The Big ‘4’ of Social Media

A few weeks go I asked YOU what you wanted to read about and I appreciate the responses I received from those who emailed or tweeted at me! I am going to be sharing more posts relating to those questions. One of the first questions I received (and this is a question I get often!) is what social media platforms should businesses and individuals be using to keep up with social media standards? I know this is a question that many brands/companies/businesses struggle with as well as professionals who are trying to assert themselves as ‘experts’ in their fields.

The platforms I would consider part of standard practice now are platforms where a customer, who is new to a brand, automatically goes too for more information about that brand/product. These are the platforms that consumers expect brands/companies to be on. I do this often myself – when I hear of a new product, book or expert, I automatically go to certain social media platforms to engage with them or learn more about the product itself.

While some may find it hard to narrow it down to only 4 platforms since there are new platforms being introduced daily, the 4 platforms I recommended are platforms that have ‘stuck’ with the large majority of users so there is now an ‘expectation’ for brands and individuals to be on them. Disclaimer: These platforms may change depending on what industry you work in or audience you are tailoring content for depending on a number of factors, but overall, the social media platforms (or the ‘Big 4’ as I like to call them) that I would recommend include:

Twitter / Facebook / LinkedIn / Instagram 

There are also ‘Honourable Mentions’ – some are early(er) in their infancy or are dependent on what industry they can be best used for:

Pinterest / Snapchat / YouTube / FlickR / Google+

There are many examples I could use to showcase what platforms most businesses and individuals use for social media so I figured I would share 4 of my favourite websites/brands whose social media accounts I access often. You can see the trend that all four have Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and the remaining other platforms  depend on the audience they are trying to target (more professional, more business oriented, more visual, etc).

And to practice what I preach, I finally got my new public Instagram account up and going so give me a follow if your on it!