Making yourself known online nowadays can be quite the mammoth task, particularly with the amount of competition there is out there. It is said that 571 websites are launched every minute around the world each day, so making yours stand out above the rest requires an innovative and shrewd strategy to online marketing.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways you can improve your online presence. One of these is to embrace the power of social media – the graphic above shows just some of the many platforms for digital marketing that are available.
While we can all claim to at least being aware of the giants that are Facebook and Twitter, today’s digital age has brought about many new social media sites that are supposedly better for online marketing, particularly for new businesses.
Step forward, five big new platforms – some with which you may be familiar, others perhaps not so much: Google +, WhatsApp, StumbleUpon, Ello and Cucumber Town.
Google + (closed)
Google + (now closed), an add-on to the search engine which we all use everyday, has a few features that are particularly useful for start ups. For one, it has the ‘pages’ feature, which allows businesses to connect with fans, allowing for better customer engagement. Companies can also use these pages to display any promotional and marketing material.
Another great add-on is its ‘hang outs‘ feature, which allows fans to connect in the same conversation, adding a social element to a perhaps more professional atmosphere.
Akin to discussion groups on LinkedIn, businesses can group themselves by categories and discuss important issues with text, emojis, images and more. Perhaps the best feature of Google +, however, is its ability to measure the success of marketing campaigns. Its handy view count feature displays the amount of times a user’s page has received hits, making it far less complicated than other web analytics software.
Next up, WhatsApp may be more commonly associated with mobile applications, but since being acquired by Facebook earlier on this year, its potential for social media use is increasing by the day.
While the app doesn’t allow standard advertising, it does provide a platform for chatting and sharing videos, images and sound clips, which are apt for online marketing. Users can use their accounts to direct clients to their website by including contact details on their profiles.
Ello
You might be aware of the power of Facebook, but what you may not be aware of is the rise of anti-Facebook social networks that are now coming into play.
One of these is the exclusive, invite-only Ello, which was launched earlier this year. Unlike Facebook, Ello has a strictly no-ad policy, which may sound like something that all online marketers want to avoid, but for niche audiences, it’s actually proved very effective. The site has received critical acclaim from businesses who have access to it.
When it comes to being invited, it may be best to get in touch with other companies who use the site and ask to be referred via your contacts. Owners at Ello may see the potential of Facebook however and expand its user base – after all, the popular social networking site started out as a network just for Harvard students.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a little different from the rest, but its potential for fun and indeed online marketing is never-ending. The site works by directing users to other sites based upon their interests by creating virtual communities of like-minded users.
Where you end up is always a bit of a gamble. By using a unique collaborative system, StumbleUpon helps to send users to an advertiser’s page, helping to simplify the social media operations of a particular business.
CucumberTown
Finally, if your website is based around food, then Cucumber Town is definitely for you. Unlike other social media, Cucumber Town chooses to focus on images rather than text, so it’s great for showcasing recipes or any other images that might be promotional for your business.
Akin to Pinterest and Instagram, social media marketers can draw customers in visually. The network is home to not only cooks, but also photographers, bloggers and more, so if you’re looking to improve your contacts, Cucumber Town could be the place to start.
There is certainly much more to digital networking then LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The Internet is still expanding and new services are coming online every month. While some fail to get noticed others quickly develop to become the latest new way for businesses to reach out to new customers and source leads.
The image “The social media and the power to your business” is by Henripontes and available under CC licence here.
