In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I explore the world of social media platforms and how the technology is being used by businesses to generate revenue and raise brand awareness.
The podcast focuses on the use of Threads, X and TikTok and provides some insights to the costs and those crucial tips and advice on how to get started with your social campaigns and strategy.
As always, please let me know what other technology topics you would like to see covered in future episodes of the podcast. Please remember to Subscribe or Like, and stay tuned for more Inspiring Tech Leaders.
In this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, I explore the world of social media platforms and how the technology is being used by businesses to generate revenue and raise brand awareness.
The podcast focuses on the use of Threads, X and TikTok and provides some insights to the costs and those crucial tips and advice on how to get started with your social campaigns and strategy.
As always, please let me know what other technology topics you would like to see covered in future episodes of the podcast. Please remember to Subscribe or Like, and stay tuned for more Inspiring Tech Leaders.
Welcome to the Inspiring Tech Leaders podcast, with me Dave Roberts.
In this episode I’m going to explore the world of social media platforms and how these platforms are being used by businesses to generate revenue and raise brand awareness. The podcast will focus on 3 of the most social, social media platforms.
We’ve heard a lot about the launch of Instagram Threads and of course the rebrand of Twitter to X. There is also the often-controversial TikTok platform that has more divided opinion than Marmite!
So let’s start with the latest social platform to enter the market, Instagram Threads! Mark Zuckerburg has described Threads as an open and friendly space for conversations. It is building on the success on Instagram to create an app that is text driven to encourage sharing of ideas and discussing what’s on your mind.
In a similar fashion to X you can share text updates and join public conversations on Threads with posts up to 500 characters long. Posts can also include links, photos and video up to 5 minutes in length.
Of course, the platforms offer premium subscription services that provides additional features and functionality.
X Blue is the paid subscription service that adds a blue checkmark to your account and offers early access to new features. The pricing is localised but at the moment pricing starts at £9.60 in the UK or $8 in the US per month.
X have also launched a new service called Verified Organisations, which is a service for businesses, governments and non-profits – this provides a gold checkmark and comes with affiliation badges, premium support, impersonation defence and many more features.
The impersonation defence service is available for all verified organisations and their affiliated accounts. The accounts are monitored for changes, which include display names, profile photos and usernames. Any unusual behaviour is then flagged for further review if impersonation is detected.
Meta of course has a similar service called Meta Verified, which is a subscription bundle to help you establish your presence on Instagram and Threads. Meta Verified is available in most regions for $14.99 per month when you subscribe from within the app. It’s worth noting that when you subscribe on Instagram the verified badge will also appear on your threads profile. It won’t however also include Facebook. If you want to have your Facebook verified, that is a separate process.
What are the benefits of the verified accounts? Well it lets people know that your account or page is authentic and credible, and protects you against any impersonators. Verified accounts are often better placed with search results, which makes it easier for your community to connect with you and your content, brand, service, product or information.
There is also TikTok for business, if you want to connect primarily the Gen Z and Millennial demographics. It provides the opportunity to showcase your creativity and leverage the potential of viral campaigns with extensive distribution. This is particularly attractive to brands that may have a relatively lower number of subscribers, because TikTok’s algorithm focuses on content popularity rather than the number of followers. TikTok also has reportedly over 1 billion monthly users across their platform, which provides significant potential for a business wanting to raise brand or product awareness with a key demographic.
The good news is that a TikTok Business account is free and easy to setup. However, if you want to place adverts on TikTok, then that is going to be a paid for service. In the UK the TikTok ads start around £8 per thousand impressions and you need to spend at least £400 on a campaign, so you need to think carefully about how you approach this type of advertising.
Does your business need to be active on these platforms though? No matter what your thoughts are on that question, there is no denying that the social media platforms enable you to connect with a wide audience and target particular interest groups and potential new customer bases. Using hash tags and targeting options helps you to reach audiences interested in specific topics or locations.
The social platforms will also enable you to gather valuable feedback about your products, services or solutions offered and can enable you to convey what your brand ethos and organisational ethics.
We know that sometimes the feedback won’t always be positive and sometimes there is a need to communicate with customers or consumers in times of crisis. It’s critical that complaints or negative criticisms are addressed in an appropriate manner to protect the reputation of your business or organisation.
In 2023, there are now somewhere in the region of 130 social media platforms, many of these you may have never heard of before and perhaps are quite niche with their target audiences.
However, with the average number of social media accounts per person in the UK and US being 7 and that number increasing to 11 in India, it’s important that businesses have an omni online presence, so that your brand is seen across multiple areas of a person’s online life and encourages more loyalty to a brand, product or service. Latest research shows that there are now 4.88 billion social media users across the world and that number will only continue grow.
Businesses that can take advantage of new social platforms, which may initially not appear to be relevant, can often gain first mover advantage and therefore outpace your competitors.
Businesses that fail to adopt a social media strategy will find themselves becoming less competitive and perhaps even irrelevant in a world that has become obsessed with online connectivity 24/7.
Most importantly though you need to ensure that your social postings are helping to address your business goals and challenges. It’s important to focus on those social networks that add value and connect with the appropriate audience. It’s also important to remember to extend your social marketing campaigns within your organisation, as your employees are fantastic brand advocates for what you will want to achieve.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Inspiring Tech Leaders and perhaps it’s sparked some new ideas for creativity and how to interact with social media in a new way to promote your business in different way.