It’s a dream come true for all content marketers (except that it rarely comes true).

It’s frustrating to see people sharing and liking so many things, while you struggle to get any response despite giving it your best.

You read those wonderful stories about successful viral marketing, and think of giving it a try.

You create and publish some content pieces, expecting social media to respond with the same fervor, but they don’t.

You try again, and again, but the audience keeps refusing to respond. Dejected, you look at your content and compare it with some of those widely shared ones, and think … “What in this world is lacking in my content? Even if it’s half as good, it should’ve gotten half of that response? But there’s none. What am I doing wrong?”

Here’s the kicker:

You are not going to find the answers because you are looking in the wrong places.

The secret to share-worthy content is not the quality or originality of the content. These are two important factors, but there are other, more important ones.

Your content marketing strategy needs to tick all the right boxes before your content can start to get the shares that you’ve been looking for.

Want to know which boxes? Keep on reading to find out.

Network – How Big is yours?

Ever heard of Cumulative Advantage?

Or Matthew effect?

Go, give it a read, because it’s the key to Social Media success.

In simple words, it’s about rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Wanna see how it applies to Social Media?

Go to your Facebook account and click on the drop down button right next to “News Feed”.

You will see that your News Feed is sorted by “Top Stories”. You can change it to Most Recent, but majority of Facebook users don’t bother with these settings.

What does it mean?

It means that the posts or updates that you get in your newsfeed are not the most recent ones. These are the ones that Facebook Algorithm considered to be the best.

Here’s how Facebook chooses the Top Stories.

“The stories that show in your News Feed are influenced by your connections and activity on Facebook. This helps you to see more stories that interest you from friends you interact with the most. The number of comments and likes a post receives and what kind of story it is (ex: photo, video, status update) can also make it more likely to appear in your News Feed.”

So, a post that generates a lot of interest is considered Top Stuff, and it will get the much needed boost.

An average user has more than 330 friends on Facebook, and we’ve more than 40 million small business pages. Consider posts and updates from all these contacts and the pages that you’ve liked, and things can get quite messy.

Just like SERPs, most people won’t go past a few dozen posts.

You’ve got to get in the Top stories by quickly getting the likes or comments. If you don’t have a strong network to provide this impetus, it will become just another voice in the wilderness.

What you need to do:

Build your network, bit by bit.

Big network means bigger audience and the bigger the audience the stronger the impact.

Another way to get that early traction is using a platform like buzzfeed.com or some established blog in your industry. Even for that, you will need to build relations with other bloggers or authors to get the opportunity.

Consistency – Start now and Persist:

Talking of the big networks and following, Rand Fishkin, one of the most touted experts in SEO and IM circles, has more than 309k followers at Twitter.

Seth Godin has 534k.

Neil Patel has around 194k.

What does all these authors, and the websites like Moz.com, Kissmetrics.com, or Hubspot.com have in common?

More than anything else, it’s the consistency.

They are consistently producing great content for almost a decade. Even today, they’re more active on Social Media than an average user or website.

Rand Fishkin has seven tweets in the past 24 hours. Neil tweets 4 – 5 times on daily basis. Not a day goes by without a new post on Seth Godin’s blog.

That’s consistency for you.

The audience they have today was built, little by little, throughout these years.

Have a look at Top 50 posts of Kissmetrics from 2012.

Go through these posts and you’ll see that the tops posts have around 20 Facebook likes and 250+ shares at LinkedIn on average.

Compare that with the recent ones and you will see an average post gets more than 200 likes and 500+ shares.

The success in content marketing is not a result of what you produce every once in a blue moon. It’s what you produce on consistent basis.

What you need to do?

Stop wasting time on planning and creating that “extraordinary” content.

Perfectionism can lead to procrastination, and procrastination has kept even the most talented individuals or the greatest of ideas from taking off.

Just get started, and focus on producing good, reasonable content on consistent basis.

Outreach & Promotions

Brian Dean (backlinko.com) is known for using the content to maximum advantage, for example, using content to build links and increase search traffic by 110% in 14 days, or to boost his conversion rate by 785% in a day.

Does he manage to do all that by producing great content? The answer is “No”.

There’s tremendous amount of work that goes into outreach and promoting these posts.

Whenever a post is ready to go out, Brian Dean search for and emails at least 100 people who’ll be interested in that content.

The post is shared with his email subscribers, and followers at social media accounts.

And finally, there’s an outreach campaign with a focus on link building.

That’s the kind of work that goes behind every successful viral marketing campaign. Without any kind of promotion, even the greatest of all contents will fail to takeoff.

What you need to do?

Spend double the time on promotions that you need for content creation.

Get in touch with influencers and ask for their opinion. Contact people who have previously linked to or shared similar content. Submit content on relevant groups or communities (e.g. Inbound.org if your content is about Inbound or Online Marketing in general).

Use different quotes and snippets from your post to promote it multiple times over the next 2 – 3 weeks.

You can also use the paid promotional tools like Outbrain, Taboola, or contentblvd.com.

Trigger the Right Emotions:

People want to present themselves in the best possible way.

Anybody who’s active on one of those social networks (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc) or messaging apps (e.g. whatsapp, snapchat, etc) is looking for the right stuff to share.

Let me repeat: Your target audience is looking for the right stuff to share.

It will be a win-win situation if you can provide them with the right stuff.

But what exactly is the right stuff?

In a recent study, researchers looked into the most shared content from New York Times. They found out that the content that triggers a strong emotion tends to get more widely shared, especially the one that elicits positive feelings.

People will share this information because they know it will bring out some response.

Response is the keyword here because nobody wants to share a dud joke.

So, the right stuff can be anything that triggers a strong emotion like Joy, Fear, Anxiety, Awe, Love, Anger, Nostalgia, or empathy.

What do you need to do?

Create content that makes them feel good and look good (when they share it with their contacts).

For example, have a look at the top 5 most shared pieces of content about weight loss.

It’s the same research or news at four different sources, collectively getting more than 4 million likes.

Just because it carries a positive feel.

Know your Audience:

I am part of a “relatives group” on Whatsapp.

It’s family, so everybody tries to like and respond to whatever is posted, even if it’s one of those dad jokes.

Today I posted a really good one, and got no response.

Why?

Because the group comes to life at night, while I posted the joke in day time, when everybody was busy at work.

Many businesses keep making the same mistake. They’ll update their page or profile without trying to figure out the optimal time for posting.

It’s so important to know your audience. The time that they are online, the kind of pages that they like, and the kind of content they share. All of this information is critical to your Social Media success.

If you know your audience, you will know what clicks with your users, including the topics or trends which are currently prevalent.

For example, here’s a post that received more than 322k shares at Facebook.

A photographer removes mobile phones from photos to emphasize on people’s addiction to mobile phones, and how it is affecting their family lives.

The post gets so many shares because it’s something so many people can relate to. Everybody feels that we are getting too dependent and addicted to our mobile phones.

Your content must appeal to your target audience.

If you are targeting doctors or physicians, it will be something like this.

If your target market consists of men between the ages of 35 – 60, you can try something like this.

Just make sure that the topic or content is relevant to your brand or product.

What you need to do:

To get an idea of what your target audience is looking for, you can use Audience Insights feature at Facebook.

Choose your target audience using the options in the sidebar.

As you can see, there are plenty of options to zoom in on your target audience. You can choose from locations, age groups, genders, and even interests to pinpoint your audience. If you already have a page with more than 1000 likes, you can find similar information about people connected to your page.

For any given audience, you will be able to get the insights like industries that these people are working in, relationship status, pages that they are liking in great numbers, device that they are using to log on to Facebook, and Frequency of Activities.

That’s just Facebook, but it will give you an idea of what your target audience is looking for on social media.

You must also observe and interact with your target users to know their likes and dislikes.

Presentation

Did you know that visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media?

Adding images to your Facebook posts will result in 2.3 X increase in engagement, and 150% increase in Retweets when you’re using images in your Tweets.

Have a look at this post that got over 350k shares and 27k likes.

They did it by asking female graphic designers in different countries to edit a person’s photograph and make it more attractive, while keeping the local perception of beauty in mind.

It resulted in 18 variations, with each one being strikingly different to another.

Quite a novel idea, but it wasn’t unique. They pretty much copied it from another widely shared post at Buzzfeed.

If it was an article or post that talk about beauty perceptions in different countries, it wouldn’t have gotten half of those shares. It managed to do so good because it was visually engaging.

Apart from the visual appeal, your headline can also play a big role in presentation.

There’s a reason click-bait sites like Buzzfeed gets millions of users on daily basis. They just thrive on catchy and compelling headlines, without worrying a lot about the originality, size of the content, and SE optimization.

What you need to do:

Focus more on visual content like images, infographics, memes, or presentations.

This article talks about the psychology of clickbait in detail. You don’t really need to copy this model, but you can take a leaf or two from its book.

Going through the headlines, you will find a lot of ideas and patterns that you can use in your headlines.

For example, here’s a screen shot from their homepage.

See that heading about Marbled Planters? We can borrow the idea and use it for this article.

e.g. “These Actionable Tips are guaranteed to make your Content Go Viral”.

Share-worthy content or viral marketing is not about luck.

It’s more like science. Following the above mentioned guidelines will not guarantee, but it’ll certainly improve the chances of your content going viral.

We’ve analyzed everything with 100 or more votes at Inbound.org to get an idea of the topics that get the most attention and upvotes.

Content that works at Inbound.org will most likely click with your target audience as well.

This analysis will be of great help for anybody looking for topics to woo the B2B audience.

Existing work on the topic?

We’ve tried searching for posts on similar topics but I found just a couple.

This one barely scratches the surface.

It makes some valid points like the length or the person submitting the posts matters but most of these findings are not practical or makes much sense.

For example, the posts submitted in the month of January will do well or title length is everything.

There’s another analysis but with similar results though it mentions that AMA and Google related topics get the most views.

We are more interested in the real thing i.e. content type and topics that work.

If you are an inbound marketer, knowing your target audience and the topics that grab their attention can make your life easier.

When you go through the most popular posts, you will see that certain topics are doing better than the others.

A big majority of these posts are How To’s and all-inclusive guides. Case studies and success stories are not far behind, while some posts have worked simply because of the shock value or controversy in the topic.

We went through the posts one by one and marked the biggest contributing factors.

It’s our personal opinions but you can do your own marking and we are sure that the overall results will not differ a lot.

We’d love to hear your take on the results.

But before we go into that, let’s look at some factors which are constant in almost all of these posts.

The Constants:

Simply choosing a controversial topic or carrying out a quick case study is not enough.

It will get you some clicks or eyeballs but no upvotes (or likes and shares).

Give no value and you will Get no value out of your post.

It’s important to pick the right topic but make sure your posts have all the necessary ingredients.

Quality & Writing Style:

You will need above average writing skills to engage and impress professionals.

At the same time, you need to keep it casual and easy to read.

Use short sentences and informal language.

Comprehensiveness:

Most of these posts are at least 2000 words or more.

People are more likely to vote when they see the effort behind it.

Length matters but it’s not about the word count.

Strive to be the best possible resource on the topic.

Hitting the right nerves

Content marketing is all about keeping your finger on the pulse of your target audience.

Posts like “We’re ignoring Google and it is working” or “How to get an Influencer to write for you” have worked so well because the audience can resonate with the topics.

Don’t waste time on creating the ultimate guides or case studies if it doesn’t address a common pain point.

It helps to be well connected:

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a strong network.

It can be the difference between a celebrity and a wannabe.

Take this post as an example.

Look at all those votes and remember no other post has crossed the 700 mark yet.

But here’s something really interesting:

The post has barely managed 37 votes and was on its way to obscurity until it got the mentions from influencers like Rand Fishkin, Dharmesh Shah, even Matt Cutts.

Every connection matters.

If your post can get those early votes or comments, it will be featured in “Content suggestions”.

It’s something members get when they log in (depending on their interests).

Even better, it will make its way to the newsletter, which means massive exposure.

Karma:

Don’t try to achieve this traction by getting your team members or friends to vote because it can backfire.

What you give is what you get.

Try to be a generous part of the community and let Karma do its thing.

If you’re leaving quality response on other people’s posts and questions, they are more likely to vote when they see something posted by you.

And now, let’s get down to business and see which content type or format has found the most success at Inbound.

Content Types:

Posts with Controversial Topics & Shock Value (4.8%)

• I Stopped Selling SEO Today. You Should Too. Here’s Why…
• We’re Ignoring Google & It’s Working – Here’s Why

The easiest way to get everybody’s attention is saying something that goes against the popular beliefs.

Internet trolls use this trick all the time at discussion boards and it seems to work on Inbound as well (not the trolling part but taking a different stance).

A great example is the recent case study “On Page SEO is Dead – We Studied 2M search queries to learn that”.

Now, the study only marginally proves that On Page Factors play a much smaller role as compared to backlinks.

It’s an established fact but the controversial topic has worked due to the shock value.

The post has 144 votes and a lot of views in less than 24 hours of posting.

You don’t need to troll or purposely try to upset people but there’s nothing wrong with voicing your opinion especially if it goes against a norm.

If you can back it with some data or solid proof, it’s going to be the icing on the cake.

Case Studies & Success Stories (13.4%)

• We Analyzed the HTTPS Settings of 10,000 Domains and how it Affects Their SEO – Here’s What We Learned
• We Analyzed 37,259 Facebook Ads and Here’s What We Learned For YOU

Case studies and success stories work so well with B2B audience for obvious reasons.

Online Marketing industry is so full of hearsay. Every time we see a data-backed answer, we are naturally attracted.

Besides, who’d mind learning a lesson or two on someone else’s expense?

The case studies like “How to Not Blow $10,000 on Google Adwords” or “Four Lessons from Creating over $20,000 Worth of Slide-Share Presentations”.

If you can’t spend such huge amount, put in the time and effort and it will get the similar results.

Success stories work because everybody wants to see and replicate a successful strategy.

For example “How an E-commerce Store generated $18,750 In Sales From $114 Facebook Marketing, In 48 Hours” or “Content Promotion: How We Grew from 0 to 32,977 Users in 5 Months With Zero Paid Traffic”.

Out of the Box Approach & Stand-out Titles (10.8%)

• Finding Your Voice Through Your “Sh*tty First Draft”
• Expert Roundups Must Die Since SEOs Can’t Have Nice Things

It’s next to impossible to come up with new topics on a constant basis.

How do you manage to create something unique?

The trick is to use a distinctive title and format.

For example, this post titled “So you want to start an agency – LOL” actually shares standard tips for startups.

It’s a good post but the idea has been reincarnated so many times. It wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for this unique title.

Thanks to the title, the post has more than 59k views while most others don’t manage even 50% of these.

That tells you something about the power of a good title.

And it’s not just the title.

Joel K. used an over the top strategy to get paid and shared it in “Ho Ho Ho … Pay my Invoice”.

At times, a little bit of humor or sarcasm is all you need.

For example, “How I earned 1,859 Twitter Followers in only 8 Years”.

How To & Guides (22.9%)

• How to Get an Influencer to Write for You
• The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging: 250+ Opportunities
• How to Improve Title Tag CTR by 20%+

Guides and How-to posts are one of the most recurring types in the list of most popular posts.

These posts work because they take a pain point and solve it for once and all.

For “How to” posts you must choose a burning question and strive to be the best possible answer.

The “ultimate guides” need to be the most comprehensive resource on the subject.

Lists & Compilations (10.1%)

• 19 Strategies to Acquire Links and Drive Traffic (Oh, and EXACTLY How to Execute Them)
• 21 SEO Techniques You Can Use Today to Get More Search Engine Traffic
• 31 Brilliant Landing Page Examples (With 71 Takeaways)

List posts are probably the easiest type to pull off.

Numbers grab people’s attention and you can easily get your point across.

However, you need to choose your topics carefully.

Successful list posts at Inbound.org are mainly on advanced topics like “21 User Activation Tactics” or the extensive ones like “123 Ways to Get More Website Traffic: A Sumo-Sized Guide”.

AMA Sessions (14.9%)

• I Am Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz Founder/CEO, Ask Me Anything
• We are Conversion Rate Optimization Experts. Ask Us Anything.
• I am Noah Kagan, #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint. Chief Sumo of AppSumo.com. Ask me anything.

Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions work for two reasons.

First, they are heavily promoted, and second, when you have the guys like Brian Dean or Avinash Kaushik willing to answer your questions, people will naturally jump on the opportunity.

It seems Inbound is not accepting requests to appear as a volunteer in these sessions.

But you can consider hosting one on another platform (or host one on your own blog or social media page).

Questions & Discussions (13.1%)

• What’s your content ideation process?
• How long does it take you to write an in-depth article (1500+ words)?
• What is one growth hack you used to increase blog organic traffic?

Inbound is an active community and every so often there’s a discussion where everyone wants to share an opinion.

You can also initiate discussions to get some attention (and Karma points). Just try to keep it relevant to your industry.

Misc (10.1%)

• Goodbye Inbound.org
• Welcome to Inbound- New Members Introduce Yourselves Here! April 2015
• Welcome Mary Green – our new Content & Community Manager!

These are mostly community-related posts that you cannot use in your strategy.

Conclusion:

Choosing the right topic is the first (and the most important) step towards creating content that connects with your audience.

It’s easier than you think.

Start from adapting one of these popular types to suit your niche and target audience.

For best results, combine more than one factor into a single post.

For example, create a detailed guide and then choose a stand-out title instead of the clichéd ones like “the ultimate guide” or the “complete guide”.

Pretty soon you’ll have it figured out ?

Having a Facebook Page for your business is as important as having a website.

Not because it’s the “in-thing” to do but because Facebook offers some unbeatable benefits and opportunities to small or local businesses.

To begin with, you will get the chance to connect with your target customers.

There’s no better or bigger platform than Facebook with more than 1 billion daily active users.

Facebook is adding lots of new features for businesses like the shop section, Live video, Instant Articles, and Professional Services.

Not to forget that FB Ads offer great ROI for small businesses and you will need a business page to set up campaigns.

Setting up a page is free and doesn’t take much time, especially when you have a simple and straightforward guide like the one given below.

Let’s do it.

Log in to your Facebook account and go to this page.

Page Types:

Facebook offers six different types of pages, each catering to different types of businesses and audience, and each coming with slightly different features.

Local Business or Place: If you are creating a page for a brick and mortar shop or a service-based business that targets a specific place, town, or city (e.g. event management, home movers, etc) then choose this type. Local business pages allow you to add a map, physical address, business hours, reviews, and ratings.

Company, Organisation or Institution: If you don’t want to target a specific location, then opt for a “Company, Organisation, or Institution” page. For example, online stores or e-commerce businesses can choose to set up a “Company” page. The only way it differs from Local Business Page is that there’s no map and the business doesn’t appear in Facebook Professional Services page for local businesses and organizations.

Brand or Product: This one is for brands, products, books, or magazine. You will only get a detailed about/description section and an option to link to your website.

Artist, Band or Public Figure: This one is for artists, music bands, sports people, and celebrities.

Entertainment: All the movies, TV series, talk shows, etc. goes to this category.

Cause or Community: If you want to run a page to garner support and raise voice for some cause or community, you can choose this category.

As you can see, “Company” and “Local Business” pages come with the biggest set of features and should be your first choice as a small business.

Complete Setup

Next you need to enter your business name and click on Get Started.

You will have to enter a short description, upload a profile picture, and choose your preferred Audience.

Bonus Tip: Instead of creating a page with your business name, you can also consider creating a page on a topic that will be of interest to your target customers.

For example, an online store selling ladies apparel can create a page like Daily Fashion Tips or something like that.

Click on “Save Info” and your page is ready.

However, you still have some work to do.

About Section:

About Section contains all details about your page and business.

You can submit or change the information like Business Category, Address, Description, Products, Business Mission, etc.

You can also choose or change your Username that appears under your Page name on Cover Photo and also becomes a part of your page URL.

Use Short & Long Description and Products section to describe your business in detail. This information will help you appear in search results when someone searches on Facebook.

Don’t ignore the details like “Founding Date”, “Awards” or “Business Mission”. It will make your page more trustworthy and help you stand out of the crowd.

Page Tabs:

Facebook Pages come with basic tabs like About, Photos, Videos, Event, and Shop by default.

You can also add custom tabs depending on your needs and requirement.

For example, here’s a custom tab for “Open Jobs” on Starbucks page.

You can use custom add to capture leads, showcase projects, portfolio, or testimonials.

However, you will need to hire a developer to create the tab (much like a web page) and add it to your Facebook page using iFrame.

You will also need an SSL certificate because Facebook doesn’t allow custom tabs from a website that doesn’t support https.

Profile Picture & Cover

For most businesses, it’s best to use your business logo in the profile picture.

Cover photos need to be unique and creative.

It’s usually the first thing a customer see when he lands on your page and you need to make the most of this space.

Highlight your business, products, services, and the unique features.

We are offering five premium templates for Facebook business pages. If you don’t have a professionally designed cover for your business page, I’ll highly recommend downloading and using one of these.

Settings

Your Facebook setup is now complete.

You can control pretty much everything on your Page through Settings.

Use General settings to allow or disallow visitors from adding posts and reviews to your page. You can also enable or disable private messaging or restrict people from a certain location or age group to access your page.

If you’re just starting, make sure that you have checked the “Similar Page Suggestions”. It will show your page in “Page Suggestions” when people are visiting a similar page. In return, you will have to allow similar suggestions on your page as well.

Other options include the settings for Messaging, Notifications, Page Roles, and the likes.

Conclusion:

So there you have it.

You have an FB page for your business and you can start posting and reaching out to your target customers. It’s as simple as setting up the page but that’s for another post.

So go ahead and set up a page for your business. If there’s something that’s not clear, just leave a comment and we’ll come back to you.

When starting out on social media, most businesses face the conundrum of choosing the right platform.

For a small business, it’s not possible to maintain a business page on multiple platforms. On the other hand, you cannot create a business profile on all these sites and leave it because neglecting your social media profiles can seriously hurt your business.

So what can you do about it?

It’s simple. You need to choose 2 – 3 platforms after careful deliberation and stick with them.

Choosing the best platform for your Business:

The best platform will differ from one business to another because different social media websites are good for different reasons and different target audiences.

Most businesses start from 2 – 3 platforms and their first choice is usually the Facebook and Twitter.

Source: Adweek

As you can see, Facebook and Twitter are the most commonly used channels while Instagram is not far behind.

It makes perfect sense because these two are unarguably the biggest and the most popular social media platforms. Your social media marketing plan is not complete without an active presence on Facebook and Twitter.

However, totally ignoring all the other platforms, especially the ones that are becoming more and more popular in your target market is not a wise option.

In another post, we’ve talked about a business that took advantage of Snapchat’s popularity among teens and grew their startup into a $10m business.

So let’s have a look at 11 most promising social media channels and their pros and cons to help you choose the right ones for your business.

1. Facebook:

Facebook is to Social Media what Google is to search.

If there’s one platform that needs to be a part of every business’s social media strategy, it has to be the Facebook.

More than 40 million small businesses are already on Facebook. Frankly, having a regularly updated Facebook page is as important as having a website.

What makes it special?

As of writing this post, Facebook has more than 1.7 billion monthly active users.

Just to put things into perspective, the total number of Internet users is 3.5 billion which means that Facebook can help you reach 50% of people who are using the Internet.

Not to forget the 1b+ users of Whatsapp and 400m+ users of Instagram (both owned by Facebook) and no other network can come close to the size and reach of this platform.

Businesses that need to be on Facebook:

• Local businesses
• Online stores
• Beauty
• Fashion
• Apparel
• Sports
• Fitness
• Food
• Beverages
• Travel
• Hospitality
• Automotive & Car related Businesses
• Real Estate
• Everything else

2. Twitter:

Twitter used to be the unchallenged runner-up to Facebook in the race of social media arena but now other platforms are quickly catching up. In fact, platforms like Snapchat or Instagram have surpassed Twitter as far as the user base or engagement rate is concerned.

But that doesn’t mean you can ignore Twitter.

What makes it special?

Twitter has 1.2 billion registered users. Though just 310+ million users are active but it’s still one of the biggest social media websites out there. Lack of activity or engagement doesn’t mean people have stopped using the website. More than

More than 500m people visit Twitter every month without logging in. 66% of all US companies are using Twitter for marketing purpose.

It’s a much talked about platform in mainstream media. Every once in awhile, you will see a tweet from a celebrity or public figure making the news. Twitter has also launched many new features and advertising solutions for businesses and it has acquired Periscope that’s doing quite well with more than 10m registered users.

Businesses that need to be on Twitter:

• Service based businesses
• Advertising
• Fashion
• News & Media
• Publishing
• Retail
• Sports
• Travel
• Transportation
• Health
• Fitness

3. YouTube:

For years, text and photos have ruled the World Wide Web but now it’s time for videos to take the lead. Not that videos will surpass text anytime soon but they are already producing better results as far as engagement and conversion are concerned.

US adults spend more than 5 hours consuming video content on a daily basis. Studies suggest that videos can improve your conversion rate, engagement, and sales.

What makes it special?

When you are looking to start with video marketing, Youtube should be your first choice. The biggest video sharing platform has more than 1 billion users.

Did you know that YouTube has better reach than any cable network in the US when you are targeting people from 18 – 49 years of age.

As a small business, you can also earn good side income by producing good quality videos on a regular basis. Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie on Youtube, earned $12 million last year and he is just one of many highly paid stars on Youtube.

Businesses that need to be on YouTube:

• Media & Entertainment
• Music Artists & Bands
• Gaming Business
• Real Estate
• Automotive
• Business Consulting Services
• Fashion
• Electronics
• Home improvement
• Food & Beverages
• Travel
• Tourism

4. Instagram

Instagram made its mark by reaching 1 million users within just two months of launching and became the iPhone App of the year in only its second year. Soon after, it was acquired by Facebook and it hasn’t looked back since. It’s basically a photo sharing platform that gets more than

Soon after, it was acquired by Facebook and hasn’t looked back ever since. It’s basically a photo sharing platform that gets more than 95 million photos and videos on a daily basis.

What makes it special?

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks with more than 500 million registered users and more than 300 million who use it on a daily basis.

If you are trying to target and reach out to teens under 35 years of age, Instagram has got to be an important part of your marketing mix, since more than 90% of Instagram users are younger than 35 years old.

Businesses that need to be on Instagram:

• Beauty
• Cosmetics
• Photographers
• Fashion artists
• Entertainment
• Recreation
• Travel
• Transportation
• Music

5. LinkedIn:

People go to social media websites for fun but it’s the opposite for LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals and companies looking for growth as a business or professional.

The only drawback is the lack of engagement. Only 25% of its registered members use it regularly but they are working to improve the engagement rate. One example is the recently introduced 30-second videos from LinkedIn influencers.

What makes it special?

LinkedIn is the biggest professional network with more than 400 million users. The majority of its active users come from US, Canada, India, UK, and Brazil.

It has recently been acquired by Microsoft so we can expect new features and opportunities for businesses.

Businesses that need to be on LinkedIn:

• B2B businesses
• SaaS
• Legal Services
• Accounting
• Employment
• Advertising
• Banks
• Financial Services
• Automotive
• Computer
• Technology
• Travel
• Tourism

6. Snapchat:

Instagram reached 1 million users in just two months but Picaboo could manage just 127 in this time.

The app was relaunched with a new name i.e. Snapchat and the idea of the “self-destructing pictures and videos messages” started to pick up.

Even Facebook has tried to launch a similar app or two e.g. Poke or Slingshot.

What makes it special?

Snapchat might not be on top of the list as far as the user base is concerned, however, it gives all other networks a run for their money when it comes to the time people spend on these networks.

Only Facebook has a better engagement rate than Snapchat and that says quite a lot.

It’s also the fastest growing social network when it comes to millennials.

Businesses that need to be on Snapchat:

• Fashion
• Beauty
• Video Games
• Apps
• Cosmetics
• Retail
• Electronics
• Recreation
• Fast Food
• Music

7. Pinterest

Pinterest allows users to post, share, and discover images and videos. These images are known as pins and the pins collections are known as pinboards. It’s different than Instagram or Flickr because people usually share or search for ideas and inspirations instead of sharing their personal photographs. Food, fitness, travel, humour, quotes, are some of the most popular categories.

What makes it special?

Pinterest has more than 110 million monthly active users and a big majority of these users are women aged 34 – 55. They come to Pinterest for ideas and decide what to buy which makes it a perfect platform for marketing.

Good thing is that the half-life of a pin is much longer than a tweet or Facebook post, which means, your content can be discovered and repinned for a long time.

As a business, you can use it by sharing tutorials, guides, and DIY pins.

Businesses that need to be on Pinterest:

• Online stores
• Food
• Beauty
• Cosmetics
• Home Decor
• Kids & baby products
• Home and kitchen appliances
• Electronics
• Retail
• HealthFitness
• Fitness

8. Google Plus

After not so successful attempts to enter the social media world (hint: Orkut, Buzz, Wave) Google finally came up with a moderately successful Google Plus. Moderate only by Google standards because it has more than 300 million users, which is impressive by any other standard.

What makes it special?

In case you don’t already know, Google search results are now personalized. Connecting with your target audience on Google Plus means that your content stands a much better chance of appearing on top of their search results.

Getting positive reviews and +1s can also help with your rankings in local search results. Google Plus posts are indexed by Google and they can rank on their own.

The Hangout-on-air feature can take the connectivity to a different level.

Businesses that need to be on Google Plus:

• Information
• Education
• B2B Businesses
• Local Businesses
• Telecommunications
• Tourism
• Travel
• Fashion
• Fitness
• Publishing
• Retail

9. Tumblr:

Tumblr is known for it’s informal (AKA crazy) style of micro-blogging. You can engage your target audience with short blog posts, images, Gifs, and audio clips but you will have to unleash your creative side.

What makes it special?

Tumblr has an impressive 550 million monthly active users and 69% of them are millennials which make it a great place for businesses targeting the young adults. You can reach out to them through sponsored posts using a CPE (Cost Per Engagement) or CPM (Cost per Thousand) impressions.

Businesses that need to be on Tumblr:

• Food & Beverage
• Automobiles
• Education
• Fashion & Beauty
• Computer & Mobile
• Restaurant
• Video Games
• Web Services
• Music & Entertainment
• Information Technology
• Sports
• Fitness

10. Vine

The video is not the next big thing. It’s already huge.

You can tell that it’s the hottest item for social media when you know that Facebook is picking Youtube and Vine celebrities by paying as much as $24,000 per video to produce videos for the Facebook live streaming platform.

Vine is owned by Twitter and it’s facing similar challenges. However, a community of 200 million monthly active users is something you cannot ignore.

What makes it special?

When launched, Vine quickly became the fastest growing social media app, growing quicker than Whatsapp or Instagram at that time.

It has slowed down but it’s still one of the biggest platforms to try video marketing. More than a billion video loops are played on a daily basis. Lately, there’s news of Vine top creators fleeing the platform but Vine is trying to make amends by introducing features like 140-second videos and offering monetizing opportunities.

Businesses that need to be on Vine:

• Music artists
• Media outlets
• Comedians
• Fitness
• Coaches
• Fashion
• Advertising
• Travel
• Entertainment

11. Whatsapp

Whatsapp needs no introduction.

It’s one of the most popular instant messaging apps. You can gauge the widespread use by the fact that Whatsapp combined with Facebook messenger get 3 times more messages than the SMS.

Users can create groups, which is a widely used feature, giving it the element of the social network.

What makes it special?

WhatsApp users are close to reaching 1 billion.

Currently, there’s no option for businesses to use it for promotion, except that you can share your WhatsApp number and let customers post queries and inquire about your products or services.

However, WhatsApp recently announced that they will start inviting businesses and trying different ways of charging them. In other words, they will be offering different tools and solutions for marketing purpose.

So there you have it.

A list of top social media sites that you can use for your business. With a new feature or advertising solution being introduced on a daily basis, it’s an exciting time to be on social media.