Types of Social Media

Chapter 3: 10 Types of Social Media | you don’t know how to take benefit of it!

When you hear this word “Social Media” what comes in your mind first? Tell me genuinely! Most probably things like Time-pass, cringe content, time waster and more like that comes to your mind am I right?

Let me tell you that when I hear the word “Social Media” things like Business, Growth, My audience, and more like this come to my mind you know why? Because shhhh! I have a little secret and that’s what I am going to share with you today.

Thinking of Social Media, you might know Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn and if you are too much into it then might you have used Snapchat or Google+ but do you know there is a lot more than that.

We will discover the type of social media out there and how you can get the benefit of each of them for your business in a while and till them let us figure out why the hell you should care about social media in the first place?

Why you should Care about Social Media to grow your business?

Facebook has currently 3.5 billion users which are approximately half of the world’s population and yes don’t forget about Instagram which is not too much far behind with 1 Billion users.

Which means the type of people, demographic of your target audience, People similar to the interest of your potential buyers, and also your recent buyers who could be retargeted all are there present on social media.

Hey, you intellectual B2B owner I know you might argue by saying that I have a B2B business and my potential buyers don’t use Facebook and Instagram. Let me tell you Sir with all due respect that they do use it! Now you might say that they probably don’t contact or buy from me on social media.

Ok! This point is quite acceptable, but have you heard about Twitter & LinkedIn? Around 72% of B2B leads in the world come from LinkedIn alone and yes don’t force me to find figures for Twitter.

Till this point, we have only talked about selling and marketing your product, service, or business. Now, what about Brand Building? You care about it and you Also dream of your business to be a Brand right?

Let me tell you, your business is already a brand and you just need to reveal in front of the people and where you can get a lot of audience with minimal cost? Yes, you got me! It is social media. You can have your own community over there.

Now Imagine till now I have only talked about 4 specific social media platforms only what if I tell you that there is a way bigger picture behind this!  There are many different categories of social media and you are only aware of some most popular things.

So let us see them in detail and understand how they can be helpful to grow your business

10 Types of Social Media Network:

  1. Social network – Connecting with know unknown people
  2. Media sharing networks Share photos, videos, and other media as memory or showing off
  3. Discussion forums Share news and ideas and solve mentioned questions or problems
  4. Bookmarking and content curation networks Discover new content and share
  5. Consumer review networks Find and review businesses and list yours
  6. Blogging and publishing networks Publish text content online
  7. Interest-based networks Share interests and hobbies
  8. Social shopping networks Online Shopping
  9. Sharing economy networks Trading goods and B2B services
  10. Anonymous social networks Communicate or Interact anonymously

Knowing and understanding the categories of social media you will know that how people behave and what kind of people are present out there which helps you win the game of social media.

So let’s get deeper into some of the above-mentioned categories to understand them a little more.

1. Social Network

Example: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

Why people use these social media: The most probable and commonly used way of these social media is to connect people with you or with your brand and engage them.

Sometimes people also use it to just put on their thoughts so the connected people in form of text, images, or videos.

How you can get the benefit of these social media for business :

These types of social media are probably the oldest but they are what define social media. These are the fathers of all social media and the word social media itself.

Looking at the benefits, the major benefit is that these platforms provide the audience or your potential prospects to directly be in touch with your brand without any kind of hassles, and make the communication process barrier-free.

Relationship building and active customer support can both be the most useful advantages and major ways to use these social network platforms for your business.

In today’s world where old people might don’t know how to find your customers’ care numbers online, I am sure they know how to use Facebook so you need to take benefit and advantage of social networks.

2. Media Sharing Networks

Example: Instagram, Snapchat & Youtube

Why do people use these social media: Ok! Now some of you will tell that we can also communicate on Instagram and Snapchat, but bro the major time you spend on Snapchat, Instagram, and Youtube is to consume graphical and video content.

People mostly spend time on these Media sharing networks watching and enjoying some beautiful, knowledgeable, and entertaining visual content.

How you can get the benefit of these social media for business :

You had the power to stimulate one of the major senses of a human body that is the eyes and here are the things you can do with it.

Brand Awareness, Showcasing the experience of your product, Lead Generation, Audience Engagement, and god knows what more.

You can also use these platforms to reach out to people who don’t even know about the existence of your product and tell them you exist and show how useful are you to their lives in form of visual content.

One thing important here is that after Facebook acquired Instagram the line between the Social networks and media sharing networks are getting thinner day by day, as Facebook and Twitter have also introduced live streams, Youtube has also introduced a chat option so be careful while preparing strategies for your business on social media.

And if you are serious enough, Digipple also provides some of the amazing Social Media Marketing Services aeros all the social media platforms so check them out here.

3. Discussion Forms

Example : Quora, Reddit & Digg

Why people use these social media:  Mostly people use these forums to put their opinions, share and discuss ideas, and to get solutions of some problems.

Some people might as well use it also as a hobby for writing down the knowledge they have in answering particular questions or topics.

How you can get the benefit of these social media for business :

Hey, I want to automated the E-mail System in my organization can anybody help me by suggesting some good software?

Suppose you provide email automation software and find this type of question or topic on these discussion forms then you know directly that who is facing the problem and you get one lead on your hand.

Also, one thing here to bring in focus that is if you promote your business directly just by copywriting then sooner or later the discussion forms are going to bane you there.

This doesn’t mean that you should not promote your business.

You should focus on first solving the problem or contributing to the discussion form community and playfully insert the pitch of the business of your business.

4. Bookmarking & Content Curation Network

Example: Pinterest & Flipboard

Why people use these social media:  As the name suggests people use these social platforms to curate content ideas. Not only that they also share it there.

How you can get the benefit of these social media for business :

Driving traffic to your website and brand awareness are two of the most important things that you should leverage this platform for.

These platforms are hotbeds for creativity and inspiration to curate content. I mean there is no doubt about your creative capabilities but still, there is something like creative blocks right, this is the time you can use these platforms.

The second thing is that if you have just created your business website and posting blogs there, what do you think? How many people are going to come to your website to read it?

The point is that you can post that content by changing its format to create interest in those Bookmarking & Content Curation Networks and divert traffic to your website.

5. Consumer Review Network

Example: Yelp, Zomato, Yellow Pages

Why people use these social media: Again as the name suggests people use them for giving reviews, checking reviews, and finding businesses and their details like contact and address.

How you can get the benefit of these social media for business :

Not you need to be very careful with these kinds of social platforms and I suggest if you don’t know anything about it hire a Company like Digipple for Online Reputation Management to manage your reputation and reviews online.

You can list out your business on these kinds of social platforms to register or list out your businesses and also tell your loyal customers to review your business there.

This way you can create trust for the people exploring your business on that high-traffic social platforms. But alert here that make sure someone doesn’t leave a negative review because it can be bad for your business.

Also, these websites give features of location-based search to the people which can be really beneficial even if your business depends on offline sales.


Please Check out Digipple’s Social Media:

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest

(And Don’t Forget to Follow)

 

I am keeping this blog up to here as there’s a lot to talk about the remaining five types of social media platforms so it will be covered in upcoming blogs.

I will link it here as soon as it will be live on our website.

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