When should a business go social? And how?
BY ERIC VALENTINE
If you want to lose a friend, get into an argument on Facebook. Politics is usually all it takes. If you want to buzzkill a dinner party, answer your cellphone when it rings.
It’s easy to take issue with social media in our polarized world. So, if you’re using it for business, it’s important to get things right. And that may be why you’re holding back.
Who Should We Listen To?
Gary Vaynerchuk is arguably the country’s leading voice on all things social media. He was one step ahead of virtually everyone else during the .com boom and turned his parents’ liquor store into Wine Library—a $60 million business. Tune in to his podcast and episode after episode he implores the small businesses and entrepreneurs who can’t afford ad agency rates to produce as much content as possible on
in as many social media platforms as possible.
His key piece of advice? Know which type of content works best on each medium.
The Mediums
Facebook—a Facebook business page allows a company to showcase its brand comprehensively. In some cases—for instance, where budgets are super-tight—having a Facebook business page may be more critical than having a website. Here’s the catch: Unless you buy ads (Facebook calls them “boosts”), not a lot of people will see your content. Here’s the good news: Those boosts are pretty cheap. Often $10 can get your content in front of several hundred Facebook users. And, you can determine who gets to see your ads by selecting demographic information on everything from gender and location to age and key interests.
Instagram—This used to be the place where teens and twentysomethings would go to post content they didn’t want parents or employers to see. That’s partly because the format put emphasis on instantly posting your smartphone photos online. Then Facebook bought it, for $1 billion, and everyone except Vaynerchuk thought it was overpriced. Today, Instagram is huge and gives businesses another avenue to put relatively inexpensive ads to specific demographics.
LinkedIn—For years, LinkedIn was more of a repository of people’s résumés than it was a social media platform. And that’s what has made it over time become an excellent format for posting business-to-business content like white papers. As Vaynerchuk often puts it, if you’re selling a product or service used by other businesses, LinkedIn is how you can get noticed.
So what does Vaynerchuk say about posting business content on newer platforms like Snapchat and TikTok, which are known for showcasing super-short video clips—the current bastion for teens and twentysomethings? He says post there, too.
“The great underpriced opportunity in our society is within seven to 15 apps on your mobile device,” Vaynerchuk said in a recent Gary Vee Audio Experience episode. “The biggest thing I’m fascinated by is how so many people say … ‘not that platform’ … ‘not my audience.’” And, says Vaynerchuk, they are wrong.