Almost 90% of small businesses use social media in some way or another. Are you part of this statistic?
It is low to no cost to get started and can reap great benefits with little work and social engagement with regular and helpful posts. It is also a great way to continue bringing in new traffic to expand.
No matter what your goal, here are some social media insights on the most successful types of content for the rest of 2014:
Companies who target their efforts see the best results. Now, thanks to rapidly advancing social media analytics and market research, it’s possible to understand which social networks are driving the most sales. One overarching theme in recent research is the benefit of properly targeting your social media efforts. Most importantly, you need to know where your customers are actually spending their time online. Are they using Facebook frequently to engage with businesses and connect with friends and family, or do they spend most of their time on Twitter or Pinterest? The next step is to dig a little deeper into how your customers are using these platforms. The platforms where your customers spend the most time also determines whether you should focus on video, microvideo, visual, or written updates.
Buying behaviors vary by category on social media. Less than 10% of Facebook and Twitter users reported making recent purchases in those categories. However, those categories had higher conversion rates on Pinterest. 21% of Pinterest users reported buying something craft and DIY-related, and 18% purchased something under the home décor category. In order to get a better idea of what products your customers are purchasing via recommendations on social media, it’s best to go ahead and ask them directly.
Specific platforms influence buying behavior. Some social networking sites still produce higher conversion rates than others. This holds true even if you’ve followed the best practices suggestions about tailored content and culture. That’s not to say you shouldn’t pay attention to these metrics – it’s still important to know what works best for each platform. But you can expect higher sales conversions from some sites as opposed to others on the whole, and knowing this information can give you a hypothesis to test. Image-based social networking sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are experiencing significant growth. But the way people are using these platforms is shifting. Data suggests that more and more people are using these sites to create virtual product wish lists, which creates a unique opportunity for marketers hoping to make the most of social commerce. The culture is shifting from simple photo sharing to users actually creating lists of things they want to buy.
Takeaways: Always target your audience for the best results, pay attention to providing solutions along with unique takes and content and always engage every way you can on every social network that works or your companies platform.
Do you have an outline for social media success? What is your favorite way to interact through your social networks?
Image Source: DG EMPL on Flickr
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