The Best Social Media Platforms to Use in Your Business

How does one establish the best social media platforms to use in business?

As a company owner, your action plan is potentially never ending, so adding social media administration to your ever growing list of priorities can appear to be somewhat daunting.

There are a number of very distinctive platforms that are available to you and it often seems close to impossible to find the time to be able to engage and start using them all.

But the crucial point to remember is that one does not need to be on them all!

With only a limited amount of time and resources, your first task is to find out the social media platforms that will be of direct benefit to your business. In order to see, which would be the most appropriate for you, here is a quick guide as to what you should look out for. But first do need to decide if you really need to be on Social Media in the first place? That question should be a no brainer!

Of course there is absolutely no uncertainty here what so ever - each and every business should have a presence on social media.

The main reasons why are:

It provides a direct line of interaction with your existing customers - and indeed future customers.

It provides you with the ability to compare, review and address important customer ideas.

It will bring referral traffic for your internet site on the web or as I sometimes call it the World Wide Wait!

It can help to bring brand awareness and understanding to a newer audience.

It can help to benefit your business in terms of SEO.

It helps to show that your business is up-to-date and more importantly active and vibrant. Those businesses that show their last Tweet as two years ago have very possibly closed or are about to!

Whilst there are a multitude of benefits that doesn't mean that one needs to sign up for every trendy social media site that exists.

What are the Social Media Platforms that one should think about?

Obviously to a certain degree that is dependent on the kind of business you have, but as a general rule of thumb these are the main platforms that you can't really afford to miss.

Facebook

We'll lets start with the giant of them all - this year in 2015 it was reported that Facebook has 1.8 billion active users each and every month. So an audience of that magnitude cannot be ignored.

Twitter

As your enterprise grows and develops, even more people will start to talk about it - and then you really want to be a part of those conversations. Twitter allows you to join in discussions with both your followers and your competitors.

Google+

Although one cannot forget about the many other search engines, Google is the number one place where everyone who is anyone wants to be seen! Having a profile for your business on Google+ will enable and assist in the generation of rich media search results within Google which will include the name of your business, your location and contact information.

LinkedIn

I have to say that I was in two minds about whether to include LinkedIn on this list because very probably your business does not actually have to be on here. But you clearly do need to be on here.

As a Chief Executive Officer or small business owner, you need to have a LinkedIn profile in order to show off your track record and experience.

Instagram

Last, but most definitely not least is Instagram. Some folks people dismiss Instagram as it is a relatively small social platform, but its audience is constantly growing and is the choice of over 50% of users aged between 18-29. If the demographic of your target audience falls within that age group, then Instagram is a platform you cannot afford to miss.

Social Media is ever-evolving so it really helps if your approach and methods remain adaptable.

Make sure that you continually evaluate what actually works well for you - and more importantly what does not - that way you can track that you are on the right course for your business.

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By Edward Brentwood  - Article Source: EzineArticles.com/9234485