Social Media Platforms

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
I just read where Google+ is on the rise, but LinkedIn and Twitter are on the downslide. I'm curious what the web hosting industry thinks are the optimum social media sites to embrace? I know I post to Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest everyday.

I see a lot of stats relating to likes, but not so much to conversions and wonder if those stats apply to our industry. For example, the top 20% of successful Twitter marketers tweet 80 times daily, while on average the other 80% tweets 14 times per day. I tweet maybe 2 or 3 times a day and can't see tweeting more often than that.
 
I think the strategy needs to be different as a host company with what you can successfully post compared to say a webmaster coupon code site that has followers that want to see a steady stream of discount coupons and special offers coming their way. From their host, that they've already chosen, you probably will not have a high conversion rate as the followers are going to be made up primarily of existing clients. They may share offers with friends on occasion, but social media for a host is probably going to help more with overall long term branding and retention.
 
Twitter has been on the downslide since forever. Linkedin never really caught on.

I'd be REALLY surprised to see that Google + was on the rise though. Then again, when you're dead last, well, you've got nowhere to go but up.
 
XSV said:
I think the strategy needs to be different as a host company with what you can successfully post compared to say a webmaster coupon code site that has followers that want to see a steady stream of discount coupons and special offers coming their way. From their host, that they've already chosen, you probably will not have a high conversion rate as the followers are going to be made up primarily of existing clients. They may share offers with friends on occasion, but social media for a host is probably going to help more with overall long term branding and retention.
Click to expand...

You raise very good points here I agree completely. As a web hosting company it's a bit different to your convensional online business.

Good question.

I think Twitter on the downside and Google+ up also comes down to Twitters much bigger usage than Google+. Twitter can only go down and Google+ can only go up.

It's best to use all of the main social networks as your customer's will have different preferences over which one they use.
 
I don't even know anymore. Seems like it is a wait-game for either something new to pop out that will awe the audience or for someone else to go out of business.

I remember when I bet a lot on Google Plus. I liked the platform and what Google was doing with their privacy customisation through a concept of circles. But apparently very few cared for that.

Regardless, I've heard different about Google Plus today. From a recent Fortune article dated just a month ago, "When Google joined the social networking space in 2011 with Google+, more than 25 million people joined in the first month. Now the number of true users on Google+ is less than 1% of the total 2.2 billion users on Google, according to a report by Stone Temple Consulting."

I think you have to look at it from a different perspective. You don't have to post on Pinterest or Facebook if your users are not there. Focus only on channels that make sense for your audience. It is different for any industry, but from what I noticed in web hosting, Twitter seems to be the most popular channels where people are present. Instagram is pretty much dead for web hosts, you won't find anyone. LinkedIn is definitely not dead as so many people are on it, but whether the engagement is down is another question. What I am certainly noticing is that people are getting less time to share in general.
 
I do know outside of web hosting, I use Twitter way more than anything else, with LinkedIn coming in second. I too, became very frustrated with Google+ a while back, so while I use it for web hosting, I don't use it at all for anything else.
 
I think that best social media for business is:
1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. LinkedIn
4. Instagram
5. Google+
 
Linkedin is very relevant but harder to crack, it's a really big social network but business orientated so harder for your business to stand out, it can also become quite expensive.

I am still experimenting with social networks.
 
Yes, with LinkedIn there is hard to get a good result, but if you work with it, you get from this social network really great result.
 
For my self I used to use

Facebook page and a group, group was closed for staff and clients to talk but the staff set up just a account to use for them
Twitter - main account for news and tweets
Instagram - I use this a lot to promote offerse
Linkdim I use my personal one to promote stuff for the hosting when I had it
 
I've heard the opposite and that Google+ was dying but here are some quick tips that have helped me.

* Quantity is King, but make sure it is high quality content. (My idea: Use WordPress plugin FeedWordPress to bring good content to your site without much effort.)
* Use infographics (Ex. upworthy.com and mashable.com)
* Write headlines for both people and the search engines. (Do quick keyword research and trends for picking headline. Rand Fishkin says picking the right headline is 90% of the work.)
* Cover trending topics. (Use Google Trends)
* Write in conversational tone. Use words like You and I, small paragraphs, keep it simple, and ask questions in the blog post to encourage comments, suggestions, sharing, etc.
* Collect emails and offers and opt-ins and email blog posts as well. * Email subscribers are 3.9 times more likely to share your content.
* Monitor results to see what topics are the most popular.
* Build up social media profiles.
* Get partnerships in other blog RSS feeds.

Ideas:
* Find popular questions (list on 05 Content) on your customers product and/or service and answer them on social networks.

Step 1. Go to http://www.socialmention.com/ and find out which social media sources are the most popular with your customers main service or product.
Step 2. Create Social Media Accounts and optimize. (List of social media sites is in 09 Link Opportunies)
Step 3. Do quick keyword research on most popular terms about customers product and/or service.
Step 4. Set up Google Alerts and Moz Alerts.
Step 5. Answer questions on Q&A sites (List of Q&A sites is in 09 Link Opportunities)

Track your competition – It’s a great idea to know what your competition is up to, and following their movements on social networks is a great way to do that! But not only should you find and follow their accounts – set up a custom search with their company name to see what their customers are saying! Use those posts (good or bad) to gain the competative advantage.
Trade events and conferences – If you plan on attending an event for your industry, find out and set up a search for the name of the event, and the twitter “hashtag” (if there is one). Then, leading up to the event you’ll see who’s going to be there, what they’ll be talking about – and hopefully you can network and meet the right people beforehand.
Your community – Set up a search for the town or neighborhood your business is in – see what people are saying about the area, find out about events you might want to get involved in or event find potential new customers! Being aware of what’s going on in your community is important for most businesses or professionals.

There is an excellent read at https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media
 
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