What social media network should I post on for my business?

 
There are so many social media channels out there; it’s hard to know which one to focus on. Or should you have a presence on all of them? It would take a lot of time and effort to keep posting and reacting to all of the available social media sites, so choose a few that are relevant to your business and go from there.
 
They all need different types of content and work in different ways so go for quality, not quantity. Here’s a rundown of the most relevant social media sites for businesses…
 
Twitter
This is a fast moving platform where your users have a short attention span and a lot of content in their feed to wade through. Visual and shareable content works best, and repeat or rephrase your posts often to make sure you can hit as many people as possible.
 
Look out for retweets and replies to make sure you can get a conversation going, as it’s an ideal site to do this and it lets other users know there is an actual person, or people, behind the profile.
 
You can use hashtags here, but not too many, to link in with any trends or industries that might be appropriate to your business.
 
Facebook
The most popular platform, by far, but it is increasingly hard to get exposure for free. Business use is orientated to promotional and paid activity and you’ll struggle to get a lot of interaction and reach without it.
 
Go for visual, personable content (especially if you are business to business as most people are not on Facebook to think about work!).
 
Take time to reply to people on Facebook, as you are rated on your response times. Customers can also check in to your site and review your business, so treat your company profile page as an extension of your website in that respect.
 
LinkedIn
Although LinkedIn is getting a bit more informal it is still business focused. It’s a good place to share industry news and updates about your business in a more formal way.
 
Most LinkedIn activity for businesses is still focused around networking. This is the place to track down contacts that might be of use to your company and engage with them.
 
It also gives you the ability to publish blog posts directly on LinkedIn, which may get picked up by the site for promotion. This is a great way to get some detailed content up on social media and creates some discussion too – be sure to engage with people that comment.
 
Google Plus
The jury is still out on Google Plus (or Google+). Personally, I don’t see it as a popular platform. People don’t seem to engage on there and conversations and reactions are few and far between.
 
However, it is a little miracle worker for your SEO results. If you link up your profile page with your Google Business locations, G+ (see, with three possible ways of referring to it, it’s never going to do well!) posts appear on Google results and this is very helpful for SEO and getting yourself up the search engine rankings. I always recommend having a presence on Google Plus for my clients purely for this reason.
 
Instagram
This site is for photos, short videos and visuals only. You can go hashtag crazy on here, but we wary that there is no linking available in your post, so direct users to your profile page. If you have striking visual content it’s a fantastic place to get noticed, but you need to do a bit of work building up followers and liking and comments on other users’ posts to make sure this works.
 
YouTube
Obviously, the site to post any videos and tutorials that you have. If you are a business that can make use of how to guides, interviews, case studies, demonstrations, and so on, make sure you post your video on here to get the most out of them. And then make sure to promote it on all your other social media sites too!