The first step in developing a social media marketing process is to determine which networks you want to target. The answer to this question is simple – you want to target the networks that your prospects and customers are using. As is the case with offline networking, it’s best to pick a few networks and “go deep” (be a frequent participant) than to spread yourself thinly over several different networks. It’s also important to define what you want to accomplish with your social media marketing process – whether it be brand promotion, selling more of your products and services, supplementing your customer service function or a combination thereof. With that said, let’s take a look at the demographics of some of the more popular networks.
There are numerous other social media platforms – YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr and Pinterest, to name a few. Pinterest has been making news because of its meteoric growth in web traffic. Pinterest has a lot of potential as a social media platform for business; however, its demographics currently are overwhelmingly female (80% of users are female.) According to Google Ad Planner, 77% of Pinterest users have a household income of less than $75,000. While an initial analysis of Pinterest usage statistics show that it may not be the best social media network for marketing, it’s hard to ignore the sheer volume of Pinterest’s web traffic. Another new network that holds a lot of promise for marketers is Google+. While relatively new to the scene, Google+ has the potential to rival Facebook in terms of its reach.
In summary, the social media platforms you use should be chosen on the basis of two factors – what you’re trying to accomplish with your social media marketing process and where your customers and prospects participate in social media. In my case, I’ve chosen to “go deep” with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and am researching Google+ and Pinterest. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how you use social media – please feel free to post comments.