Today, social media sites and platforms allow users to maximize their brand reach, engage the right audience, bring their attention to the brand, and commercialize the brand on social media platforms among the worldwide population. Social media has unknowingly become an indispensable part of our daily lives. More and more people are spending time on it and they are not just passively using it but are actively engaging on these social media sites.
There are multitudes of social media sites to choose from. You can find out about the best high end tested platform for all your social media needs. Some of them are likely familiar to you, while others may have sailed under your radar. But, before you pick the best one for your brand, you must first be aware of and informed about most of the options.
If you are newly venturing into social media to promote your brand, some things need to be considered. Make sure that the social media platform you choose is the best fit for your business and you.
Top 15 Social Media Sites & Apps to Consider for Your Brand
To make things easier, here is a comprehensive list of the best social media sites and apps that can come to your benefit when thinking about promoting your brand. The list has the most popular social media sites with various features, user bases, and niches that you can consider for your brand. Let us get started!
1. Instagram
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
Launched: 2010
Founders: Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger
Instagram is a social media and photo-sharing site that allows you to share photos and videos. The application facilitates you with options of having a business profile for your brand. It provides rich analytics of your profile and posts with the ability to schedule your posts using third-party tools. Instagram offers targeted advertising options for your brand as well.
2. Facebook
Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
Launched: 2004
Founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes
Facebook is the most popular application among social media users worldwide. Facebook has evolved constantly since its launch in 2004. Brands and businesses have options to create their business pages, events, and groups to interact with their target audiences. Facebook provides targeted advertising facilities for those who want to increase their product and brand visibility among consumers.
Facebook’s Messenger was made into a standalone application with much more evolved features. Today businesses are provided with advertising, creating chatbots, sending out newsletters, and more on this application.
3. YouTube
Launched: 2005
Headquarters: San Bruno, California
Founders: Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley
YouTube being the most popular video-sharing platform, can be considered for your brand. You can create your YouTube channel for your brand and start posting videos of interest for your viewers. Relatable videos in connection with your brand will bring in subscribers to your channel.
4. WhatsApp
Launched: 2009
Headquarters: Menlo Park, California
Founders: Brian Acton, Jan Koum
WhatsApp application has been building out its business platform to allow businesses to have a professional profile. It provides facilities such as customer support and purchase updates to its customers. The application has introduced the WhatsApp Business for small businesses and the WhatsApp Business API For medium and large enterprises.
5. Tumblr
Launched: 2007
Headquarters: New York City, U.S.
Founders: David Karp
Tumblr is a popular social media site that enables microblogging to its users. This social platform is used for sharing text, photos, videos, and more. You can promote your brand on this platform by sharing product photos and videos to engage with your viewers.
6. TikTok
Launched: 2016
Headquarters: Culver City, California
Founders: ByteDance Ltd, Zhang Yiming, Toutiao
TikTok is fairly new to the world of social media. However, it has already made an extraordinary mark on the social scene. You can use TikTok to show off your brand’s creative side and create viral video content as part of your marketing strategy.
7. Reddit
Launched: 2005
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founders: Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz
Reddit is a social news website and entertainment website forum with various sub-communities keen on specific interests. These communities are called subreddits. You can register yourself to post content and comments on threads to interact with other users. Tons of active targeted groups make it an interesting option for brands looking to reach a new audience.
8. Quora
Launched: 2009
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, U.S.
Founders: Adam D’Angelo, Kelly Battles
Quora facilitates its users to ask questions and share answers on a variety of topics. Businesses have been using this site to build their expertise in specific areas with interaction with other users.
9. Twitter
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Launched: 2006
Founders: Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Noah Glass
Twitter is a social media platform for entertainment and news related to sports, politics, and more. Twitter provides real-time information, which makes it unique from other existing social sites. Twitter executes social customer service for many popular businesses as well.
10. LinkedIn
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, CA
Launched: 2003
Founders: Reid Hoffman, Konstantin Guericke, Allen Blue, Jean-Luc Vaillant, Eric Ly
LinkedIn has advanced into a qualified social media platform where business experts share content, build their brand and network with other users. This site has achieved a place for businesses to establish their authority and guidance in their industry and attract talent to their company.
11. Pinterest
Launched: 2010
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founders: Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp
Pinterest helps people to discover new things and be inspired, unlike other sites which focus on engagement. Seventy-eight percent of users think that content on Pinterest from worldwide brands is useful, which gives your brand an exclusive prospect to shape their purchasing choices.
12. Medium
Launched: 2012
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founders: Evan Williams
Medium is a free publishing platform with a social network element. Brands can republish their original posts from their company blog on this platform to extend their reach. Medium has 60 Million active users. A publishing platform where people can come to write articles on various topics and connect. You can use this site to boost the exposure of your brand and attract traffic to your websites.
13. Digg
Launched: 2004
Headquarters: New York City, United States
Founders: Jay Adelson & Kevin Rose
Digg is a news publishing site with a curated front page. Contents on this social channel vary extensively and may include political issues, scientific finds, and viral videos. Businesses can use it to organize their online feeds or share relevant content.
14. Telegram
Launched: 2013
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
Founders: Nikolai Durov & Pavel Durov
Telegram is a social messaging app wherein brands can create chatbots for the platform or use the channel feature to transmit messages to an unlimited number of subscribers. Right now, it’s one of the world’s largest and safest social media messaging sites. You may use Telegram to create chatbots for customer service and to broadcast messages to your subscribers.
15. Vimeo
Launched: 2004
Headquarters: New York, United States
Founders: Jake Lodwick & Zach Klein
Vimeo offers quality features for videographers to share cinematic content. The users can share and embed videos on other sites. They can also access advanced statistics and analytics to monitor the performance of their content.
Conclusion
To make the most of these top social media sites, it’s important to keep few things in mind.
- Your brand is your identity, and its perception will greatly impact your business. So be conscious of what you post on social media sites.
- Be clear about your brand’s goals for posting relevant and interesting content, as users are all too ready to click away if it fails to hold their attention.
- There is no need to be on all social media sites. Consider your target audience and narrow it down to a select few.
- When it comes to your brand identity, be consistent across all platforms in terms of color, design, font, and so on.
- Corporate jargon, form language are a big NO on social media sites. Use a conversational tone. Be funny and clever. Consider brands such as Netflix, Wendy’s, or Oreo, whose tweets are well received by Twitterati’s.
