So which Social Media platforms are most worth your time?
That’s a question a lot of us in marketing have been asking for the past few years. There seems to be no shortage of ways for brands and marketers to get involved in Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging, etc. Some require just a few minutes a day to keep up to speed. Others significantly more. But which platforms do users find most engaging, and which have the higher likelihood of leading to creating a new customer or sale?
We’re learning more and more about how people interact with Social Media all the time. And recently, the folks at Marketing Sherpa created a graph that took into consideration potential engagement versus the amount of time required to keep up.
The graph, show here, predictably shows that the easiest Social Media ventures to take part in (social buttons on your website or emails, for example) also drive the lowest engagement. And that those that require the most time (managing Search Engine Optimization and building relationships with noted bloggers) generally drive the most engagement.
The one platform that seems to give marketers the “most bang for the buck,” at least according to this study, is the practice of blogging. Weighing the time required to blog versus the potential payback seems to be time well spent.
Now before you jump over to WordPress to set about creating your own blog, a word of caution. In our experience, it’s never as simple as saying “do this in Social Media and you’ll be a hit.” That’s because consumers don’t care about platforms. They care about content. Is what you’re putting out there for them (regardless of which platform you use) relevant, interesting and useful? If so, your content likely be found and passed around. If not, it doesn’t matter where the heck you put it.
Our experience has shown that the Social Media our clients are most comfortable with are usually the ones to drive engagement. For some, it’s a strong Facebook presence. For others, YouTube is the 800-lbs. gorilla. For me personally, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of Twitter and (of course) the Quisenblog. Just depends on what you’re most comfortable using.
While I’m thankful to Marketing Sherpa for taking time to plot this stuff, I myself take it with a grain of salt. For me, it’s not so simple as picking winners and losers. It’s about finding what works best for each marketer, then sticking with it.
If you’re interested in reading more about this study, here’s a link.
Posted by Mickey
