With the veritable deluge of social media sites coming up, it is quite difficult to identify the ones that are the most appropriate for promoting your business. Managing a business profile on all social media sites does not work well either. You need to choose the right ones, depending upon the type of your business.

Identifying the Best Social Media Sites

Here’s what you need to know about the leading social media sites that would help you make the right decision to promote your business:

  • Facebook: It has a massive reach today, with about 500 million active users who spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. This has made it a very influential medium through which to expand your business. First of all, you need to sign up on Facebook. However, if you use your company name on your personal account, you will be unable to use it as a Business Fan Page. To increase your business presence, you can either create a Business Account or a Business Fan Page, which is a better option. On a Business Fan Page, your customers can register as fans of your business. This expands your business presence as your updates get posted on to the fan page. You can also gauge the business presence of your competitors. You can organize events like product launches and live webinars.
  • Twitter: You can use Twitter to predefine searches, which enables you to look out for keywords and locate your target audience. As Twitter works real time, you can use it to float ideas, ask questions and get instant feedback on your products and services. However, Twitter being real time also means that you need to be very active on it through the day.
  • Official Blogs: You can set up your own official blog, where you can post videos, photos, stories and files which promote your business. Decide on the objective of the blog and put up interesting content. Content is the most important factor here, as it can project you as a thought leader in the industry and help you gain the trust of clients. You can also include plug-ins to increase the blog’s functionality and help readers promote your business.
  • LinkedIn: This is a business-oriented platform with about 50 million users. One of the best features here is that you can easily connect with experts, clients, customers and vendors and ask them for recommendations which can be posted on your profile. Another strategy that can be used is discussions on subjects related to your business. Becoming involved in such conversations helps to establish you as a knowledgeable source in your field.
  • Multimedia (YouTube): Multimedia provides excellent marketing opportunities, as good videos attract a lot of attention from varied internet users. You might already have videos posted on your blog, which can be uploaded on platforms like YouTube to reach out to a wider audience. Tools are available to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your video content. Videos offer great potential for viral marketing, but they need to be well made and promoted.
  • StumbleUpon: This lets you join communities according to their interests. This helps you to reach out to extremely targeted traffic. Although StumbleUpon traffic will take much more time than Digg traffic, it is much more valuable traffic.

Whichever social media site you choose, you will need a sound online marketing strategy. Many companies try to have a presence on as many social media sites as possible, but this may become counterproductive. So, plan carefully and choose wisely when looking for social media sites to enhance your business.

 

The author, Aritro Bhattacharya, is a member of the web content writers’ team with Veda Informatics.