Social Media Platforms, Which Is The Best For You? 

There are several factors to consider for best results when using Social Media platforms as some will certainly work better for you the others. To help you discover which is the best and most relevant to you and your end goal, Let’s have a look at the most popular types of Social Media and what suits you the best so you can concentrate your efforts on one or two while I do suggest joining them all.

Facebook:

Facebook certainly was and still can be one of the largest platforms while it has been losing a lot of ground to several others it can still be a very powerful tool

Are you a very social talkative person? or are you more of an introvert when it comes to social media?

This is important for several different social media types as for Facebook it has evolved into more of a groups type setting which is awesome for networking with like minded people or for support groups for people who find comfort talking to like minded or people in similar situations.

Now with this in mind these groups are almost all completely against advertising or posting links to products or services therefore it is no longer a good platform for gaining traffic to you business , website or products unless you want to purchase ads , a lot of ads which does get expensive quick and think about it , How many times have you actually clicked on a facebook ad? I am willing to bet not very often at all.

This is all due to the changes made by face book to make it “more social” and less for business. But hey if you are looking for some online therapy with like minded people or maybe some advice from for the mist part unknown strangers start searching out groups as there is an endless amount of them in just about every area imaginable. From a marketing stand point I would concentrate else where.

Instagram:

Instagram is rather an interesting platform but be warned it is run by Facebook so it is a bit segregated. It once again is a very supportive group but generally speaking you will find it is hugely dominated by Females and men are generally left to fight for their own. Similar to Facebook groups it is Women supporting Women in small business, So if you are for instance a female blogger or crafter this will be a great place for you to be a part of. As for Males it is going to be a bit of a rough ride out there even though there is some potential for you , your product or website. Again it is ad driven by Facebook with just slightly better results.Now if you are Female and don’t mid interacting with a large number of Ladies supporting each other in business this is probably one of the best platforms for you to use as you will find a very supportive group , just remember to like and comment on other peoples posts consistently showing support.

I will say one thing for sure that Instagram while generally a Female supporting Female type platform the Ladies I have had the pleasure to talk and interact with are without a doubt some of the nicest people you will meet online and they do share create content and products.

Twitter:

Twitter while not quite the powerhouse it once was which is mostly due to Bots posting and tons of spam posts it is still a fairly reliable source of website traffic , product promotion as well as some networking on a small scale as people do tend to get flooded with private messages promoting , basically cold calling like the telemarketers we all love calling in the middle of supper.

One of the best ways to be seen is to actively take part in retweeting other peoples tweets as they will generally do the same back for you. Watch for the follow to unfollow accounts as the place is flooded with them, Thankfully there are lots of apps out the to help with this problem.

Ads are more effective here as the come up more or less as regular tweets and can supply a decent amount of payback, just watch your budget and results closely.

Pinterest:

Pinterest is a fast growing platform that is already quite huge and a major contender in the social online circus.

It is great for the less social types and it is absolutely loaded with information in just about everything imaginable then some. It can be quite addicting as there is just so much to see. They do have some pretty strict rules, but in all honesty it does make the platform better, Yo can not post direct affiliate links but you can direct your “pin” to your blog/ website with a picture (pin) containing the affiliate link, A bit more work but much easier to see results as well.

Pinterest and how to make pinning your interests work for you.

While it already is a huge social media site it rapidly growing at an alarming rate and you really need to put it to work for you.

You definitely should add into your social media network as it can supply you with lots of traffic to your website be it to gain visitors to your blog or to purchase merchandise from your online store or simply for affiliate marketing.

Now for a few tips about PINTEREST as you will find starting out it can seem impossible to get people to follow you. (but I don’t care if people follow me) Oh yes you do! You see the more of a following you have the more interesting you become. By interesting I do literally mean interesting not in a personal way but to pinterest itself. The more of a following the more you and you posts will be viewed, the more you are viewed the more valuable your pinterest account becomes in the algorithms that decide what posts to show and how often. The number of followers also make you more attractive to other people as well in several ways actually, Firstly it attracts more followers as people already following you tend to follow them somewhat resembling being the popular kid at school everyone wants to hang out with. Secondly it also gives some credibility to your pins (your story in a picture) Let’s look at it this way even though somewhat a false sense of security let’s be honest about it, Who appears to know more about what they are doing and promoting the account with 50 followers or the account with 5,000 or 25,000?

Don’t let those numbers scare you although it is extremely frustrating at first as people kinda shy away from the quiet little mouse in the corner with no friends but this change change quite quickly but it does take some leg work.

The most effective method for gaining followers on pinterest is quite simply following people in your Niche or area or interest with a considerable amount of followers themselves, Yes it is leeching off them but I would be lying to you if I told you that they didn’t do it themselves. As you start out you will have limits on how many people per hour you can follow before the system will suspect you of the equivalent to spamming. This does fluctuate a bit so know real hard core numbers but start small and try to keep under 25 per hour as you grow you can certainly increase that just start slow and steady.

Content:

You will see me mention content over and over throughout this site and with good reason. Content is King it is the value of the internet. If your content is about funny cat pictures that make people laugh then so bit it , It is valuable to them and they will come back for more.

So having followers alone on pinterest while wonderful it is rather useless other then a way to gain more followers but with just followers and no content you will not get traffic which really is the whole point. Make sure you are providing content or value to your boards and pins you build your following.

A great way to provide content and value is by interesting and incentive for people to click on it and therefore going to you website, blog or affiliate offer. There are several ways to do this and one is to simply “pin” other peoples content to your own boards which adds variety and also gives them a reward of traffic so a win win, in the end you really want to create you own, be it pictures of your product for sale or affiliate offer or simply just more readers to your blog increasing your ad revenue possibilities.

There is a program I personally swear by it is called http://Canva.com it truly is an invaluable asset for making you own banners , pictures, collages and far more then I could even list here you really need to check it out as it is a massive help for Pinterest