Quick – name every social media platform that you know. Done?
You probably thought of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest. Maybe Snapchat, tumblr, myspace, or TikTok came to mind, too. It’s no secret that there are all sorts of social media platforms around for anyone to use. While most people use social media for personal reasons like sharing snippets of their lives or connecting with friends and family, these same platforms can enable you to maximize your overall brand reach. Because social media use has become so universal, it’s in your interest as a small business owner to use social media to find and engage with your audience.
Since each platform has different uses and helps you reach different audiences, it’s important to determine which platforms are the right fit for you and your business. More importantly, each platform requires dedicated time in order to maximize your time spent promoting yourself on social media. If you have a very visual product or a product/service that is conducive to tutorials and short videos, Instagram is a great use of your time. If your ideal audience is a bit older or not as high-tech, Facebook advertising (which can target very specific audiences) may be a better use of your time.
On top of that, there are new platforms and website being created each day that can be used to help spread your message and promote yourself, your product, and your business. Here are three new platforms that you want to consider using as you hone in your social media game.
1) Viber
Viber is a message and video app that allows you to call, send multimedia audio and video messages, send GIFs, share stickers, and more. In this sense, it’s similar to other messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but could be potentially be utilized better for business purposes.
Businesses can promote their brand with stickers, buy ads, provide customer service, and there’s a shopping section where you can display your products (you can see other business opportunities through Viber here) Viber reportedly has more than 400 million users, which means a large audience to connect to but you won’t be drowned out by competition yet.
2) Telegram
Telegram is another social media messaging app known for its security measures.
This may seem like a strange platform to use for your business, but hear us out. Besides providing one-on-one customer support with a secure server, businesses and brands can create chatbots to communicate with an unlimited number of subscribers to share news, updates, new products, and brand information. Chatbots provide a relable alternative to an email subscription list, which may seem outdated to some younger demographics. Again, it depends on who you are attempting to reach: knowing your audience is key.\
3) The Dots
The Dots is a creative network that describes itself as a “diverse community of no-collar professionals including creators, entrepreneurs & freelancers.” The Dots allows you to connect with other creative professionals, showcase your own work, browse portfolios, look for jobs and people to fill them, and more.
The Dots straddles the line between social connections and work connections, sort of like LinkedIn, but focuses on the visual aspect of work instead of Facebook-style work updates like LinkedIn.
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