FUN FACT: In 2021, there are 4.48 billion people actively using social media in the world, and this is an increase of 13.13% year-on-year from 3.69 billion in 2020. Back in 2015, there were only 2.07 billion users – that's an overall increase in users of 115.59% in just six years.


From this piece of information above, we can see that more than half of the world's population uses social media, yet, most of us do not know what social media is, and its importance to the business. I'm going to talk about it in this article, so stick around till the end.

What is social media and it's important?


Social media is a technology that allows people to socialize. It is used for social interaction and access to news and information, and decision making. It is a tool that aids communication locally and worldwide, as well as to share, create, and spread information.

Importance of Social media


Apart from communication and sharing information, social can be used as a powerful marketing tool. Since more than half of the world's population uses social media, marketing has just been made easy. You can use social media to market your product and services.

Social media can also be used as a medium for promoting one's talent, skill, creativity and influence. With social media, you can showcase to the world what you can do, and this can fetch you some really good money😊. When it comes to social media, social media influencers are sometimes even more influential than some politicians. This is why influencers are paid so much money to promote a particular product or service.

Now,

Types of social media with their examples


1. Social Networks.

• Examples:
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Such types of Social Media are used to associate with individuals (and brands) on the web. They help your business via branding, social awareness, relationship building, customer service, lead generation, and conversion.

You can channelize different types of Social Media campaigns on these networks that will help you widen your reach. Some of the benefits of these Social Marketing Networks are-

They encourage individuals and businesses to interact online and share data and thoughts for ensuring mutually productive relationships. In case you are searching for the best ways to optimize current marketing campaigns then you will discover a variety of organic and paid ways to do this on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn sorts of social networks.

2. Media Sharing Networks Examples"

• Instagram
• Snapchat
• YouTube

Media sharing types of Social Media are used to find and share photographs, live videos, videos and other kinds of media on the web.

They are also going to help you in brand building, lead generation, targeting and so on. They give individuals and brands a place to discover and share media so the target audiences can be targeted and converted into a convincing and result-driven way possible.

Social networks nowadays also offer these features, however, for Media Sharing Networks, sharing media is their basic role.

Starting with image or video on Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat types of media sharing networks would be more beneficial for you.To decide whether you should use these networks for your business or not, you should consider your resources and target audiences. These channels will help you run well-planned campaigns to generate leads and widen your audience base.

3. Discussion Forums. Examples

• Reddit
• Quora
• Digg

Such types of Social Media channels are used for finding, sharing and discussing different kinds of information, opinions, and news.

They help businesses by being a top-notch resource for doing immaculate market research. These forums are the oldest ways of running Social Media Marketing campaigns.

Before the entry of popular Social Media players like Facebook, these forums were the places where professionals, experts and enthusiasts used to do different kinds of discussions concerning a variety of fields.

These discussion forums have a massive number of users and it ensures unprecedented reach for your business. These are the places that provide the answers to different queries of any domain.
In case your business needs deep customer research then these places would the most befitting one for your business. Along with sharing information and knowing answers, these places are very impactful in advertising as well.

4. Bookmarking & Content Curation Networks.

Examples:
• Pinterest
• Flipboard

Opting for such types of Social Media will help you find out, share, discuss and save a variety of latest content and media that are trending as well.

They are very helpful in channelizing brand awareness for your business, plus, choosing this one to run different types of Social Media Marketing campaigns will help you generate website traffic and customer engagement.

In case you want to run some out of the box highly creative campaigns that can not only inform your audience and but also attract them then this one is the best fit.

To run a Social Media campaign on Pinterest, you need to have a site that is bookmark-friendly. You should optimize headlines and images for the feeds that Bookmarking and Content Curation Networks use for accessing and sharing your content.Flipboard lets you create your own Flipboard magazine by using most engaging content and then you can showcase that to your audiences.

5. Consumer Review Networks

Examples:
• Yelp
• Zomato
• TripAdvisor

Using Customer Review networks will help you find out, share and review different information about a variety of products, services or brands.

When a business has positive reviews on these networks, their claims turn more credible because reviews on these networks act as Social Proof.

For running a successful Social Media Marketing Campaigns, it is very important for today’s businesses to have positive reviews on these sites.

In addition, resolving all the issues that your customers are posting on these Review platforms is another thing that is going to be very important for the positive and productive outcomes for your business.

These networks offer a place to users for reviewing different kinds of products and services that they have used.Review content adds great value to any brand because it will influence more and the number of new buyers to attempt your services.Yelp and Zomato are the types of social media platforms that offer location-based review services that will help you run location-based social campaigns.

6. Blogging & Publishing Networks.

Examples:
• WordPress
• Tumblr
• Medium

You should choose these types of Social Media networks for publishing, discovering and commenting on articles, social media blogs and other content on the web.

Content marketing is one of the most powerful ways to target, attract, engage and convert a target audience. It is going to be the base of successful online marketing campaigns that play the most important role in conversion funnels of Digital Marketing campaigns.

WordPress and Blogger are the traditional blogging platforms while Tumblr (micro-blogging service) and Medium (Social Publishing Platform) is the latest blogging and publishing networks.

These networks are must for the businesses that want to effectively use Content Marketing, plus, you can share this content on a variety of Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.Content that you use on these networks will also help you create a niche for your business and audiences who are in search of information concerning that niche will for sure visit your blog or site.

7. Social Shopping Networks.

Examples:
• Polyvore
• Etsy
• Fancy

Want to find out all the latest trends in marketing or crave to know shopping tips then such types of Social Media channels are for you.

In addition, they help you follow different brands, share interesting things and make a purchase on these Social Shopping networks.

Businesses can use such types of Social Media Platforms for creating brand awareness, boosting engagement and selling products on some new and effective platforms. These channels transform e-commerce by making them more engaging via some interesting social elements.

To use these networks effectively you should create a site that integrates shopping experience with social experience.These networks are very result-driven for small businesses and startups as they can sell their products without any land-based office or store.

8. Interest-Based Networks.

Examples:
• Goodreads
• Houzz
• Last.fm

You can use such types of Social Media networks for connecting with other people who have the same sorts of hobbies or interests.

You can easily find the audiences who are interested in knowing more and more about the kinds of products and services that you offer.

This makes it one of the best networks for engaging with your audience and creating exclusive brand awareness online. Compared to big social networks, using Interest-based networks would help you run a more targeted campaign.

Choosing these networks will help you focus solely on a single product or service related to any particular subject, for instance, home décor, Digital Marketing Training, Music, Books, etc. These networks are the best places to engage with the audiences of a particular niche.

For sticking to the end, here's a bonus😊:


They are some other social networks that are not as prominent as the aforestated ones but they can also create an impact if your business suits their work.

In the list, the first one is Sharing Economy Networks such as Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit that let you advertise, buy, find, sell, share and do a trade of a variety of products and services amongst your peers.

Then comes some anonymous social networks such as Whisper, After School and Ask.fm that are generally used for venting, gossiping, snooping sorts of activity.

They are not going to be very beneficial for your business though, but in case you want to post something anonymously, any of these social media platforms can come in handy.

So tell me, what's your favourite social media platform? Leave a comment below, I promise to reply every single comment. 😊❤