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Multichannel marketing may sound like the latest buzzword, but it’s actually a strategy that makes sense, given all the choices your existing and potential customers have to communicate with your brand. It works on the theory that customers are more likely to buy when they can use their favorite channel—which can include social media platforms, brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce websites, catalogs, phone orders, email newsletters, Google ads and many more. 

The key to multichannel marketing is to be where your audience is, so it’s probably not surprising to hear that social media platforms are among the most popular channels for today’s marketers. However, unlike email, newsletters, catalogs and ads, which are created to reach a broad and diverse audience, it’s important to strike a more precise tone, or “voice,” let’s call it, when you’re interacting with your audience on social media.    

Reading the room…er, channel

Why is it so important? Social media followers tend to fall into definite—and different—personality types, depending on the platform(s) they use. It’s possible that not all of these channels are right for your business, but if you keep these brief profiles in mind, you’ll be able to speak the right language for the audiences on the platforms you do use.

• Facebook is the place for news, updates and connection. It’s become a popular platform for family and friends to stay in touch with each other, so you may find a real diversity of ages and backgrounds among your followers. Warmth, personality and humanity will go a long way toward building a connection.

• Instagram is the place to see and be seen. It’s all about the visual: carefully curated content that can be showcased in photos or video-based Instagram Stories. Followers tend to skew younger here, and they’re a visual group, so plan your message carefully and communicate in a casual, friendly and—above all else—honest tone.

• Twitter is the place for fast-breaking, to-the-point news. Like Facebook, you’ll find diversity here, but you’ll also find a group that isn’t shy about letting businesses know when they’re happy or unhappy—and those tweets may be shared ad infinitum. Keep it short and snappy…and pay attention to the replies.

• LinkedIn is the place for businesspeople. Every company should have a LinkedIn profile; it’s where business followers can “meet” your small business and get an idea of your products and services. Keep posts professional and share interesting content about your company or industry in general. 

The great thing about social media marketing is that standing out is strongly encouraged. So experiment with different aspects of a campaign—colors, images, copy, calls to action—to see what works within the different channels. Don’t be afraid to try new things as you create marketing ideas that allow all of your channels to work together. Above all, allow yourself to have fun building a marketing strategy to bolster your business. 

While we can’t actually do it for you, if you’d like to free up some of your time to concentrate on multichannel marketing, ask us about our other services—designed to relieve you of accounting, payroll and other business-related tasks.