 million. • Facebook is ideal for uploading images and showcasing your products and services to followers. Followers can then ‘like’, ‘comment’ or even ‘share’ your images with their friends leading to more exposure for you. It is ‘word of mouth’ marketing for the web! • You can target larger audiences via the Facebook advertising platform, even if they don’t “like” your page. Through this, you can aim your posts at potential customers through characteristics like location, sex, age and interests. CONS • A reasonable advertising budget is essential to the success and especially the growth of your Facebook page. • It can be difficult to engage users who don’t “like” you page • It can be extremely time consuming to maintain without a dedicated communications or social media officer.
Twitter PROS • Twitter offers the ability to live stream. • It is the most viral social media tool. • It is easy for tweets to have a massive natural reach with very little to zero boosting. CONS • Many users on Twitter tend to follow thousands of accounts, so your organisation’s message can be in danger of getting lost in the mix. • There is a high exposure to fake news, so be mindful of what is shared. • The bigger the following, the higher chance of direct scrutiny.
Instagram PROS • Similar to Snapchat, with twice the amount of users, Instagram gives your organisation a real visual online presence. • Instagram stories now allows you to live blog events. • Users are able to share this content across other platforms. CONS • Content can only be uploaded by mobile device or third party PC apps. • Instagram offers restricted age demographics. • It is difficult to add links which direct audiences to website or other social media feeds.
Of course, there are more than just three social media platforms, but if you’re new to this mode of communication or are creating a new digital outlet for your organisation, these are perhaps the best three to achieve this. With experimentation, trial and error, there is room for playing about with others, almost all of which are free. Here is a list of the amount of unique users of every social media and digital communications as of January 2017.
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