If you are getting started online you may be asking yourself “What social media sites should I use?”
Don’t worry, that question is one that everyone should be asking. You are not alone!
In our “Naming A Brand” blog post we used KnowEm.com to find the best username & domain.
Now that we have a name that is available on all platforms, we are going to be using KnowEm to go over the social media platforms that we are going to use for our brand.
If you are not sure where we are at or what we’re using, you’ll want to take a look at the Naming a Brand post so you can catch up with where we are at in the training.
What Social Media Sites Should You Use?
Now I’m going to go through each of the platforms and help you make your decision…(we are going in alphabetical order)
[Descriptions of platforms come from their platform page on KnowEm.com]
All Recommended Platform Titles Will Be In Green
Blogger – Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google for easily sharing your thoughts with the world. Blogger is one of the most prominent blogging sites, and one of the easiest blogs to create and use. Good for amateurs and professionals alike, Blogger’s elegant layout and design have kept it at the top of the blogging world for years.
**While this is a great platform, if you are going to be blogging on a platform that is not your website, I believe there are some better options** /Not Recommended
BuzzFeed – BuzzFeed is a global media and technology company that covers news and feature stories on topics ranging from breaking political coverage to snarky humorous polls. They are well known for creating viral content on social media in the form of lists (for example, a story title might be 15 people who need to retire from the movies) and quizzes (Which movie character are you?). As a Social Network, BuzzFeed allows users who create accounts to post their own stories covering the same wide-ranging topics. Community users can then comment on other’s content, share them vote on them, and more.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
CNET – CNET is the leader in electronic, digital and software reviews on the Internet. People all over the world use CNET to find out about new products, gizmos, and computer programs, amongst many other topics that are being covered and review on CNET. It is a collective of technologically minded folks who live and breath all things computer, science, and electronics. CNET is the best place to find out what the pros say about the new stuff you’re thinking of buying. Go to CNET before you buy it!
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Dailymotion – Dailymotion is about finding new ways to see, share and engage your world through the power of online video. Upload your personal videos to share with the community and watch interesting and entertaining online videos until your eyes hurt. Dailymotion is one of the top social video networks in the world for a reason. You’ll find outstanding video content from all corners of the world.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Etsy – Etsy is one of the largest and best online marketplaces where users buy and sell handmade items, art, crafts, and supplies. It’s simple to start up a shop and begin selling your goods in minutes. Etsy is the world’s most vibrant handmade marketplace. Find great gifts, favors, invitations, clothes, toys and more in this wonderful online market community.
**If you are in the handmade arts & crafts niche, this is going to be one of your main sites** /Recommended Based On Niche
Facebook – Facebook is the #1 Social Network on the web and the #2 most traveled site on the internet. Facebook was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is a social media platform connecting people all over the world with their friends, families, co-workers, and classmates. Facebook also allows you to interact with your favorite bands, brands, and local shops by sharing photos, comments, and questions.
**Keep in mind there is a difference between a profile and a page. For brands, individuals and everything in between, Facebook Pages Are A Must!** /Recommended
Flickr – Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world with Flickr. The Yahoo! hosted, Flickr.com is the top photo-sharing community in the world. They make it so easy and fun to share your best photos with your friends or the entire world. You can create a digital photo gallery in minutes and choose how to display them, add captions and write short descriptions. Flickr is more than just a photo album it’s a photoblog and social community rolled into one.
**If you are in a niche that is focused around images or are a photographer … go for it!** /Recommended Based On Niche
Imgur – Imgur is a photo-sharing site a lot like Reddit. Users can vote up or vote down user-generated photos. The highest-ranked photos will show at the top of the image stream. Users can also comment on each photo. The community is able to vote up or vote down users’ comments. Comments can be sorted by newest, oldest or highest ranking.
**If you are in a niche that is focused around images or are a photographer … go for it!** /Recommended Based On Niche
Instagram – Instagram is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your life with friends and family. Take a picture or video, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram – it’s that easy. Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever.
**At this moment I have not come across a niche or type of business/brand that couldn’t benefit from an Instagram Account** /Recommended
Issuu – Explore a world of publications by people and publishers alike. Collect, share and publish your thoughts and ideas in a format designed to make your documents look their very best. Issuu not only helps you post your writing, but it helps make you a better writer. Issuu’s writing community is very helpful, and Issuu.com makes it simple to interact with fellow writers, bloggers, and networkers.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is the ultimate business social network. LinkedIn.com allows users to create an online resume listing your past and current jobs, accomplishments and future goals. LinkedIn strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts by connecting to friends of friends and contacts of contacts. If you purchase the LinkedIn pro service you can get more tools and connections helping to extend your business reach and ultimately network away without ever leaving the office.
**Not every business needs to be on LinkedIn. If you are in a Business to a Business niche then I’d recommend it** /Recommended Based On Niche
LiveJournal – LiveJournal.com is a free service for all your journaling and blogging needs. LiveJournal offers a full blogging platform with privacy controls, photo storage, publishing tools, style templates and more. Join LiveJournal today and watch your writing take off.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
My_____ (Myspace) – MySpace is the original social network. MySpace allows you to build a personal profile with all of your likes and interests. You can update your status so all of your connections know what you are doing and how you are feeling. Users can easily find friends and classmates, meet new people, listen to free music and build playlists, share photos, research their favorite bands, watch videos and much much more. MySpace has a huge user base and tons of music and video for you to explore forever.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Pinterest – Pinterest.com is one of the hottest new sites in social media. It is a place to pin images of everything and anything you find on the web. Pinterest provides a nifty web browser tool that allows you to pin pictures and videos from anywhere on the web. If you see a cool wristwatch on your favorite shopping site just pin it! If you watch a great trailer to your favorite new movie, then pin it! Users can then share their boards with all of their friends, family, and followers. It is a photo feed, but also a bookmarking site. Once you pin something you can always go back and find it. Come see what everybody is talking about at Pinterest.com.
**The strategy may vary per niche but I strongly recommend Pinterest for all niches!** /Recommended
Quora – Quora’s mission is to share and grow the world’s knowledge. We want to democratize access to knowledge of all kinds from politics to painting, cooking to coding, etymology to experiences so if someone out there knows something, anyone else can learn it. Quora makes it easy to get your questions answered, share your own knowledge, and browse the most interesting information people across the world want to share.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Reddit – Reddit.com is the original social network. Reddit collects user-generated news links from all over the web. Users then vote to promote stories to the front page or knock them down out of the spotlight. You can also read hilarious and disturbing commentary on all the top stories of the day from Reddit users just like you. The Reddit community is large, educated, and loves its online news!
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
SlideShare – Join SlideShare, the world’s largest presentation sharing community. Share publicly, privately. Add audio for a webinar.
**Similar to LinkedIn, this can be good for B2B type of companies or brands** /Recommended Based On Niche
Soundcloud – SoundCloud is a large community of musicians, fans, producers, record labels, and journalists who all come together to hear new music, demo tracks, and experimental works in progress. User-generated content is key at Soundcloud.
**If you are in an “audio” niche, musician, voiceover artist, podcaster, or anything else like that, SoundCloud is a biggie!** /Recommended Based On Niche
Tumblr – Tumblr is one of the biggest and best blogging platforms on the web. Tumblr makes it effortless to share text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, and write down all of your ideas while following all of your favorite Tumblrs from all over the world. Tumblr is based out of New York and uses that high-end fashion to design great looking themes and easy to use blogging platforms. You can get published in minutes and famous overnight by using Tumblr.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Twitch – Twitch TV was created for gamers that want to be able to stream their live play or watch others play live. Playstation, Xbox and computer games are all supported. It is easy to create a channel and start broadcasting or comment on someone’s current game as he tries to frag noobs! Twitch TV was created by one of the co-founders of Justin.TV and was acquired by Google in 2014.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Twitter – Twitter is a free social network that allows messaging or “tweets” of up to 140 characters. Twitter is all about real-time events and updates. Jokes, news, photos, quotes and inspirational messages can be found every second on Twitter. Aside from connecting with and following your friends on Twitter, users can explore tweets from artists, celebrities, brands, athletes, and musicians.
**If you do it right, Twitter Is A Must!** /Recommended
Vimeo – Vimeo is a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make. Vimeo is more professionally oriented than youtube. The videos you find on Vimeo are artistic, creative pieces made by real filmmakers or budding film amateurs. Vimeo is ever-growing and is one of the top video social networks in the web.
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
Weebly – Create a free website or blog in minutes by using a simple drag and drop interface. No ads. One of Time’s 50 best websites of the year
**For brand building I don’t believe this is a needed platform** /Not Recommended
WordPress – The most popular blogging platform on the planet, WordPress is a personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. Users can create a free account and blog their hearts out, or developers can use WordPress to build customized websites for companies and professionals of all shapes and sizes.
**We Will Be Using WordPress.com More On That In A Bit!** /Recommended
Youtube – Youtube is a place where people come to watch videos with friends, share your own videos, comment on videos, watch television shows, movies, create playlist and even create your own Youtube channel. Founded in February 2005, YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe. Youtube also acts as a distribution platform for original content. You can even make money from Youtube by allowing advertisements to run on your Youtube videos.
**The type of videos DOES NOT MATTER! Your Brand Needs YouTube!** /Recommended
Of course, there are a lot of other platforms that you can check by clicking on “Social Networks” in the orange section on KnowEm.com.
With a quick look, you’ll see that there are a lot of other platforms and a good chance you may see quite a bit that you didn’t even know about. That is perfectly normal! Not all of these will be for every business.
I’m not going to go into these platforms like I did the Most Popular. But, I am going to cover some very important platforms you need to know about. There may be more listed as time goes by
Anchor – The easiest way to start a podcast. Create, distribute and host your podcast, 100% free.
**Having a podcast is a great marketing arm for your brand, it doesn’t have to be expensive. Anchor Is A Must** /Recommended
This should have helped you understand what social media sites or apps to use.
Stay tuned with this post as I continue to add content and links to other content for each of the different platforms when I publish the “Ultimate Guides” for them.
I hope this has been helpful! If you have any questions you can either comment below or send me a message on Twitter or Instagram @cjhallock
