How Trying New Social Media Apps Can Help Your Business Spring Forward

Have you heard of the latest social media platforms that are attracting everyone’s attention? While TikTok remains super popular among Gen Z through Gen X, Clubhouse is the hot new property among Millenials. Reddit has been around a long time, but it has only become mainstream in the last couple of years. Next Door is another social media platform for local neighborhoods, and I like to call it the “online gossip channel.”

Let’s discuss these popular platforms in this blog: How Trying New Social Media Apps Can Help Your Business Spring Forward.

In 2007 when I first dipped my toes into the social media pool, it was a small group of platforms. MySpace was the leading social media platform, while Facebook and Twitter had just been released to the masses. Other social media platforms were coming on the scene around that time, too. Redfin was a social media platform for real estate agents, while LinkedIn was an excellent resource for ambitious salespeople to connect with potential clients. It was then that I jumped in with both feet.

At that time, I was the Director of Marketing for a construction company, and I had a good feeling that these social media platforms would benefit Wasson’s Construction. At the same time, I was exploring these platforms because:

1. They were like playing with new toys!
2. I could get the word out about the construction company and save thousands of dollars on Yellow Pages ads and newspaper ads.
3. I could also see if they could help me promote my music and get a return on my investment.

Because I was an early adopter of these platforms, I quickly rose through the ranks of having lots of followers, interacting with various people, and making new friends online. For the first time in my life, I was able to connect with people who, otherwise, were unreachable unless I had the opportunity to meet them in person. Fast forward 14 years later, I am still friends with some of the people I met online in 2007, even though I have never connected with them face-to-face.

Now that you know my background and history of dabbling in social media back in 2007 let’s talk about what’s going on in 2021.

Social media viewership surpassed television viewership back in 2018. Thanks to COVID, no one questions the relevance of social media any longer. With all the sheltering in place and social isolation, what else are you going to do with your time other than scroll through your favorite social media news feeds, right? It is safe to say that almost every one of median income and higher, including late adopters like my 97-year-old Gramma, are on at least one social media platform regularly.

When we are handling the social media posts for our Rock Star Marketing clients, at present, we are posting content on the following social media platforms:

• Facebook: because that’s where the majority of our clients’ target audience spends their time

   

• Instagram: because our target audience also spends time here to see what their kids and grandkids are doing

   

• Twitter: because this platform appeals to an audience that is hunting for specific information via keywords and headlines

   

• LinkedIn: because this is where the white-collar professionals tend to hang out for business purposes

   

• Google My Business: while this isn’t as social a platform as the others, this platform is fantastic for SEO rankings

   

• Yelp: it’s not a social platform, per se, but we respond to customer reviews on your behalf and make your business look good

Would we like to manage social media posts for our clients on TikTok and Clubhouse? Yes, of course! However, they are not currently designed for marketers like us to promote on your behalf unless you have a large advertising budget. Most of our clients, at this time, are not willing to spend thousands of ad spend dollars on platforms that are not yet mainstream for their target audience.

However, the good news is that you and your employees can undoubtedly make TikTok videos on your own and participate in the audio-only listening rooms of Clubhouse. You can also surf through Reddit’s various topics and contribute nuggets of expertise where you see fit. As for Next Door, this platform only encourages residents within a neighborhood to participate, so it’s harder for the Rock Star Squad to pretend we live on your street.

Another primary reason we cannot manage your TikTok, Clubhouse, Reddit, and Next Door platforms are that our Hootsuite scheduler (which we pay tons of money for our membership plan) by the way) doesn’t integrate with said platforms. If that changes, we will be happy to post on your behalf, but that may be a very long time coming due to the nature of these four platforms.

What I encourage YOU to do is this: Get on these new platforms and check them out. Play around on them and experiment. Do you feel they have the audience you want and need? Snapchat, for example, has been around for years, but we’ve never proposed this as a platform for our business clients because it targets the wrong age group of consumers. But could TikTok, Clubhouse, Reddit, and Next Door bring in new clients to your business? I say yes, indeed, they can. But YOU have to be the one to make that happen. Perhaps you and your employees can create a plan where you can explore making a TikTok video, hosting a chatroom on Clubhouse, participating in an industry-related forum on Reddit, or sharing information about your business with your neighbors on Next Door.

I recommend you experiment and see what works. I also recommend you allow your team to test and see what works. Any time you or your team members engage in a new social media platform, it gets the name of your business out in front of potential customers. 

Isn’t it worth a little time and effort to understand new social media platforms if it means you can attract new, ideal clients to your business? 

I would bet money on it, yes, it would! After all, look at what playing around on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace did for Rock Star Marketing and me. 🙂