Facebook, Twitter or Instagram: Determining the Best Platform for Mobile Marketing Our marketing expert Jim Yu discusses how to best utilize social for mobile marketing.
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Q: If I have to choose between Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which one is the most effective for mobile marketing?
-Khairul Azmiar
Malyasia
A: The social ecosystem is steadily growing, which means marketers must be more strategic than ever when engaging with consumers across social networks and devices. As consumers traverse from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest and Instagram, content is digested differently. Ultimately, the network that will be most effective for your mobile marketing efforts depends largely on your audience, their interests and the type of content at your disposal.
For example, Pinterest is highly visual with a predominately female audience, while Twitter's user base is much more diverse and text oriented. If you're in the hospitality industry, it's likely that your content will be image heavy which makes it ideal for Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. Alternatively, Twitter's bite-sized headlines and Facebook's content-friendly interface are optimal for B2B companies to engage with customers and prospects.
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So what does this mean for your mobile-marketing strategy? Content, device and audience aren't one-size-fits-all when it comes to engagement and your mobile approach should reflect this. There are several paths to success when it comes to choosing a social network that will perform best with your audience on mobile. A few simple factors to consider about each network that can help ensure you are directing your mobile-marketing energy and resources to the right networks are as follows.
Pinterest. This social platform is experiencing rapid growth with a largely female user-base (70 percent), according to Nielsen research. One of the largest benefits to Pinterest for mobile is that it is highly visual and outstanding for traffic generation, especially for retail.
Twitter. The micro-blogging site is excellent for real-time engagement with consumers. On Twitter, marketers can share the latest news in a quick snapshot message, allowing information to be shared instantly while offering fodder for thought-provoking conversations. When it comes to mobile, Twitter's simple interface is ideal for engagement on the go that can reach hundreds of thousands of followers immediately.
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Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's company currently offers the most substantial and diverse reach. Additionally, according to a recent TechCrunch article, 78 percent of its daily users are on mobile, which presents countless opportunities for mobile engagement. Facebook is well suited for rich content accompanied by images or videos.
Instagram. In many respects Instagram is the new kid on the block. According to a recent study by Imply Measured, 71 percent of the world's largest brands now use Instagram as a marketing channel, however from a marketing perspective the network is still in the early stages. The recent inclusion of video and its tight integration with Facebook make it an ideal compliment to Facebook mobile engagement.
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