Top Pros and Cons of 6 Social Networks

In Marketing by Melissa Meschke

We all know there are many advantages to having certain social media networks over others. We also know there are downsides to all of the networks, too. So what I’m going to do today is list my top ‘pro’ and top ‘con’ to each social network.

Let’s start with Facebook.

Top ‘pro’: Millions of listening customers are on this network, just waiting for what you’ll say next.

Facebook is a very widely used network, 1.5 billion users according to the latest stats, and a large majority of those users are on the network daily for long periods of time. It’s a large market to work with and you are left with lots of opportunities.

Top ‘con’: Facebook controls the percentage of people who see each post.

With the Facebook accounts that I manage, Facebook allows approximately 5-15% of my “likes” to see the average post. Of course that number dramatically increases if a post goes viral, but that number is the average reach in my pages; Facebook wants you to pay for your content to be seen. A way to get around this is to focus on the type of post that performs the best for your specific account and to make sure you are posting relevant and useful information for your “likes”.

Now it’s Twitter‘s turn.

Top ‘pro’: You can tweet often and not come off as annoying. The average Twitter business account will post between one and five times per day. Instead of scaring away users by over-posting you will actually will grow your following. You can also use things like hashtags and mentions to increase your reach as well.

Top ‘con’: The half-life of a tweet is about two hours. Unfortunately your tweets will become buried–and fast. With an average of 500 MILLION tweets per day, there is a huge amount of competition to work against. Plus, users are not on their news feeds all the time, so if you post when they aren’t looking, they may not see it.

And let’s not forget about Pinterest!

Top ‘pro’: It’s visual and influential. Shoppers who are referred to purchase a product by Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy than visitors who arrive from other social networks. Having a highly visual social network makes it easy for users to learn and use. The network has 70 million users and continues to grow everyday-you don’t want to miss out on that network.

Top ‘con’: It can be difficult to gain followers. The easiest way to do this is pin popular topics that may not necessarily relate to your business. If you are too focused on your business and industry it’ll be hard to increase the number of followers.

Of course there is Foursquare

Top ‘pro’: You can encourage people to check in by offering specials. By encouraging customer interaction, you are strengthening your brand. And by offering your customers a reward when they help you out, you will also strengthen customer relations.

Top ‘con’: You can’t control what other people say about your business and what becomes a top tip. People can post “tips”, which are kind of like reviews, on your FourSquare business page. People can be very nice, but they can also be very mean. This is out of your control and can take a negative turn in a hurry.

And the professional network of LinkedIn:

Top ‘pro’: It offers your professional connections a way to keep up with your business. People that follow you can easily see company updates and gather useful information off of your posts.

Top ‘con’: You can’t do a whole lot with your profile. The profile is fairly basic-it provides ‘about’ information and contact information. Although you can post updates and statuses, they are rarely interacted with. There are 338 million users, but many of these users do not check the network daily and if they do, they do not scroll too far down their news feed.

And finally the ever-growing Google+:

Top ‘pro’: It’s great for your SEO; Google loves its own network. Having a Google+ page will place you higher in search rankings and make your company more searchable.

Top ‘con’: Interaction is relatively low. Even though the number of followers grows each day, posts generally go untouched. This network sees little interaction in terms of likes, comments, and +1’s.

Of course this doesn’t include all of the social networks that are out there, but these are the ones I am most familiar with and can form an educated opinion around.

What do you think of these pros and cons? What would you say your top pros and cons would be?

Until next time!

~Melissa