Your station might have a cast of thousands to manage all your social network properties. Far more likely, you have one, maybe two poor saps tasked with overseeing ?that social stuff.? Mom always tried to keep me calm in fits of overwork with her philosophy of, ?all you can do is all you can do.? And that holds true for radio stations with their finite resources and personnel.However, the developers and innovators out there are not concerned with your limited resources. They keep coming up with social network ideas and keep on launching them. Some languish in obscurity. Others grow in the public consciousness until they reach a tipping point, at which time you?re forced to decide whether you?re going to have a presence on them or not. You can only do so much. But to help you decide where to aim your resources, let?s take a look at who the big performers are.
Experian Hitwise tracks visits (not unique visitors), the thinking most likely being that a repeat customer should not be regarded as a less valuable customer. You don?t mind your listeners coming back to the station, right? Each visit is an engagement. Here?s the Experian Hitwise list of the top social networks, with their number of U.S. visits each received in March:
1. Facebook 7 billion2. Twitter 182 million3. Pinterest 104 million4. LinkedIn 86 million5. Tagged 72 million6. Google+ 61 million
Facebook is, well, Facebook. For now, and the foreseeable future, it is the foundation of social networking, with the No. 2 network not even close. Every brand should be using Facebook as the primary location from which they form genuine, two-way relationships with fans and customers. In addition to facilitating those relationships, Facebook is also busy changing the way brands market themselves, promoting a seismic shift away from ads and toward content in order to preserve the user experience. I wish radio had thought of that. Many new networks and functions that come along can be embedded in a tab view within the Facebook environment, making Facebook the mother ship of all who may come after.
Twitter can be polarizing. Users are either ?Twitter people? or can?t stand its character limitations and hashtags. But as a very different animal to Facebook, used in a very different way strategically, those brands, celebrities, and experts who benefit from a steady stream of breaking news-style bulletins, or who are perfecting the use of Twitter to conduct customer service, have a useful tool indeed.
The Pinterest phenomenon continues, now seizing the position of third-most popular social network in the U.S. In its first couple of years, Pinterest actually languished. Then the interior design world discovered it and became the fuel to its fire. The degree to which you embrace Pinterest depends on your ability to visually present your station, and on your target demographics. The Pinterest ratio is still around 60/40 women to men. Pinterest has, without a doubt, become the stunner of the industry. It?s also reminded us that something that isn?t on our radars could pop up and take the social consumer base by storm. The power of an idea to explode like that is what keeps the social space so exciting.
LinkedIn is the network that got surpassed by Pinterest. But that doesn?t mean it?s in decline. LinkedIn is a platform whose angle is that it exists for a specific purpose: that being business and job networking. Many challengers have come along, but LinkedIn remains king of that hill. With the talk of user activity shifting to being based around interests as opposed to friends, and with users seeking to use social networking for more specific, utilitarian purposes as opposed to time-passing activities, LinkedIn is positioned well to meet the social needs of the working world. Your AEs should be all over it.
Ever hear of Tagged? Well it?s bigger than Google+! Tagged is geared mostly toward discovery and people matching. You may want to be friends, you may want to date them, but you meet these new people mostly through social games, shared interests, etc. It?s not new. Tagged was founded in 2004 and has been profitable since early 2008. As long people want to virtually meet new people, Tagged should continue its growth. For brands, though, it?s a paid advertising play. They offer custom integrations like home page takeovers, contests, sweepstakes, promotions, custom profiles, surveys, and polls. You don?t get to be a person.
Then there?s Google+. What are we supposed to do with Google+? After a launch accompanied by trumpets and fanfare, brands have largely sat on the sidelines, waiting to see what must-have value proposition the network brings. There?s plenty of potential, considering Google?s family of products that could be integrated. Brands also see the advantages of playing ball in the social space of the ?lords of search.? But right now, Google+ sits at No. 6. Not failing (Experian Hitwise says total visits in March were up 27 percent from February, and it?s enjoyed steady growth since it started), but not setting the world on fire either. ComScore shows users spent 3.3 minutes on Google+ in January, compared to 7.5 hours for Facebook. Google+ has got to do something to pull itself out of ?lowest priority? status.
That?s the social networking smorgasbord that?s laid out right now. So go ahead and pick your portions.
Mike Stiles is a brand content specialist with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files and follow him @mikestiles
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