Battle of the Social Networks: What’s in it for you?

Social Social_Media_Marketing media is the buzz word today and everyone wants to be a maestro of the #1 activity on the web. It is also being said that the social media revolution is the biggest shift since the industrial revolution! [1]. certainly, no one wants to be left behind when it comes to becoming a part of the new social energy around us. According to Jeff Jervis, journalist, professor and author, “Social media is not media, it is speech, Period.”

Agreed! But the question really is, what is the necessity of constant connection and speech, are we making use of the correct tools as a customer and as a marketer? There is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Orkut, Multiply, Livejournal, Netog, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram (phew!) and what not. There also are apps like Twitterfeeder and Hootsuite that can help you send one post to all your social networks. But, unfortunately, these shortcuts ignore the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. Through this blog post, I wish to differentiate and list the strengths of some of these sites which can help you decide what is best for you.

As the info-graphic illustrates, Twitter has most number of user accounts active this year, followed by Facebook and LinkedIn. 43% of Twitter users use the mobile platform actively and the load time for twitter is 1.65 seconds. However, Facebook gets most of the monthly visits ( 800+ million ) and Twitter follows with 250+ million visits every month ( average values). Facebook has so much to offer to its users starting from information exchange to networking and that seems reason enough for users to spend approximately 30 minutes each day on an average on Facebook.

The next info-graphic gives you information you could use to choose where you wish to send your next post to. LinkedIn is a general and business category network and is best for business networking and finding leads. So, if you want to post how your vacation went and/or how you celebrated your birthday, you might want to think before posting that on LinkedIn. On the other hand Facbook might just be the right place for those wonderful pictures and posts. The definition of social media has changed, it has evolved and is being used by a lot of companies lately, to launch and promote new products. Lexus recently revealed two new models using Vine, another networking tool. Ford has also done the same on Facebook in the past. It is really interesting how efficient all these networking platforms are and to what extent we as a customer and as a marketer make use of them is of vital importance in the age we live in.