Presenting your product or service on social media involves much more than simply sharing articles on all the platforms you can think of. There’s a lot of planning that needs to happen beforehand. Additionally, and most importantly: your content has to fit the platform you’re publishing on. This article goes a bit deeper into the most common social media channels, and how they could benefit your digital marketing strategies.

LinkedIn

If you create content with the first and foremost goal to gain new customers for your business, LinkedIn is the place to be. Although content on LinkedIn has a lower chance to go viral than on Facebook, the content you post often gets taken more seriously. Readers usually take the time to read your articles or watch your videos with genuine interest, mainly from a professional perspective. High quality long-reads mostly perform best on professional and more formal social media channels like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an example of a so-called B2B social media platform. B2B or Business-to-Business marketing consists of a strategy in which you as a company try to reach other companies, and is, therefore, more business-focused than the more casual and personal content people post on Facebook and Instagram.

Examples of B2B content are industry reports, focused on the industry your business is active in. Or case studies, which are examples of the products and services your business delivers. Another strong form of content on platforms like LinkedIn is content related to partners you have collaborated with, or are planning to collaborate with. This could be events you’ve attended with a client, or client testimonials. With these types of content you can show potential new clients or partners what your company has to offer. Because this content is mainly business-related and needs to be taken seriously, it is of great importance that the content you post is professionally written and has reliable sources as a basis.

Facebook

If your marketing strategy is mainly based on brand awareness, a quick increase of audience interaction, and to make more people familiar with your company, go for Facebook. It is the perfect platform for so-called media snacks, which is content that is easy-to-read and to digest. It’s very likely that you, together with millions of other people, use Facebook for a quick scroll through your timeline during your lunch break. It’s all about catching the attention of your audience in a whirlwind of information overload. Keep it short, sharp, and eye-catching, and don’t expect to bring in big bunches of new customers who are genuinely interested in what you have to sell. Chances are small someone is seriously looking for business opportunities while minding their own “business” on the toilet and checking out their timeline.   Unlike LinkedIn, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are better for B2C, or Business-to-Consumer content strategies. This generally means that your content is focused on a much larger audience than B2B content. B2C strategies aim for reaching not just potential clients or end-users, but also a wide variety of readers that interact with your content just because they are interested in the topics, rather than looking for a partnership or product. It’s more focused on amusement than the more business-focused content on LinkedIn. B2C content exists of blog posts on various topics, from long-reads to listicles to reviews or infographics. Essential is the fact that your piece of content stands out from the information overload that’s taking over everyone’s timelines. A good quality image and catchy title can bring your content much further than you might think.

Twitter

Although Facebook and LinkedIn play leading roles within social media marketing, using Twitter as an outlet can also be worth your time. Perhaps it’s not the perfect place to gather new customers, but it is definitely a great way to keep in contact with your clients or curious visitors. There’s a lot of companies that use Twitter as an online helpdesk for customers with questions or issues they can’t fix themselves. Therefore, Twitter can also be seen as a B2C platform. Instead of calling, emailing, or using contact forms, Twitter is an easy way to support your clients with their problems or questions without taking too much effort and time.   As you might have read in our blog post on digital marketing trends in 2020, direct messaging with clients and customers is gaining popularity among businesses in all industries. It’s much more efficient than endless back-and-forth communication by email, is less expensive than maintaining call center support, and lowers the threshold for visitors to ask simple questions they normally wouldn’t ask.

Instagram

Instagram is the platform for bringing your audience closer to you and your business. Just like Facebook, Instagram requires eye-catching content in order to stand out from the 95 million daily posts on the platform. The main difference is the fact that Instagram is all about the pretty picture, literally. Written text plays a subordinate role on the platform, and mainly functions as a way to contextualize the image. Many posts don’t come with additional pieces of text, but rather support the image with hashtags. Especially content on Twitter and Instagram relies heavily on the use of hashtags, and generates a big part of a post’s audience. Because both platforms are limited in their space for content, tweets and Instagram posts have to find another way to draw attention. For these kinds of platforms, hashtags are ideal for attracting a new audience, outside your current follower-circle.   Posting pictures on Instagram has the main goal to provide a personal insight into your company, creating a closer bond between you and your audience, and thereby building a more friendly connection rather than a strictly professional relationship. Instagram can be seen as a B2T, or Business-to-Talent platform. B2T is a rather new term within the world of digital marketing, and much less common than already existing and widely implemented B2B and B2C strategies. B2T is all about talent acquisition: finding the perfect employee for your company, and vice versa. By giving a personal insight in your company, current employees, and ways of working, your aim is to send a message to future employees, convincing them of the fact that your business perfectly fits their personality. Rather than job seekers doing all the effort, it becomes increasingly common for startups and scaleups to take the lead and attract possible new employees by making them feel personally connected to the job, rather than just a right fit based on their profession.

YouTube

Naturally, YouTube is the best platform to use for spreading video content. This could be everything from strictly professional informational or instructive videos to more personal vlog-like videos. YouTube can be seen as an intermediate platform, on which you post your content before sharing it on channels like Facebook or LinkedIn, as YouTube itself is not per se an internal sharing platform on its own. This means that eventually, most of the traffic will take place on other platforms, rather than YouTube itself.   Because images tell more than a thousand words, YouTube is also a great place to implement your B2T strategies. Videos aimed at company insights and events are great tools for attracting the right future employee for your company. And because video blogging, or vlogging, is taking over a significant part of the digital marketing sphere, it is the perfect place to find and attract a young generation of creative minds for your startup or scaleup. YouTube is also a great platform for B2C content. Instructional videos and E-learning are becoming increasingly popular, and it’s a great way to teach your customers about your company and deal with frequently asked questions in a creative way.

Intertwinement of B2B, B2C, and B2T

Before you lose your way within the maze of separate types of B2B, B2C, and B2T marketing strategies, it is important to know that these strategies are not strictly bound to one specific platform, and one specific platform is not strictly bound to either B2B, B2C, or B2T content. LinkedIn is not strictly used by professionals looking for partners or a product, just as YouTube and Instagram are not bound to youngsters looking for a cool job at a startup. You can definitely play around with the content you post on these channels, but keep the main purpose of your post in mind. It’s not a rule system, it’s a marketing strategy. In order for a business to implement clear social media strategies, it is essential to understand the character of these social media channels. A solid digital marketing strategy makes use of its channels based on the goal of its content, which is why it’s so important to familiarize yourself with the channels you use, and their audiences, types of content, and main purposes.

Marketing at Lizard Global

An important but often underrated part of digital agencies is a solid marketing strategy, designed and regulated by a skilled, creative, and diverse marketing team. At Lizard Global, each marketing Lizard has their own unique set of skills and interests, which forms a golden fusion of talents. From copywriting and blogging to SEO, web analytics, and strategic planning: with all these skills combined, we make sure our clients are both entertained and informed with regular content updates. Our weekly deep-insight articles give readers a view on what exactly we’re doing at Lizard Global, and what our services, from development to design, actually look like. While our listicles and other shorter content keeps you up-to-date with the latest trends in the software industry and the best apps for improving your productivity. Because balance is key.