Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn regularly take the top spots for most popular social media platforms for marketing, but for an organisation to restrict itself solely to these platforms could be a mistake – after all, if an audience likes to spend time elsewhere and other businesses haven’t clicked, this presents a significant marketing opportunity. In this era of overwhelming competition and market saturation, joining a new social media platform could be a smart way to build new levels of customer engagement. But what are the platforms to consider?

1. Reddit

Reddit is built from a network of communities for every culture, subculture and topic known to man, spanning memes to serious business discussions. It is also the fifth-most visited website in New Zealand. Users submit discussion points and content, which other users then up or downvote to either boost or hamstring that post’s visibility.

Reddit top tips

1. Do NOT just spam content. Reddit users are extremely protective of their communities and fiercely dislike spam, self-promotion and marketing.
2. Actively participate. Join discussions, pose questions, offer advice and share content other than your own. Only self-promote very occasionally.
3. Build your karma. Karma, a combined total of all a user’s upvotes minus their downvotes, tells Reddit users how active someone is as a poster. Some communities won’t allow users with low karma to make posts.

Bonus tip: Reddit has a built-in advertising platform to promote posts to specific communities and users. However, analysis from the likes of HubSpot and Experiment 27 showed that gaining results this way is harder than posting organically – something to consider when scoping out future budgets.

 

2. TikTok

TikTok is a fast-growing app that enables users to make short videos with music, filters and other features. With 500 million users worldwide, it saw a user base growth of 70% from Q1 2018 to Q1 2019. Importantly, it’s highly popular with young people – 41% of its users are aged between 16 and 24.

TikTok top tips

1. Create fun, down-to-earth content. Marketers don’t have to be whacky to be on TikTok, and they don’t have to make memes (although they can if that fits their brand). The app is a place for normal people to express themselves, whether that’s telling jokes, dancing and singing, or casually talking to the camera.
2. Work with influencers. As with any social platform, TikTok has its homegrown celebrities who can be leveraged to increase the reach and engagement of a particular message. TikTok influencers can be found by searching people’s bios, or using tools such as this one. Need inspiration? HubSpot put together a list of TikTok case studies from seven major brands.

 

Twitch

Twitch is a highly popular live-streaming platform and app owned by Amazon. It boasts millions of users, with over 880 million hours total watched in December 2019 alone. It used to be primarily a platform for video game streamers, but now it hosts talk shows, live music, arts and crafts, and much more. Twitch is about community first and foremost; building a relationship between streamers and their audience,
making live chat a key component of the platform.

Twitch top tips

1. Build your own community. Typical marketing content doesn’t have a place here. Any business that wishes to stream on the platform should strive to create engaging, entertaining or interesting content, streamed on a regular schedule, with the primary aim of building and engaging a following.
2. Leverage someone else’s. Sponsorship is common on Twitch. Streamers are allowed to promote brands that sponsor them, and there are even tools to include ad breaks in the middle of streams (want your ads on Twitch? You’ll need to check out the app’s specifications page and then contact them via email).
3. Advertise! Twitch has native, display, and video ad units available similar to streaming services like TVNZ On Demand. As always, consider your audience and create or choose suitable content for the platform.

Closing thoughts

Despite each of these platforms boasting millions of views, there are few marketers here compared to major apps such as Facebook or Instagram. This is a clear opportunity for the right brands to get involved in these relatively untouched communities, building an engaged following and boosting their reach to new heights.

Additional Sources
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-market-reddit-guide-businesses/
https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-use-reddit
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340216
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/12020-tiktok-business-features.html
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitch-what-marketers-need-to-know-luria-petrucci/
https://medium.com/powerspike/a-beginners-guide-to-twitch-influencer-marketing-1d06f0cb59fb
https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/about/