From Pinterest to Reddit and Quora- How alternative platforms can be effective in your social media marketing arsenal
Establishing a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn presence is almost a necessity in today’s enterprise landscape. Even if your company doesn’t need to rely on social media to gain awareness, having a void in this space runs the risk of potential clients feeling weirded out that you’re so out of the loop. “The Big Three” platforms listed above can seriously benefit your company by building trust through reviews, developing an engaged audience, and by providing customer service.
Alternatives to Facebook?
What about other platforms, though? While we’d never advocate that your company should have a presence on all 200 social media channels, there are other alternatives worth exploring that your company may not have considered previously.
In this blog, we’re going to talk specifically about Quora, Pinterest, and Reddit, and how some businesses fail to appreciate these lesser-known and often undervalued gems. If you are willing to explore these platforms, your business may gain a competitive edge. Crafting a cultivating strategy on these social media pages could give your business great gains if you provide value and consistency in your digital touchpoints.
Pinterest: Getting customers at the beginning
Pinterest is an excellent medium to reach customers in the beginning stages of the buying funnel. Pinterest users are chronically at the consideration stage. The average time for a customer to convert is six months. Pinterest is a visually pleasing platform that offers options to inspire customers. With nearly 200 million monthly users on the channel, your brand needs to step up its visual game, engage with the audience in memorable ways, in order for it to be a success.
People are browsing for inspiration and influences. They are not active shoppers, but instead, are gathering ideas.
The upside to this is that your brand can be impressed upon on a customer from the earliest stages of their purchase cycle. They can be reached as they are starting the buying process as early on as they’ve decided to start searching for something and do their research about that particular product or service.
Reddit: A community for every micro niche
Aside from its massive size, Reddit has a rich network of active, engaged communities, who abide by rules that serve to make it a fun, inclusive, and informative space.
Commonly known as the “Front Page of the Internet,” Reddit has approximately 275 million monthly users. It is the third most referenced social media outlet online. The users are not required to disclose their true identities, which makes for open, interesting communications at times. The ability to be anonymous makes Reddit a unique and popular social media platform, where users can feel safe posting openly and honestly because there are no judges.
Reddit introduced advertisements to its platform in 2017 – allowing brands the opportunity to market to highly targeted communities, very inexpensively. While your company may dedicate an enormous budget to AdWords or Facebook ads, tapping into Reddit could help your brand grow rapidly with its high foot traffic and dedicated communities.
Quora: A Place for Industry Experts
The last social media platform we’re going to tell you about in this blog is Quora. This is a place where people can post questions and obtain answers on a number of topics by subject matter experts. There are about 200 million users each month.
Celebrities and politicians even use Quora, because it is so versatile and diverse. It is a network of users exchanging viewpoints and information on a variety of topics from IT, to health, and every part of the human condition.
There are a lot of opportunities for brands on the Quora platform; in particular, by demonstrating authority, and by using it as a tool to gain momentum with your company’s content marketing strategy. If you are an expert in your field, there are likely many users seeking your knowledge. Quora is an excellent medium on which to post answers and anecdotal information that is invaluable to other users.
This blog has only served as an introduction to alternate social media channels that can bolster business for your company. To scratch even further beneath the surface, contact the team at Powered Labs to start on your company’s social media strategy today.
If your company needs guidance with social media marketing strategy, feel free to drop us a line at sales@www.poweredlabs.com