Which social media tools are your best bet?
Inspired by the social media guide shared by marketing company 97th Floor recently on CMO.com, we’ve come up with a less-US-centric, more Australian version for Nett.
Pros: Twitter has its detractors, though it has shown to have strong marketing potential for your business. You can monitor how your brand and competitors are perceived by tracking keywords with add-on software like TweetDeck. It’s also easy to integrate a Twitter feed into your site, and it gives your business a simple way of increasing your brand exposure.
Cons: The downside of Twitter, particularly in Australia, is that it is still a fledgling platform—mostly only a tech-savvy fanbase is bothering with it. It’s also easy to make too much noise and irritate people, turning them off clicking on the links you point to your site. It doesn’t work wonders for SEO, but if people are mentioning your brand, it will turn up in search.
Pros: The appeal of Facebook is how much emphasis it places on personalized content. Creating this is very easy, and incorporating your brand into it is simple, provided you phrase it in a simple and personal way. It’s also geared towards viral awareness. If someone becomes a fan of your brand page, all of their friends know about it. This highly personal approach also provides a receptive environment in which to place links to your pages. The stronger your presence, the more click-throughs you’ll win.
Cons: It has little to no effect on your SEO, and convincing users to link through to your site is easier said than done. It’s more of a brand presence than a link-driving machine.
YouTube
Pros: YouTube is one of the stronger social media players. Video is one of the most effective methods of communicating online and is the best way to engage customers and address their interests re: your business. Having a branded YouTube channel filled with video content addressing customers about your products can be an invaluable marketing proposition. Videos (including those that are heavily and pointedly branded) can actually rate rather well in search, thereby further increasing your brand exposure.
Cons: Not many, aside from video production costs. It should be said that YouTube isn’t fantastic for generating traffic to your site.
Social news
Pros: This type of service places its emphasis on the content sharing that Facebook features. Users post a news item and it is upvoted/downvoted by other users. Potentially, this kind of platform is useful for gaining exposure for any brand-focused blog articles/press you want to promote. Ensure that the articles you upload aren’t too advertisement-like; and that they have a novel/interesting angle to appeal to the demographic on these sites. Popular social news sites include Reddit and Digg.
Cons: Users of these sites can be very cliquey and judgemental, and often only really use the sites for entertainment. If you push your links too hard you will be down-voted and exiled, a kind of negative online exposure that is undesirable for any brand. #
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