The rise of social media usage is also leading to new social media platforms. In the last 3-4 years, social media has raised the bar in internet use through these platforms, and because a lot of people are connected, marketers see the potential of social media platforms as a place to attract consumers. Every year, there are new social networks being introduced, each coming up with their own designs, offering something different from the others as a means to attract users. Popular business platforms today are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These platforms help businesses lower marketing cost while widening reach. But like everything else, we crave more and there’s the need to evolve.
Social media can help our businesses if we have the right strategy aligned with our business goals. Right now, social media is helping brands cultivate culture while engaging customers. It’s a platform to get closer to your audience, a place for interaction and sharing of ideas. There are even tools, or Social CRMs, that are designed to track and report activity on social media sites. That’s how important it is for businesses.
Every now and then, there’s a new platform being introduced to users. Here are some of the latest social media platforms that businesses are looking at. Most of them are Social CRMs:
Pinterest – a free site where you can post pictures that interest you. If you get a good following, your followers can “Like”, “Comment” and “Repin” the image that you posted. It’s another way of sharing your interests through visual content. Through an image, you get what people like or dislike about it and get ideas. It’s a place for creative inspiration. You can even customize your page and have “Boards” for each interest. On each Board, you can “Pin” images on it; it’s a good way to organize your images according to interests. An example would be, if your business is flower arrangements, you can “Pin” images on “Boards” labelled for different occasions. This way your customers can just look at your site. It can be your brands visual representation.
Sprout Social – this is a social CRM tool that will help your brand manage all your social media sites. It is a social media management tool to track how people are talking about your brand on different platforms. It integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, and other sites where there is engaging customers. The tool also provides competitive insight, lead generation, analytics, contact management, and more. Some other helpful features include scheduling when your posts are published, a discovery tool to find target customers, and mobile compatibility.
Radian6 – is also a social CRM tool. It measures metrics, sentiments, measurements, and reports analytics. The tool reports on those who are talking about your brand and can also report on how others are talking about your competitors. It tracks conversations and discussions, then provides results from such interactions. Another feature helps you engage with your audience. If you want to get more specific on your target audience, the tool can report on demographics including age and location.
Hootsuite – this platform has been around for a while but a lot of businesses like it because it’s relatively inexpensive compared to other social media management tools. It is a web-based tool to help you organize and manage all your social media sites in one place. The dashboard view helps you build and manage your community, let’s you engage with your customers and see who is talking about your brand. You can also schedule your posts on all the platforms that you are on. And because keeping track of those who care and stay loyal to your brand is important, you can create a list of followers you want to keep an eye on. After all the posting and interacting, you can measure your analytics, Twitter mentions and follower growth, and Facebook visits.
Most consumers are online, and if you want to reach them, social media sites are a good place to start. Consumers are also fast when trying out new social media platforms, so be on the lookout for emerging platforms and see if you have a market there. Social media sites can help our brands, and great way to take advantage of its benefits is to track how effective our pages are.
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