Social media is a concept that encompasses multiple platforms where you as a user can post images, videos, and texts to communicate and interact with other users. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Snapchat are some examples of social media.
Many probably associate mainly social media with chatting, watching videos or posting pictures. The National Encyclopedia defines it as follows:
Social media is a collective name for communication channels that allows users to communicate directly with each other through, for example, text, image or sound. Off late you have an option to buy cheap SoundCloud followers and other social media followers
Traditional media, or old media, are called established media such as television, radio and newspapers. Social media emerged in connection with the internet and it was only when they started talking about traditional media versus social media, simply to distinguish them. The difference between them is that the user himself publishes information in social media and that there is a social interaction with other users, which is completely lacking in traditional media.
But if we go back to social media again then there are various digital channels such as websites, mediums and apps where we can interact with others, publish themselves and share information such as text, audio, video, image and more.
Benefits of social media
Social media has long been an effective way for individuals to communicate with their friends and acquaintances, and for companies to meet their customers. It is necessary for companies to get involved in social media in order to meet their target audience where they actually are.
Today, most people raise their eyebrows if companies only have an email address and telephone number on the company’s contact page. The company must also be available on social media where they can be contacted, and it is becoming increasingly popular to include a chat on their website or Facebook page in order to respond to requests directly.
What types of social media are there today?
You can divide social media in different ways, but the currently accepted definition that various marketing and social media experts have agreed on is the following 13 types
1. Social networks
In social networks you have your own profile and the idea is to use your real name and a personal image as a private person. Companies similarly create a profile that is representative of the company.
This is about networking with old friends, new acquaintances, or in the case of companies with customers and potential customers.
2. Corporate networks
Similar to the social networks, these are used by both private individuals and companies. Individuals use the network to communicate with their professional contacts and to meet new ones. For companies, it is about showing how they are as an employer and attracting new employees.
3. Social networking for businesses
Social networks for companies offer similar functions to the social networks for individuals, but are only open to employees within a particular company. It can be a fun and effective way for employees to get to know each other better.
4. Blogs
A blog can be your own website, or part of a website, which consists of posts in the form of articles. You can start your own blog and the articles can be personal, fact-based, or interview-based – just like on a news web site. Posts on a blog are published chronologically, with the newest posts at the top. Personal blogs often approach the diary format, unlike corporate blogs which are a great way to spread knowledge to their customers and potential customers.
5. Microblogging
On microblogging, you have a limited number of characters to express yourself with. The biggest microblogging is at the time of writing Twitter where you have a maximum of 280 characters to use every time you want to post – on Twitter you call it a tweet. Some more examples for microblogging sites are wp-beginner for WordPress, freesmtpservers.com for email marketing where the team everything about SMTP Servers, etc..
6. Video sharing
Online video sharing platforms (sites for user-generated content) allow users to watch as well as upload and share videos. Here, too, it is usually possible to comment Many platforms even allow promotions or boosted posts as long as the content is uploaded using the proper video ad formats.
7. Photo sharing
Works similarly to video sharing sites fixed to images, where users can upload, manage and save photos. The pictures can usually be organized in albums, edited and commented on.
8. Internet forum
An online forum is a place where users can discuss different topics together. It does not work as a chat where the conversation takes place in real time, but you usually ask a question and later get an answer from one or more different people. It can be a forum like Family Life where the focus is on tips and advice on various everyday problems or a forum for people who are interested in Star Wars.
9. Wiki
A wiki is an online page with user-generated content, which together creates and maintains the page.
10. Product review pages
Websites that sell and inform about different products usually have a function where customers can evaluate the products and read other users’ product reviews. For example these pages sendinblue vs mailchimp
11. Social bookmarks
A platform where you store, manage and organize various bookmarks online using metadata. “Social tagging” is usually called when a user saves keywords to different websites on social bookmarking pages. The user chooses to either save it privately or share it with friends and other users.
12. Social gaming
Social gaming, ie social online gaming, means that you play and interact with other players in real time. It can be card games and board games as well as various interactive games where you can play several pieces together.
13. Virtual worlds
In virtual worlds, the user creates a personal avatar through which one can explore the virtual world and communicate with other avatars. In some virtual worlds, the avatars are completely fictional and one creates an alter ego. In other online games, use their real name and create an avatar that looks like the user in reality.
In a virtual world, the game does not end if the user is not logged in as in regular games, but here the game continues anyway. Virtual currencies (which you also pay for) are often used here, enabling companies to sell actual products in the game.
B2B – SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
This is how social media is used in India today
The majority of Indian (83%) use social media – 65% also use it daily. The use of the most common social media has stagnated somewhat, but their significance is still more than tangible.
But it is important to bear in mind that it is an industry in constant motion where new services and pages are constantly being added. Be aware that one platform may be superior for any year, but then quickly be replaced by another. Therefore, it is important to always keep up to date.
So companies can work with social media
One of the first questions many companies ask is: “Does one have to be everywhere?”. Prove your own expert on social media, answers like this:
“Kill your darlings!” There is no point in being EVERYWHERE if you do not see it effect. We at Invise removed our Twitter account because it did not generate as good results as the other social networks. Find out where the customers are and start there!
It is therefore a question of finding out where the customers are. For most B2B companies, the biggest channel is LinkedIn. Here are the most qualified users and companies represented. If Facebook and Instagram are constantly in competition with cat videos and holiday photos, LinkedIn is about companies instead. Here, professionals and job seekers meet to discuss and share materials pertaining to their particular business and professional role.
However, forums such as Instagram and Facebook can be the perfect forum for, for example, promoting an event, or for submitting submissions to a webinar. The most important thing when you get started is to see a purpose and meaning with your presence on the channel.
This is how marketing works on social media
Social media can either be used as a complement to other marketing or as the main marketing channel. Whatever you choose, it’s worth investing in, as social media is a given place to meet their customers – regardless of industry. A little later, we talk about how advertising works for the most common social media.
Although it looks slightly different on different platforms, it is initially about creating a company profile, which usually works in much the same way as private profiles where you can publish material and posts. Here you spread the message about your company and can, for example, link to blog posts from the website or share upcoming events.
You advertise on social media to strengthen their efforts and reach out to more. You designate a specific audience, set a time period for the ad and how much money you want to spend on it. In addition to the budget, the choice of the target group is very important to consider and it is often a good idea to narrow it down and become specific – to meet as accurately as possible.
Which social media channel should I choose?
In addition to LinkedIn, it can vary which social media a company should appear in, depending on what the company is doing. So in addition to appearing on the most popular platforms where customers are located, you should be on platforms with the highest digital confidence.
What does it mean to have high digital confidence then? Data from Business Insider shows that social media users are more susceptible to ads on platforms that have high digital trust – the trust users have for the platform to protect their information. This also includes how confident the user feels that the environment is.
Business Insider’s 2019 survey shows that people have the highest confidence in:
- Snapchat
- YouTube
So LinkedIn has the highest level of confidence, which is perhaps not entirely unexpected. And as we saw earlier, the three largest social networks in Sweden are Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Since they are also included in the list of social networks with the highest confidence, we assume these seven, and describe them in more detail below.
How to advertise on social media
Advertising on LinkedIn
What: Social network for companies, employees and job seekers
Number of users: Over 600 million registered users in 2019.
Most followers: TED Conferences (which organizes TED Talks) with 12.5 million.
Microsoft is behind LinkedIn, which is by far the largest professional social media available today. Since 2003, companies, employees, freelancers and job seekers have met here. You can find old friends and colleagues, network with companies you are interested in and of course look for different jobs and services. For many companies, LinkedIn is the best way to reach potential employees today, with over 600 million people working there!
Having an account on LinkedIn is free but there is also a premium version where you can, for example, see everyone who has visited one’s profile. There is also a premium version for companies called LinkedIn Recruiter. A recruitment tool where you can search, contact and manage candidates.
How do I advertise on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the channel of choice if you work in B2B. Since LinkedIn is the channel we invest most in, we have written a whole guide on how to best advertise on LinkedIn.
Advertising on Pinterest
What: A social bookmarking site
Number of users: Over 300 million active users in 2019.
Most followers: Joy Cho currently has the most followers, that is, over seven million.
Pinterest functions as a digital message board where users share saved images on so-called pinboards. Here, users can follow pages based on interests, so say you like the clothing brand Gucci. Then you can follow both the company and people who have collected pictures of Gucci clothes and people who can afford to glide around in Gucci every day. You can follow, like, and put a repine on an image that adds it to the user’s pinboard.
The platform was founded in 2010 and is best suited for companies that work in retail, for example. It is an excellent platform for displaying beautiful clothes or luxurious household goods. Companies can post relevant images on their page in different pinboards and pin new products before they are launched to attract interest.
As a user, you can install an extension in your browser, which means that as soon as you find an interesting image (on websites that allow) you can easily save it to one of your pinboards. The images posted on a pinboard are called pins.
On Pinterest you will find information on how to create a business account, create ads and then optimize your campaign to achieve results.
Advertising on Instagram
What: Social network for photo and video sharing
Number of users: More than 500 million daily active users in 2019.
Most followers: Cristiano Ronaldo has the most – 198 million followers at the time of writing.
Instagram is today our premier social media for photo sharing and is primarily a mobile application for smartphones. It was launched in 2010 but two years and a billion SEK later it is owned by Facebook.
Instagram allows the user to follow friends as well as celebrities and companies. Here you can either take a picture or record a video or upload pictures or videos from your phone, add x number of filters and upload.
In addition to writing a caption to the image, the use of hashtags and geographical tags makes the image searchable to others.
How do I advertise on Instagram?
On Instagram you can buy a variety of ads that you can use either directly in the stream or as events.
Advertising on Snapchat
What: Social network for photo and video sharing
Number of users: Over 200 million users were active daily in 2019.
Most Followers: Snapchat does not show the number of followers.
Snapchat saw the light of day in 2011 and is a platform where the vast majority are young people between the ages of 12-25. Like Instagram, Snapchat is a photo-sharing app created for smartphones. Here you take pictures and videos, edit them, and share them with your followers or post them on your story. When an image or video was uploaded, it was called a snap.
What sets Snapchat apart from Instagram is that the user can choose how long a snap should be visible to the recipient, from 1-10 seconds. Once the recipient has seen the image, it is deleted.
How do I advertise on Snapchat?
Snapchat is best suited for B2C. Here you will find information on how to set up ads.
Advertising on Twitter
What: A microblogging and social network
Number of users: In 2019, over 300 million users were active each month.
Most Followers: Barack Obama had over 110 million followers in 2019.
In 2006, Twitter was launched, which is used to write short messages – so-called tweets – which must be below 280 characters. The platform is optimized for both computer and mobile. You either post tweets on your own page or comment on other users’ posts. What you write is public, but you can also send a private message, a so-called DM (Direct Message).
You can subscribe to other users’ feeds by following them. If you want to respond to another user, do so by naming them with @. If you want to spread another user’s tweet, you do a so-called retweet .
On Twitter, hashtags are used to mark specific words and phrases. This allows others to find all users who have used the same hashtag. On Twitter’s front page, you can see which hashtags are trending right now, that is, what word or phrase most people have hashtagged.
How do I advertise on Twitter?
Here you can watch a video that explains how Twitter advertising works, or you just read about it on Twitter’s page.
Advertising on YouTube
What: Social network for video sharing
Number of users: 2 billion monthly users in 2019.
Biggest user: The Indian record and film production company T-series with 123 million.
Here, users upload, edit and publish videos. The clips can either be private (if you only want your relatives to be able to see the movies) or public so anyone can view them.
Vlogs are something that has become a lot because of YouTube. There are video blogs where, for example, a gamer films when they play online and comment simultaneously, or a makeup artist who tips on a new product every week. What is by far the most popular is the following gamers. The user with the most followers is “PewDiePie” which is a Swedish gamer with over 100 million followers.
Advertising on Facebook
What: The world’s largest social network
Number of users: 1.6 billion daily users in 2019.
Biggest user: Facebook itself with over 200 followers.
Facebook , founded in 2004, has long been the world’s largest social media platform. Here you create a personal profile, add friends and can follow and like companies and for example sports stars and bands. You can either post to your wall that you can choose whether it should be public or customized for just some friends. You can also chat with friends in the integrated Facebook Messenger application.
Facebook also offers the opportunity to join different groups, for example if you are interested in bird watching or just want to discuss what happened in the latest episode of Bonde Seeking Wife. Another popular feature is the creation of events, that is, you can see different events in your hometown or why not in Bogotá or Cape Town.
How do I advertise on Facebook?
Here, too, ads can appear for your audience in multiple places; in the News Feed, the right column, and in Messenger.
Suggestions to Follow While Using Social Media Platforms
1. Do not rely on just 1 platform.
It goes without mentioning today that you can no longer rely only on Facebook. Figure out where your neighborhood is online and proceed there.
2. Get creative.
Successful content now consistently includes excellent images. Luckily there are a few fantastic low-cost and free choices to genuinely create your articles pop up. PicMonkey is still a favorite, but the sexy app to utilize is Canva (read about Canva here).
3. Respond.
Duh, right? You’d be astonished how many companies still do not get it. They utilize social networking as a way of broadcasting and not engaging. THOSE are those who will never really succeed online.
4. Think outside the box.
With all these companies fighting for customer’s focus online, you have to make yourself. Thinking beyond the box and receiving creativity will capture people’s attention, in a fantastic way, not at the let us -publish-a-crazy-inappropriate-video manner.
5. Google Plus isn’t dead – there’s still worth it.
Alright, that is more of a belief than a suggestion. There’s been discussion that Google Plus is perishing and is not a workable platform to utilize. Ranked, and Elvis Presley is still living somewhere in the Bahamas. Google Plus remains flourishing for people using it. I really like it, and I’ve got a community. I understand many companies that are still using it efficiently and receiving results. So don’t believe all you read online.
6. If your website, search for methods to distribute your articles.
Content is what drives societal networking marketing. If you decide to the site (and that I believe that you should), you need to have a way to push out that content. You’re able to print it and expect someone stumbles onto it that will not get you. You have to have societal sharing hyperlinks and discuss yourself on interpersonal networking. Different approaches to distribute it well – donate to websites such as Social Media Today or even Business two Community or even Alltop. Combine Triberr and make busy in tribes to discuss your articles.
7. Value quality over volume.
That applies to articles in addition to the dimensions of your area. Just because you’ve over 100k Twitter followers doesn’t mean a thing unless 100k busy individuals consistently retweet your articles. One hundred committed lovers can do much more than just 1,000 fans who actually don’t do much. Big numbers don’t always imply quality. Whenever you’re using social networking, the standard of what’s much more important than volume. You want to set a good deal of energy and thought to the material you push or how you increase your neighborhood – that the entire world is seeing.
8. Crowdsource.
Searching for opinions? Wish to learn who’s using what? Go ask your neighborhood! I enjoy crowdsourcing. It is the best way of obtaining a peek at what your neighborhood wants/needs.
9. Manage your time effectively.
Social networking is a period suck. There, I said it. It’s possible to get lost on Pinterest for hours. It is possible to get wrapped up in play on Facebook or even Twitter. Frankly, suppose you’re working in social networking or using it for your small business. In that case, you want to carefully guard your own time. You want to spend time doing your small business, not enjoying on interpersonal websites all day. Decide on a timer. Schedule a time to utilize it to advertise your enterprise. Efficiently using social networking included careful time management.
10. Remember why it is you’re using social networking in the first location.
This is the main suggestion I can provide. In case you don’t have any clue why you’re using social networking, then simply quit. I am serious. You need to have a motive, or intention, regarding why you’re utilizing it. As soon as you figure that out, whatever you do must derive from or purpose this. That can be your final goal of using social networking for your company.
Social media – a summary
In short, we can summarize this with you starting with formulating a clear social media strategy. Then make sure you share material that is valuable to your customers or followers. Be active and share continuous material that encourages your followers to take action and interact in different ways. And finally, remember that it takes time. You will not get thousands of committed followers directly but will have to work to get them there and get them engaged.
Everything that has to do with social media is really about trial and error. You have to constantly evaluate, evaluate, evaluate to see what works and what doesn’t. And remember, as we talked about earlier. Target your social media efforts to the right channel with the right message and to the right audience so you will see that you will achieve results!
