How to make the most of social media for your business

A Guide To Social Networks

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting blogs specific to the most popular social networks. This week, we'd like to introduce you to the world of social networking and the platforms you could consider trying.

In an increasingly digital world, not having an online presence can be detrimental to your business activities. But with so many social media platforms to choose from, how do you choose where to spend your time and how do you make the most of it?

The most popular social media platforms in the UK

• Facebook: 845 million users (February 2012), 30 million in the UK
• Twitter: 465 million users, 26 million in UK
• Google+:100 million users globally, 1 million in the UK
• LinkedIn: 150 million users globally, 8 million in the UK

Source: ComScore

Increase customer engagement with Facebook

Facebook was founded in 2004 and is the largest social network. In December 2011, Facebook announced they had 845 million active users globally – but only 20% of users were in the USA and Canada. It’s estimated that Facebook users spend, on average, 7 hours on Facebook every month.

Facebook pages can be incredibly useful for engaging customers and many businesses use it as a customer relationship management tool.

Twitter and the growth of microblogging

Twitter is a growing social network with approximately 140 million active users tweeting 340 million messages per day. It serves as a micro-blogging platform and has a 140 character limit.

Twitter is particularly useful if you want to increase brand awareness.

Google+ is a new social network but it has potential

Launched in 2011, Google+ has 1 million users in the UK, although its estimated people only spend 3 minutes a month on the site. Despite this, developers predict the popularity of Google+ will grow significantly.

Google+ business pages could contribute to your SEO tactics so it’s well worth your while setting up a page.

Network with other professionals using LinkedIn

Also known as the “Facebook for businesses”, LinkedIn is a networking site for business professionals. It’s claimed they have over 150 million members, with 8 million of those based in the UK.

Your profile is similar to a CV, detailing your job history, skills and experience. It allows you to network with other professionals and could be ideal for networking if you work in a B2B environment.

Why you should try Pinterest

Pinterest is a relatively new social network site. It encompasses the idea of the traditional pin board and takes it to the digital age. You can ‘pin’ digital images you like or images that inspire you and share them with other people. It's particularly useful in increasing brand awareness.

What about other social network sites?

If you’d like to increase your exposure across other social network sites, we’d recommend trying Tumblr and other discovery sites such as Stumble Upon.

Similar to Pinterest is the more established Tumblr, a microblogging site. It allows you to share and search for images easily. According to Mashable, there were over 38,000 posts on Tumblr per minute in 2011. Tumblr has over 20,400,000 million posts and 50 million blogs to date.

Stumble Upon is particularly useful for finding new websites and interesting content, so it’s worth including your blog or website for additional traffic. In October 2011, Stumble Upon announced they had hit 20 million members.

We’ll be releasing Part 2: What is Facebook? next week, so please check back again soon!

About the Olsen Partnership: we provide intelligent, relevant and value-added marketing solutions to help companies grow their business in an increasingly undifferentiated marketplace.