The Role of Social Media in the Betterment of Your Online Business
Social Media has grown in popularity in the past few years and it can be said that now, it’s a big part of our life. Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are rapidly taking over our lives in more ways than just social interaction.
The internet is one of the most powerful tools today and it contains such sites which can be used as platforms in advertising and growing online businesses. Using social media sites to advertise your online shop or online businesses, particularly Snapchat and Instagram would allow you to get immediate feedback on your products, engage and learn more about your target audience and convert them into paying customers.
But which social media is better for your business? Would using Snapchat bring in more customers or would using Instagram be the best platform to increase your sales? Read on to learn about both sites and the benefits each of them has in terms of improving your online business.
Snapchat vs Instagram – All You Need to Know
Snapchat and Instagram are two powerful platforms you can use to promote your online business for the better. They both have one purpose, which is to distribute and share photos and videos, but in very unlike ways.
Read on to learn all about Snapchat and Instagram and how they will work for making your business better:
Promoting Your Business with Snapchat
Introduced in 2011, Snapchat permits its users to capture photos and videos, add captions to them and share them to a friend or to all their followers. However, it comes with an interesting twist… as soon as the recipients open the “Snap,” they only have 10 seconds to look at the picture or the entire length of the video before it is automatically deleted.
So how can Snapchat help your business?
Snapchat is currently growing in popularity even though it is fairly new compared to other social media sites.
This means that you could be one of the few (for now) business owners who can dominate Snapchat through active sharing of your product photos or videos.
- Snapchat users are frequently online and active. This means that it would be easier to engage them into looking at your site and your products.
- Because of its 10 second feature, users would pay more attention to whatever you send them, making it more efficient.
What are the downsides?
- Since it is relatively new, Snapchat would not give you a wide range of audience or potential customers.
- The ten-second feature could also work against your business as if a customer is interested in a product, there won’t be enough time for him/her to look at it properly. Unless the person contacts you about the product to ask for more information, sharing the video would have just been a waste.
- Most customers like going back to the photos of products before making the choice to buy them and Snapchat doesn’t give them that opportunity.
When is it best to use Snapchat?
- If your target market is younger people – teens, tweens and young adults, Snapchat would be an effective platform to advertise your online business.
- You can also benefit from Snapchat if you’d like to give a sense of urgency to show what you have to offer.
- You can also use this as a sort of teaser to catch the attention of your audience, encouraging them to ask for more.
Promoting Your Business with Instagram
Instagram, the sister company of the very popular Facebook, permits users to share or post photos and videos to their public profile. Captions can also be added as well as hashtags, which are topics and links which can be clicked. Instagram has photo editing features and the photos and videos posted remain there until the user decides to delete them.
So how can Instagram help your business?
- The hashtag is a helpful feature which serves as a clickable link, which you can use as you post photos or videos of what you are selling. You can use hashtags to target your market and increase the likelihood of engaging people to partake in your business.
- Since Instagram is connected to Facebook, this means that posting photos and videos would ensure a wider spectrum of the audience which could mean more potential customers.
- Photos and videos you post on Instagram would be of higher quality, which could be more attention grabbing for customers.
- The option to like and post comments on the photos and videos onInstagram starts and gives momentum to conversations whether publicly or privately.
- Photos and videos posted can remain there, available for everyone to see unless you decide to take them off your wall. This means customers can keep coming back while they are deciding on whether or not to make the purchase.
What are the downsides?
- There is no sense of urgency in posting photos or videos and if you’re not actively maintaining your site, you may forget to remove photos of items which are no longer available, causing disappointment when customers ask about them.
- There’s a lot more competition in Instagram. Popular as it is, a lot of online marketers are using Instagram to post their products.
- You’d have to put in a lot of time and effort to make your products look visually appealing as they will be posted for a longer time for anyone to see.
When is it best to use Instagram?
- If your business relies on products that are visually appealing this would push customers to purchase them.
- When you’re looking for a wide variety of audience and you’d like to have lots of social interactions and conversations.
- If you like giving photos or videos longer captions and you’d like to make use of the tagging and hashtag feature, Instagram is for you.