Types of social networks as a part of digital marketing

Today online business presence in social media provides an opportunity to find new customers, increase the loyalty of existing ones, to become an expert in the industry, to which opinion listened to and trust – all this can be achieved by choosing the right strategy for promotion in social networks. To understand the different variations of social media, we talk today about the main types and their functionality.

Currently, there are many social networking sites. To avoid confusion in all their diversity, and determine which platform is best suited for the promotion of a business and for our digital marketing strategy we have grouped them according to the main functions.

Social bookmarking (Bookmarking sites)

Network for copyright records (Social publishing platforms)

Network for collective discussion (Discussion forums)

Network for comments and reviews (Online reviews)

Networks for the exchange of media content (Media sharing networks)

Network to communicate (Relationship networks)

1. Network for communication (Relationship networks) The most common and popular social media today. These include Facebook, Renren, Vkontakte, Xt3 , Linkedin. This format of social media among the first offered users to create a free personal mini-site, which later became known as a profile. Network relationships try to offer users maximum flexibility within a single platform. The relationship can be divided into the following categories network. This type of social media is of most interest to the business. Today, the brand page to Facebook – it is a common standard.
2. Networks for the exchange of media content (Media sharing networks) This type of social media gives users the opportunity to exchange video and photo content. These include Flickr, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope, Vimeo, Vine, Snapchat. The principle of information and advanced features, for example, in the Instagram filters, provide this social media advantage over multi-functional networks. An important feature is also scaling of content: some offer publish short videos, others allow you to create your own video channel.
3. Network for comments and reviews (Online reviews) At the heart of these social networks – geolocation and the ability to add comments and recommendations about the local business, places of accommodation for travelers and private carriers. These social media are a great knowledge base, which helps users to gather all the necessary information to make purchasing decisions. Representatives of the business need to do the maximum to earn the trust of the audience, getting positive reviews and eliminate the causes of the negative.
4. Network for comments and reviews (Online reviews) Foursquare – geolocation social network that allows users to report to the institutions and post reviews. TripAdvisor – social network for travelers. Here users can find reviews, itineraries, travel reports and recommendations of the hotels. Yelp – one of the most popular social networks to publish reviews and ratings in the US market. Uber – a social network for drivers and passengers. Crowd sourcing private trips through Uber has now become a stable trend in the US and Europe.
5. Network for collective discussion (Discussion forums) Communities, forums, Q & A-services – one of the first forms of social media. For modern representatives of this type include Digg and Reddit. At the core mechanics of the interaction between users is the need for knowledge sharing. The main challenge for brands similar services – be helpful. At the same time we should not forget that the local audience does not like aggressive advertising, ignoring this factor, you may get a negative reaction from users or ban moderator. The best strategy in this case, will participate in the discussion as an expert, or, in extreme cases, placing links to the relevant article or discuss training video from your brand. 6
6. Network for copyright records (Social publishing platforms) to this type of social media services related to blogging and microblogging, where users create and publish text and media content. These include such popular platforms like Twitter, Medium and Tumblr. And if Twitter business benefits in the presentation do not need, then to other platforms slightly different story – if your communications strategy involves the creation of copyright content, then you can reach a wider audience at the expense of social media data. In addition to this, the search engines quickly index the content published on these sites
7. Social Bookmarking Services (Bookmarking sites) StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Flipboard – are services where the user collects the content in your personal library, which can be signed by other members of the community. Typically, these social media study interests to offer more relevant content. The most obvious problem for the business here – make your Internet representation of user-friendly: optimize content to the standards of basic services, social bookmarking, add buttons to add bookmarks, etc. Also, representatives of business can create and curate the content in your own channel: for example, to create a “plank” in Pinterest and publish it interesting content users, repost, or user-generated content.
8. Social Networks Interest (Interest-based networks) The most popular opportunity that provides us with social networks – is to find like-minded people with similar interests. For example, Last.fm – network for music lovers, Goodreads – for lovers of literature. This type of social networking is well suited for industrial societies or publishers. Goodreads – a social network for lovers of literature, where users can write reviews and evaluate the book. Last.fm – Personal Radio, which analyzes the user’s preferences and selects on the basis of their recommendations. Tagged – one of the leading social. Search network of friends with the same interests.

Next we’ll talk about each of these categories in detail.