Social Media: What Are You Waiting For?

It’s tempting to dismiss the reasoning behind why small businesses need social media.

Seeing an employee logging into one of the many of the social media platforms he’s signed-up to means that he’s?not?working, doesn’t it?

That’s the connection we’ve made with scrolling through your Facebook or Twitter feed – that it’s fun; it’s not work.

But if you have this mentality, it’s probably time to change it. And fast.

Social media networks are one of the fastest growing industries in the world.

Because of their rapid rise, seemingly coming from nowhere to being absolutely everywhere, it’s easy to disregard the phenomenon as a fad. A bubble that’s just waiting to burst.

But when you consider that?48% of the world’s entire population are on the internet, and?71% of those have social media accounts, it should be pretty obvious by now that social media is here to stay.

And if you’re not leveraging this phenomenon to grow your business then you’re missing out. In a big, big way.

When social media is mentioned, most people think of Facebook and probably Twitter. They’re a good place to start, but there’s more to the social media game then just those two.

Facebook?– it’s the biggest and arguably the most powerful of the social media platforms with a whopping 1.71 billion users. Facebook has been shaping the social media landscape since it launched.

Twitter?– with 313 million users, the micro-blogging platform still has some way to go catch Facebook’s unprecedented numbers. But it remains one of the ‘hot’ platforms at present.

Instagram?– with 500 million users, the visually-orientated platform is a social network that won’t work for everybody but cannot be ignored.

LinkedIn?– the businessman’s social media platform, LinkedIn focuses largely on B2B marketing. If you’re in the B2B vertical, 106 million users are not something to be sniffed at.

We believe that these are the four platforms that carry the most weight, from a digital marketing standpoint. Though honourary mentions must be made to:

Reddit?– 243 million users, but a very picky audience that largely frowns upon blatant advertising ploys.

Snapchat?– the new kid on the block with 200 million users and 6 billion+ page views each day.

Pintrest?– 100 million users for the visually-oriented platform that’s similar to Instagram.

YouTube?– 1 billion+ users, but can the video-sharing website really be considered a social media platform?

With those eye-watering numbers, you’re hopefully starting to see the pool of resources you’re neglecting if your business doesn’t engage in any social media practices whatsoever.