How Does a Widespread Facebook Outage Affect Your Social Media Strategy?
Jim Anthony — March 29, 2019 — March 29, 2019
Following a recent Facebook outage on March 13, 2019, one thing has become clear: you should have a multichannel strategy when utilizing social media to build your brand and connect with your audience. There are a number of changes in development for all social media platforms at present. Facebook wants to be friendlier, Twitter wants to be healthier, and LinkedIn wants to go live.
At my company, So-Mark Development, our focus is on leveraging the web to find investors and raise capital. So the social media strategy is a critical piece for us. We also use email marketing, blogging and other digital marketing strategies to promote emerging growth companies and venture funds to help them find capital. So how can a multichannel strategy help you leverage social media to find investors?
Tip #1
You don’t have to be on every platform. You just need to pick two or three of the main channels your potential investors use the most. It really is that simple. We tend to focus on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Statista reports that in the United States the top social media sites are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn in that order.
Our experience working with business people has taught us that they don’t go to YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit for business related information as much as the other platforms. But they all have significant value.
However, this is something many people don’t understand. It doesn’t matter why people use a social media platform. What matters is that they are using it and they are using it often. So even though we tend to focus on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, you don’t necessarily need to do that. If investors with millions of dollars are hanging out on YouTube, and they see some good content from you that is interesting to them, they will click out of that social media site and go to your blog to find out more. So any of these top social media sites can be valuable to your capital raising efforts.
Tip #2
Use the social sites you’re most comfortable with as long as they are among these top channels.
Tip #3
Know your audience. Who are you looking for? What kind of business are you building? What types of investors would place capital into an idea like yours? What matters more than the social media channel you select, is the content you distribute. It’s all about the quality of the content and how your investor personas perceive it. Make sure you create or curate information that helps your potential investor understand and gain confidence in your industry, product, solution, or business idea. Your goal is not to sell or promote yourself. Your goal is to educate your investor and demonstrate your thought leadership.
Tip #4
Be consistent on all channels. Make sure your brand looks and feels the same no matter where your investors find you. Remember you can put out emails and social media posts to multiple channels. But, some investors will see you on LinkedIn, and others like to use Twitter. Ultimately, you want them all to come back to your website and your blog to find out what you are all about. Remember, you own your website and your blog. You rent your social media pages. Facebook and Twitter own all of the data on their sites. You own all of your data on your website and blog. You can load tracking code on your website and find out precisely who is interested in your business. That’s where the real action is.
This article originally appeared on the So-Mark Blog and has been republished with permission.
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