Social Media 2018: 3 Most Popular Platforms

This last week I went to the Social Media Marketing World Conference in San Diego. It happens every year and they bring in a bunch of amazing speakers to talk about all things social media.

This year they had over 20 different speakers. Keep in mind, these are some of the top influencers in the industry who are sharing their knowledge and business tips and tricks. 

Whenever I attend these types of events, I like to do a recap and share some insider tips with you. As much as I’ve learned, I’m going to keep it simple for you because I know how it can all be overwhelming. 

Although they talked about every social media platform there is, there were three that stood out the most this year. Below are the three most popular social media platforms for 2018.

Facebook

Let’s talk about Facebook. What is all the fuss about lately and why is everyone so negative? Recently Facebook made an announcement:A lot of people, mostly businesses and personal brands were upset almost furious that their content won’t be shown. I can understand the frustration, however, it doesn’t have to be the end of using Facebook for your business!

When building a business, you should never put all your eggs in one basket, because of instances like this. Social media is constantly changing and it’s always always a good idea to have a back up plan. 

Although he says they’re straying away from showing content from businesses, he also says that they’ve seen more people engage in live video than regular videos. Ding Ding Ding! Here’s where you come in! This is your way around the new change. If you want people to see your content, you need to really plan your strategy. Live video is a great way to start!

Your content has to be relevant to your audience. You want them to engage with you as much as you engage with them. Facebook was created for connections between family and friends. So we are going back to the beginning and connecting with people! Don’t you want a genuine audience who is interested in what you have to offer anyway? 

Whatever the content you’re putting out there, my advice to you is to really have a purpose for each and every post and engage with your audience. Hint: fb groups aren’t created just for the heck of it. 

Messenger Bots

Moving onto messenger bots. What is messenger? What are bots? Okay, you may or may not know what they are. That’s okay!

Facebook has their own messenger app, but the bot is controlled from a whole different platform that works with Facebook messenger.

When you message a business, you may get an automatic reply from them or even a series of automatic replies. This is the bot that I’m talking about. It makes it easy for you to be there for your audience to answer questions or give them updates instead of sending them emails all the time. 

Plus, it allows you to sell to your audience directly from messenger. WHAT?! Yes, they don’t have to go through multiple channels just to buy a service or product from you. They can do it all right there in Facebook messenger. 

There’s a couple different platforms to use for your messenger bot, but I highly recommend ManyChat. They have lots of different bot options and video tutorials as well. You can find their website here.

YouTube

YouTube has always been and will probably always be one of the top platforms to use. Why? There’s a few different reasons, but one being that it is also a search engine. What does this mean? Google is a search engine. You’re able to type in a keyword and search for what you want. YouTube is the same. You’re able to type in “How to …” and a list of videos come up. 

When you search in google, two things come up. Links based upon your keyword and videos from youtube. People like to read or watch/listen and google knows this! They want their viewers to have the best experience possible. So not only are you appearing in youtube, but you can also appear in google search based upon your ranking and SEO, but that’s another subject. 

My point is that it’s an easy platform for people to find your content because they’re already searching for it. 

Not only is it a search engine, but you can also run youtube ads to promote your service or product. I understand if you’re just starting out and don’t have the means to buy ads so I’m not telling you this is a must. I’m just saying that this is another way to promote your business. 

Overall, there’s always going to be new social media platforms or trends. What matters is that you pick two that you really want to focus on building your business when first starting out. Zone in on those two and learn the ins and outs. Once you start bringing in an audience and start selling, then maybe branch out into other platforms. Otherwise, you are going to be so overwhelmed (unless you have a team of people) that you’ll be stuck. 

I speak from experience and have decided to only focus on two platforms. It got to be too overwhelming and I wasn’t great at any one platform. I was just good or okay in 3 or 4 platforms and nothing was happening. Once I started to focus on one, then two, I was able to build a following and connect with my audience on a different level. 

If you found this information valuable and would like to learn more, please leave me a comment below :). I want to give you the best and the only way to do that is from feedback from you.

As always, thanks for reading!

XO

Courtney Marie