If Your Small Business Was a Social Media Site… Nicci Troiani People have a lot of fun comparing social media sites to actual people. It’s easy to relate because each social media platform has it’s own, distinct personality. So which social site would your business be? and why should you care? While it is ideal to have a presence across all social platforms, many small businesses don’t have the time to keep up to date on them all. Find out which social site meshes with your business, brand, customers and prospects and focus there for the best return. Facebook Your business is classic, laid back and has a lot of friends. Your stamp of approval or “like” is influential. Facebook businesses have a close knit fan base or community. With Facebook now implementing hashtags, it is going to be easier to reach larger audiences. In the past, it was harder to grow an audience on Facebook than on Twitter and you really needed to have a good audience base to have much of a following on Facebook. Facebook is great for sharing content with your fans. When you post a blog link, it pulls in a thumbnail image as well. (read “Use New Facebook Hashtags to Market Your #SmallBiz” to learn more about hashtags on Facebook) Twitter Your business has a lot to say and wants to reach a large audience. Your business follows trends and news. Twitter is great for a small business to reach a large audience. You can use twitter to post any content you have, like blogs, as well as re-tweet other people’s content. By using hashtags or incorporating trending topics into your tweets, you can increase your reach. Twitter limits you to 140 characters, which is a good thing. It keeps your post brief, which means its more likely to get read and you can link back to a blog or website to say more. Pinterest Your business has a do it yourself mentality, is creative and visual. You are either a woman- ran business, or focus on an industry where your prospects are mostly women. 80% of Pinterest users are women and only 5% of users are under the age of 18. The site became popular extremely quickly. Pinterest is great for retail and food businesses. An additional bonus is that you can link the images you upload to anywhere that you like. By linking them back to your website, you can increase traffic back to your site. (read “How Small Businesses can use Pinterest for Lead Generation” here) LinkedIn Your business is strictly professional. You thrive on networking and meeting like-minded people. LinkedIn is known for it’s networking purposes. You are able to join groups to network within people from your industry or region. You can also create a company page for your business and post content and updates here. LinkedIn also allows you to share your content into specific groups– this is great if you want to expose your content to certain groups or segments. YouTube Your business has a message and wants to be seen. YouTube houses many different types of messages and audiences. Because of this, YouTube can be great for marketing. Not every business has the time to create, record and edit educational videos for YouTube. If you do have the time, YouTube is the 3rd largest search engine, and the potential to reach a lot of people is great. Google+ Your business is practical and wants more attention. While Google+ has still not really taken off with the general public, many marketers and Google enthusiasts still use the site, because updating your Google+ account helps with your website SEO. (Read “Why Google+ is Still Relevant for Small Businesses) Instagram Your business is trendy and visual. Instagram, like Twitter (and now Facebook) allows the use of hashtags, which is great for expanding your reach to people outside of your audience. Instagram really benefits companies who are more visual (like retail or food) since you don’t get more than an image and caption with your posts. Vine Your business is creative and quirky. Vine is the new kid on the block. Like Twitter, which limits you to 140 characters, Vine limits you to 6 seconds of video. This has inspired some business to post some great, creative videos which can leave a lasting impression on your audience. Here are some other fun social media comparisons that helped inspire this post: If Social MediaSsites were Fictional Characters found on Mainstreethost by Olivia Roat http://blog.mainstreethost.com/if-social-media-sites-were-fictional-characters#.UjcR68bkuYg What Social Media Sites Woudl Look Like If They Were in High School found on Social Media Today by Brian Wallace http://socialmediatoday.com/nowsourcing/994236/you-are-what-you-share-infographic Check out another blog “Social Media Overload: How to get Focused” if you’re feeling overwhelmed with options! http://benchmarkcrm.com/blog/social-media-overload-how-to-get-focused/