10 Social Channels Under-Utilized by Businesses
Most business owners have already realized that a serious online presence is essential in the modern world. While people tend to focus their efforts on building a website, there’s a lot to be said for the positive effects of promotion via social networks. You’re probably familiar with Facebook and Twitter, but today we’re going to take a look at some of the other sites where you should open an account. At the end of the day, if each only helps you attract a single extra customer, it will have been worth the effort.
Don’t get us wrong, you’re still going to need a presence on Facebook and Twitter, as they are the most widely used websites out there today. Even so, the social networks listed in this article are still worthy of your time. While they might have slightly fewer users, there are still millions of people all over the world who use them every single day. So, without any further delay, let’s take a look at them in order of subscribers…
YouTube
Sure, it’s not technically a traditional social network, but it’s a great place to get attention from people all over the world. All you have to do is create some appealing and interesting videos and upload them to the site. You’ll soon notice you get views and comments from many different people who would not have otherwise discovered your company. YouTube currently has over 1,000,000,000 active users every month.
Check this ultimate guide for a walk through > http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/youtube-business-ultimate-guide
This site was designed to allow business people to network with each other. With over 300,000,000+ monthly users, it is the third largest social network in the world after the two we’ve already mentioned. Opening an account is simple, and it could help your brand to reach a larger portion of your target market. That is especially the case if you provide services rather than products.
Find out more > http://mashable.com/2012/05/23/linkedin-beginners/
You know what they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Pinterest is probably the best site online to use if you’re thinking about promoting your company in that manner. Perhaps it might be a good idea to have some infographics designed? You could then upload them to your Pinterest account for the world to see. This site has 250,000,000 monthly users. Pinterest has been found to work very well for targeted ecommerce selling.
Check out this Pinterest guide board > http://www.pinterest.com/jasonmiles/pinterest-beginners-guides/
Google+
While it hasn’t taken off as well as the search engine giants would have hoped, Google+ gets more and more users every single month. With no less than 120,000,000 monthly users, it should be easy to see how important it is that you have an account. The best thing about Google+? Using the service could help to improve the ranking of your business website in search results.
Here’s a full guide to get you started > http://www.scottbuehler.com/social-media/beginners-guide-google-plus/
Tumblr
Creative content in the form of blog posts is a brilliant way of getting your name out there. If you can publish informative articles that also help to spread awareness about your products or services, more people will become familiar with you. Indeed, that’s just one of the reasons why marketing companies spend so much money on it. Tumbler is the best social network for finding followers for your blog, and it currently has around 110,000,000 monthly users.
Unofficial Tumblr guide > http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/the-unofficial-beginners-guide-to-tumblr
While Pinterest has a larger quantity of users, Instagram is considered to be a much cooler site by young people. So, it could be used to help further your interests if your target audience is under the age of 30. With over 100,000,000 monthly users, you’d be silly not to give it a try.
Here’s 26 tips to get you started > http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/instagram-for-business-tips/
Slideshare
You probably haven’t heard of this social network before, but we promise you it is a major player. It currently receives around 60,000,000 active users each month and is a great place to spread awareness. Maybe you’re speaking at an industry conference soon, and you’ve create a slideshow to go along with your presentation. Once your engagement is over, you can upload to file to Slideshare for the world to appreciate.
Myspace
You would be forgiven for thinking that Myspace is dead. It certainly hasn’t received much coverage over the last few years. Even so, figures released this year claim it still has over 42,000,000 monthly users from all over the world. While you probably shouldn’t concentrate too much on this site, it’s still important to have a page containing all your details.
Find out more > http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/new-myspace-guide/
Meetup
Designed as a site where people can arrange social functions within specific areas, Meetup is fast becoming a popular social network. It stands to reason that some of the events organised through this site are quite large, and so knowing about them might be useful. Perhaps the people running these events would be interested in letting you sponsor them. Or maybe they might be willing to display an advertisement for your company. It currently has just over 40,000,000 users per month.
Find out how to create a successful meetup > http://inside.envato.com/guide-to-meetups/
Vine
With the same amount of active users at Meetup, Vine is a brilliant place for sharing short videos and growing your following. The videos don’t have to promote your brand, so long as they attract people. You can still list all the details of your business on this site to make people aware of who you are.
The guys at Verve have done a good guide here > http://www.vervesearch.com/blog/vine-the-beginners-guide-to-a-growing-trend/
As you can probably see from the information you’ve just read through, there are so many social networks that it can be difficult to know where to start. We advise you open accounts with them all, but there’s no rush. Just set yourself a goal of dealing with one each week until you’ve completed the task.
Also, you might be concerned about the amount of time it might take to keep logging in and out and posting updates, right? Well, you’ll be glad to hear there are many solutions to that problem online. You’ll find lots of different tools and websites that will allow you to manage your social media accounts from a single platform by performing a simple Google search.
Good luck with everything. We sincerely hope this article will make a big difference to the way in which you tackle social networks in the future.
Jane Freeman, a professional blogger and marketer. Follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/Digital_Jane
Posted in Social Networking.
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