This is a guest post by Matt Powers from Blue Soda Promo.
There are certain things I look forward to every year, my first round of golf (until around the fourth hole and I’m already 5 over), Thanksgiving dinner and my FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT! It’s the most exciting time of the year — scouting players, determining value and making some bold choices.
Early round picks are reserved for your established players; people that have proven over time that they can produce at a high level consistently. Middle rounds are for players you think and have a bounce back season or high profile rookies. Later rounds are where you can really reach and hope to get lucky. Those players usually sit on the bench praying they will break out, set aside for bye weeks or otherwise dropped all together.
With fantasy on the brain, I thought to myself what if I had to rank the top social media outlets (for business purposes, obviously). Which one would I invest my first pick in? Who produces on a consistent basis, gets the most likes, shares and comments, drives traffic to the site and may even help us in the SERPs?
So I thought I would do a little scouting report on my top 3 draft choices – Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Facebook
- 845 million active users
- 2nd most popular site on the Internet
- 2.7 billion ‘Likes’ every day
- 20 minutes spent on the site per visit
Facebook is a social media juggernaut, comparable probably to an Aaron Rodgers or Arian Foster in the fantasy football realm this season. The shear enormity of users alone should warrant it the number one pick. I mean 1 out of every 5 page views belongs to Facebook.
The benefits for businesses on Facebook aren’t too shabby either. In one of Francisco’s previous posts, How To Determine Facebook And Twitter ROI, 40 percent of Facebook users that has ‘liked’ a brand did it to receive a discount or promotion (which equals sales). One of Edible Arrangements promotions alone results in a double digit increase in sales.
There are plenty of ways to gain fans as well. The first should be obvious to every Internet Marketer, creating great content, but there are others that can have similar results; freebies, product updates, sales, exclusive content and one of the best ways to interact with your customers.
Twitter
- 140 million active users
- 340 million tweets per day
- 8th most popular site on the Internet
- Best way to keep up with Justin Bieber
Twitter has its limitations (only using up to 140 characters), but is definitely the best way to build relationships of the social media outlets, in my opinion. According to Yell, 25 percent of those surveyed already currently connect with brands on Twitter.
While social media has many benefits, one of the biggest advantages for businesses is to help in sharing their news and content. Over half who share business-related content on social networks choose Twitter. And like Facebook, people who follow brands and companies on Twitter do so for promotions and discounts.
Twitter has grown immensely over its six year history. It’s the number one mobile social network, now offering pictures and videos and its third party applications make it incredibly easy to set up specific tweets to benefit your business at opportune times.
Google Plus
- Fastest growing social network
- 100+ million active users
- Linked to YouTube and all other Google Affiliates
- Male dominated
It’s too early to crown Google Plus king of social media, but this new social media outlet could be a sleeper, just because it’s linked to the most powerful avenue on the Internet, Google. From a business perspective, this could lead to a boat load of benefits in the future.
Google has claimed to be becoming more social, wanting to include social signals in their algorithm, and with their own social network and having all the user data, this could be true. It also could have benefits within YouTube, the SERPs and even Android related products.
Personalized circles make it easy to put people within certain lists like current customers, potential clients, etc. and a variety of sharing options like Facebook, but you can share posts in a number of different ways, allowing only some of all to view your posts.
Conclusion
Social media outlets may not have the player pool that the National Football League does, but it’s important to break them down and analysis each just the same; recognizing which avenue will work best for you and your business like the different styles of play in fantasy. Similar to certain running back and receivers being most valuable in a PPR (Points Per Reception) league, you may want to use Twitter than others in order to build strong relationships.
Photo credit: vividcorvid
