It seems that these days, every business has a Facebook and Twitter account. If you’re using these social media platforms and you’re finding that your messages are getting lost in the crowd, don’t fret: there are many other places that organizations haven’t thought to market their brands. While not every “alternative” social media platform will fit your needs, there’s a good chance at least one of them will. Have a look at setting up your business with some of these different social media platforms.
Go Viral With a Post on Tumblr
What makes Tumblr great for a company looking to get the word out is that it’s basically built around sharing. Posts quickly go viral and are “reblogged” hundreds and thousands of times. While Tumblr is a blogging platform, the rule of thumb here is to keep your content visual; people who visit this social network are usually expecting to see pictures and videos over typical blog posts. If you do want to post some textual content, keep it short, sweet, and shareable.
Stay in Customers’ Minds on Pinterest
Whereas other social media networks cater to viral content that users pass along and then forget about, Pinterest’s focus is on letting users keep scrapbook-like collections of ideas they find through the network. That means, as a brand, there’s a great potential for someone to keep your content to refer to in the future.
What so-called “Pinners” are looking for is content that is visually appealing, helpful in their everyday lives, and personal. A simple ad copied from another medium just isn’t going to cut it here. When tailoring your content, think of how you promote your product in a way that gets users excited about how it can help them in their lives. Or, create a board to feature pictures of your team members – Pinners will appreciate seeing the human side to your business.
Reach a Large User Base on Vine
Vine, the short video-looping sharing platform, blew up in popularity a few years ago, and although it isn’t the new kid on the block anymore, it still pulls millions of users. Although many of these users are in their teens, they’re not the only demographic.
The key to Vine is to craft super-short videos that people want to share. The best way to get this response is to appeal to an emotion, the most common of which on Vine is comedy. Be wary of being too “commercial” with the content you put on Vine. Think about it from the users’ shoes: do they want to share a video based on your product, or based on something funny that happens to feature your product?
Create a Community Based Around Your Brand on Reddit
Reddit is a large platform that sees millions of users posting content and links every single day. It does, after all, call itself “The Front Page of the Internet.” The appeal of Reddit isn’t just in sharing links but also in creating small, niche communities based around common interests. These groups are fittingly called “subreddits.”
There are two main ways to go about promoting your business on Reddit. First, you could simply create a topic or link to your website in a related subreddit. For instance, if you manage a coffee shop, you could share a link to your coffee shop on the subreddit called /r/coffee. The second, and perhaps better, way to promote your business on Reddit is to create your own subreddit that revolves around your brand. This can be the meeting place for like-minded users of your products to come together to talk about your brand.
Get Personal With Kik
Because of the changing times, advertisers are looking to new platforms to share their message, and some of them are turning to messaging apps. That’s right – the systems you use to keep in touch with friends and family are a nearly untapped market in terms of brand outreach.
One of the easiest ways to dip your toe into this new platform is to create an account with Kik, a free messaging app. Kik is typically a mobile-only platform, but you can read this guide on installing Kik on your Mac or PC. One of the best things about Kik is that it doesn’t require a phone number to sign up, which means that you can create an unlimited number of accounts to share with potential customers. You can use an account to open up a direct line of chat with customers, or even host a weekly Q&A to discuss your products. As long as you have an imagination, the possibilities are endless.
Featured photo credit: Best Alternative Social Media Platforms for Your Brand via lifehack.org
