With multiple social media platforms available, its obvious for one to get overwhelmed before choosing the right ones for his business.

Selecting the right mix of social media platforms is like building the foundation on which you plan to construct your brand image.

Once the platforms are chosen, devising the strategy becomes easy.

And for that, one must have a deep understanding about the features and offerings of major social media channels available in the online market.

To make it easy, the social media platforms can be categorized in following ways –

1. Must-haves for any business 

Facebook, Twitter and Google+ fall in this category. As the name suggests, these three channels are essential for all and every type of business.

Facebook vanity URL has gained the equal status to that of the Website. Twitter is the new name for Customer Service Center. And after conquering the SEO kingdom, Google + has emerged as the new biggie.

You cannot afford to avoid any one of these.

2. Visual Marketing

Restaurants, Fashion, Beauty, Health and Fitness, Education, Clothing, Real Estate…phew!!!!!!

Visual appeal is the most important thread for all these segments to flourish on social media.

A single image speak thousand words and a video can provide the feel of a new world more stunning than simple plain text. Customers crave more for visual content and hence social media channels such as Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube are more popular.

Pinterest offers the facility of open online catalog where all the brand products can be categorically listed with their price tags. Instagram helps the customer understand WHATS TRENDING and pushes the customer to be a part of the trend through its glamour.

Youtube is on the other hand an Online TV where customers can be given the virtual feel of the brand through its ads and other informative videos.

3. Content Marketing

Every business has multiple facets. These facets need to be well projected and explained to the target audience. Here content marketing comes into the picture.

Sites like Tumblr, WordPress, Newsletters form the part of content marketing.

Content is always the king and the basic driving force in attracting the audience. Relevant content will help you gain trust and loyalty from your customers.

Sharing the information about the brand, its story, formative features, elements, the vision and achievements, current offerings, sales and discounts can be done through blogs.

Along with that, publishing blogs about How To’s, Brand’s take on the new relevant updates in the market, Educating the customers about things in which the brand is expert in also help to make your readers the regular visitors.

Newsletters are more about “Customer Relationship Nurturing”. They keep your customers connected with your brand and pursue them to participate in brand activities and developments.

Here the key is to offer maximum value to the users and keeping the promotional aspect moderate.

4. Location-based Marketing

Location based promotions is the new powerful method of attracting your audience. Business segments who have their retail outlets at different locations can make the best use of this method.

Sites like Foursquare, Yelp and Google Places are strong players in this category. Restaurants, Salons and Spas can explore these social media channels.

Features like Location-based recommendations, Reviews and Ratings, Check-ins, location based listings, Short-tips and messages are something to look out for.

5. Professional Marketing

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram are all Casual form of marketing. Here the tone, language and projection of the brand is friendly and casual.

But few businesses also need a professional tone, look and feel.

LinkedIn being the pro, followed by Google+ are the two major platforms in this category.

As the business builds up via professional networking, LinkedIn makes it easy for the companies and organizations to collaborate, build strong ties with each other and do business.

Various features such as Groups, Discussions, Showcase Page and Inmails help companies to project a professional image and network with like-minded individuals and businesses.

Recruitment and Staffing Agencies, Software and Mobile App Developments, Real Estate are few major business segment that fall in this category.

The five categories listed above do not cover the entire social media world but they do help the newcomer to categorically place his business and choose the channels.

With constant and continual upgrades and advancements, new social media platforms with different concepts and ideas will emerge, unique features, facilities will be integrated in the existing ones….Its easy for a new entrepreneur to get engulfed by the waves but the key is to ride the tide….

If one is accustomed to the basic definitions of the above five categories, I am sure selection of the right mix of social channels will be just a cake walk. 🙂