We have so many different options of social media that it is hard to decide which ones are good to make an investment in.
Each network has its own positives and negatives that you need to be aware of if you want to reach the right group of people and use your time effectively.
We will go through some of the top social media sites and share the best and worst qualities.
Positives
- With the biggest audience base and a proven business section, you really need to consider investing time and money. Entire communities are invested in Facebook and most likely many people you know are already on there, making this the perfect base for your social media marketing.
- The mobile app has the best features of all of the social networks being reviewed. This means that they know their audience well. Along with that, their iTunes app is an exact match improving usability for the user.
- Making a Facebook Page for your business or organization is extremely easy and well documented. You can stay with the basics of a wall for comments and statuses, photos, videos, and questions, but also have the ability to make this your own personal website with advanced features to create custom pages.
Negatives
- Facebook has a strong policy about giving away products via givaways, sweepstakes, and contests. In essence, unless you
- Marketers need to reevaluate how they get the word out about a company or product. Many researchers have found that people do not want to be bothered by you and will unlike you if you post more than a couple of times a day.
- Facebook loves to make changes to their design and layout. They have been known to change the entire look of the site with little to no notice to users and you have to spend hours figuring out where everything is at. Of course, for them this is great because they are clicking everywhere, but frustrating for the user.
Positives
- Of all the social networking sites, this has the most potential for true marketers. You can send out thirty tweets a day and be considered a normal user. If done well, you can give little glimpses into your website or company and entice many curious people to view what you have to share.
- Over the last couple of years, Twitter has become the place to get the latest news, even before the news companies can get information out. Thus, Twitter has established a place of prominence in the social network community.
- The hastag and @ search-ability and integration is extremely ideal and is simple to use. This allows you to connect so many people talking about the same things as you and extend your network quickly, effectively, and in leaps and bounds.
Negatives
- While Twitter is a great promotional tool that you can send out ten, twenty or thirty tweets about a blog or company’s products, the return of investment (ROI) is actually quite low. In fact, it is possible to send out thousands of tweets and get very little interaction to your website. So the “bang for your buck” is much lower and requires much more interaction with viewers to work out.
- For those that rely on a visual element, posting photos from a youth group event or video interviews that you do on your blog, Twitter can only provide the link to the media you want to share. Thus, this is a very low marketing tool to share any mediums instantaneously.
- Twitter was never designed to be more than a 140 character medium. This means little customization, minimal visual aspects, and only a 140 character bio. Leaves a lot to be desired when compared with some of the other networks.
Google+
Positives
- With the power of Google behind this web app, it is a business owners dream. The social network is directly linked into the search engine, meaning that your viewers can actually help you get better search results from people that only use Google and bring in more people to your site.
- While Facebook may have a video chat, the Facebook Page does not have this. Google+ has Google Hangout available to even businesses. So if you want to connect live with your viewers, you have this ability. Instant access with viewers and consumers.
- Privacy is a huge issue for many and Google+ is the pioneer (unfortunately they forced Facebook to follow suit) in protecting your information and only using it when you want to share it.
Negatives
- It’s a young network and unless you are targeting young, techie, men, you may have to wait awhile for a better audience. It has a long way to go to attach people to it.
- Google is not a front runner in the social media network community. Most of what they have offered is taking parts of their other web apps and putting them into Google+ or simply stealing them from Facebook and Twitter. (Hashtags anyone?) This means they will not be attracting any new people until they offer something revolutionary.
- I hate it when a web company forces mobile people to download an app to use their services. Currently, you are unable to simply use your mobile browser to use Google+ and making me not want to use it at all.
YouTube
Positives
- This network has a strong niche following that can turn into loyal fans very quickly if given a little spark in video editing and great content. In fact, a single video could result in millions of people watching it in weeks. This is one network that needs to be utilized well.
- The two youngest generations are visual people and videos are the next big thing to come. With iPhone’s FaceTime, HD videos becoming normal, and a general love for videos, YouTube is not going anywhere. You need to have some kind of video presence.
Negatives
- Unfortunately, to do something beyond a quick title screen, cheesy transitions, and low quality video and audio, you need to make some investment in both equipment (HD camera, microphones, lighting, editing programs) as well as time to learn videography. It is a steep learning curve and hiring professionals are not cheap.
- As of right now, YouTube has not had a visual change in several years. The layout and design are dated and could use a complete makeover. (One is coming!)
- With Google splitting it’s time between its new love, Google+, and YouTube, one can have justified fears that the appropriate time and energy will not be put into this great social network.
What qualities that you love or hate did we miss that should be on our list?
What social media platforms are a must-have or not-worth-your-time to you?
PatrckB says
Oops!
What’s the rest of the sentence “Facebook has a strong policy about giving away products via givaways, sweepstakes, and contests. In essence, unless you”
p.
Jeremy Smith says
🙂 Great catch. “In essence, unless you create your own custom pages, you can’t use Facebook except to redirect to your blog.”
Dano Hart says
I’m going to try to get through this with a cool head…..but it’s kind of hard.
Twitter
“…the return of investment (ROI) is actually quite low. In fact, it is possible to send out thousands of tweets and get very little interaction to your website. So the “bang for your buck” is much lower and requires much more interaction with viewers to work out.”
Then you’re using twitter wrong. If you make friends with people that are tweeting about things related to what you write about on your blog, or what you sell on your site…..you can very easily turn them, not only into a visitor, but also a person that will tell their twitter followers.
Google+
“I hate it when a web company forces mobile people to download an app to use their services. Currently, you are unable to simply use your mobile browser to use Google+ and making me not want to use it at all.”
I have no idea where this comes from. Yes they have a decent mobile app on Android devices, and for iOS devices…..but they also have a good mobile site, and if you don’t like the mobile site(some features work better on the site than in the app unfortunately), you can just switch to the desktop site on your phone and it works just as if you were on a desktop or laptop/notebook computer.
Youtube-
“As of right now, YouTube has not had a visual change in several years. The layout and design are dated and could use a complete makeover. (One is coming!)”
I’m going to assume that you wrote this before last week when the new Google+ integrated/inspired layout rolled out. I believe that everyone now has it as of this past Sunday. But I get working hard on an article…and then the internet changes it on you while you’re writing….nothing an edit can’t fix.
But one thing I think could be added to any Google product, but more specifically YouTube, is that YouTube is no longer a social network, besides the comments. Adding the Google+ layer makes it social….but now it’s a hosting site. If you want to share it, you share it on Google+. Same with something like Google Calendar….it’s now just a calendar, and if you want to share an event, you share it on the social layer……Google+
Thought you could use some feedback on all of this. Your positive bullet points….they’re great! Love ’em. I look forward to seeing what other articles you have in store for me to read.
Jeremy Smith says
Dano,
Thanks for such a thorough response. Every one of these points are valid. As per the Twitter question, this is solely data from several recent students (a couple of them you can find on Mashable) that shows the ROI on both Facebook and Twitter. I agree that this could be done better, but we are not working with professional Twitter users. Teaching someone to use it well is a whole other blog post!
The Google+ mobile anger is a personal opinion because Google should have something better. At the time of this writing, I could not access Google+ from my iPhone. And honestly, I love the platform and had a tough time writing bad things about it outside of it being young and lacking a full audience right now.
The YouTube response was written two weeks ago, I even reference one is coming. I think that YouTube is still social media, but only in part and there is SO MUCH potential there to expand, but as I stated, I think they are going to fully invest in Google+.
Hopefully this helps you understand my perspective and finds you in better spirits. I love them all, but had to be somewhat critical for those that are very new to the social media community.
Jeremy Reger says
Ahem.. #Hashtags were not created for Twitter and do not work on Facebook, so they were not stolen.
Lauren Hunter says
Thanks for the post with the helpful social media tips, and all the great comments above! I have actually found Twitter to bring in the most traffic to my blog, so I really value it highly as a social network (among other reasons). Many of the pastors and church leaders looking to improve and share what their skills are do use Twitter – it all depends on your audience! I find that Facebook isn’t awesome for me – my readers rarely comment on my Facebook page (http://facebook.com/churchtechtoday) but I still get quite a few site referrals from my likers . . .
Keep up the great articles! They are helpful for everyone!
Blessings,
Lauren
Jeremy Smith says
I have found the same thing. Twitter is the best avenue for marketing, Facebook is more of a “best post of the month” kind of deal…. Google+, still unsure.
Jeremy Reger says
Google + is amazing.. its like twitter thats conversational… it is 100% User and consumer engaging..