With the ever increasing number of social media platforms popping up like morning mushrooms, the real question becomes how do you choose between them – how do you choose the most powerful platform for your particular needs?
But first we need to start with understanding the buying and selling process.
In any transaction-based relationship, there are numerous stages along the continuum. For simplicity’s purposes, we break the stages into three.
The first stage is that of awareness. During this stage an individual becomes more and more aware of your products and services.
Creating marketing collateral, or messages, that address this first stage is critical. Typically this involves messages relating to the topic of “how to.”
The second stage is that of trust.
Trust happens when an individual completes their awareness activities and moves onto comparing your product or service with others.
Trust is built as more favourable comparisons are made. This leads to the final stage in the continuum, action.
When individuals become aware of your product or service and have taken sufficient steps to trust you they then reach a tipping point where they may take action and buy from you.
Now we understand the three basic stages of the buying side and selling process, we can discuss social media platform choice.
Twitter is a telegraphic social media platform. This means messages are short, brief and to the point. They are textual in nature and limited to 140 characters in length.
The social media updates on Twitter are incorporated into major search engine results in almost real-time. This means the major search engines are indexing the “pulse” of the market conversations.
People using Twitter tend to be direct and to the point. On twitter you will notice that much of the conversation revolves around simple factual information, but it also includes expressions of need, wants and desires.
Twitter is a wonderful how-to platform, where you can quickly figure out what people care about.
Facebook on the other hand is a richer and more diverse platform. It allows pictures, videos and even extensive blog posts in their notes section.
Facebook has an interesting feature unlike many others. This feature is the ‘wall’ whereby comments shared on your wall appear on a friends profile. This viral sharing of information and status updates is one feature that gives Facebook its power.
Speaking of richer platforms, one should not overlook YouTube. This full motion video social media platform allows individuals to create and share video.
It also allows people to include comments and links. Similarly to other social media channels, you have the ability to add comments, make friends, and provide updates.
Both Facebook and YouTube provide much richer channels for communication and messaging. This means they are suitable for supporting the early stages within the buying process.
Ultimately, when you understand how people buy from you or from your clients, you are able to select appropriate channels based on the dimensionality of their abilities to communicate and share information. youtube social shares