Five Social Networks That People Give Up On Too Quickly

Facebook and Twitter dominate most conversations about social media. People are looking for ways to get more Twitter followers, more comments on Facebook posts, and turning all of that into a profit.

It’s great that we focus on these social networks. However, as we tunnel vision our focus on 1-2 social networks, we forget about the other social networks that surround us.

The key to my success on social media was focusing on Twitter. However, that wasn’t enough. Focusing on Twitter and thriving on the platform only gave me a strong base, not a skyscraper. I got the skyscraper by addressing other social networks that are often forgotten about.

The reason certain social networks get neglected from a business standpoint is because we want quick results. How do you spend $1 today so you make $2 tomorrow? How do we add some extra zeroes to those numbers? That’s how entrepreneurs think.

While it’s good to focus on the profit, not all profits come in the short-term. The profits people dream of come in the long-term. Growing your audience on multiple social networks (and outsourcing the work) is a great way to grow in the long-term.

The long-term growth on any social network can lead to better results. However, five social networks often find themselves pushed to the side. Either we ignore them or don’t focus enough time on them. Here’s the complete list:

#1: Pinterest

Pinterest boasts over 70 million users and over 50 billion pins. These users are very active, and some of these users spend hours of their time on the site every day. Pinterest makes it possible to organize your social media posts (pins) into different categories (boards). That makes it easier for your followers to find specific content they are looking for.

Other than effective organization, Pinterest has another factor that separates it from most social networks. 80% of pins are repins. That means it’s easier to go viral. One of the pins I sent to my 500 followers ended up getting over 1,000 repins. The pin reached beyond my audience. Just to give you a comparison of Pinterest’s viral power, only 1% of tweets are retweets.

I eventually grew my audience to 22,000 followers. Then I neglected my Pinterest account. It took too much time. The solution to the problem was outsourcing the work to someone from UpWork. Pinterest is a powerful but also time consuming social network. Consider delegating pins and your account’s growth to someone else.

#2: SlideShare

SlideShare has been praised by many marketers and some of the world’s most successful blogs, including Mashable.

So what’s all of the hype about? SlideShare is a social network that lets you upload KeyNote and PowerPoint presentations. The best part about SlideShare is that you don’t need a large audience for your presentation to go viral. Some viral SlideShare presentations were created by people with a few dozen followers. You don’t even need millions of followers on your other social networks.

Perhaps the most powerful use of SlideShare is growing your email list. My friend Steve Scott wrote a blog post discussing SlideShare’s dramatic impact on his email list.

The reason most people don’t invest their time into SlideShare is because it takes a long time to create a presentation. Let alone creating multiple presentations every week. The best way to utilize SlideShare is by outsourcing the work to someone else. Steve Scott outsources his SlideShare presentations to an assistant. It’s a time efficient way to take advantage of a big opportunity.

#3: Periscope

Periscope is the new social network in town. New social networks create two groups of people—the highly skeptical people and the people in search of the next opportunity. I joined Periscope early and ended up getting over 2,000 followers in my first week.

Mastering any social network takes time, but the reason people shy away from Periscope are a bit different:

1. It’s new
2. People are afraid of messing up live (no redoing a broadcast)
3. Real-time engagement looks scary the first time

For some people, using Periscope challenges them to conquer the fear of live recording. And conquering that fear can be quite profitable. Periscope expert Kim Garst has made thousands of dollars promoting her products on Periscope. One of her Periscope broadcasts resulted in an extra 180 subscribers overnight.

And she got those results with a little over 10,000 Periscope followers. It’s not incredibly difficult or time consuming to reach 10,000 Periscope followers. You can even get significant results with your first 1,000 Periscope followers.

The social network presents new opportunities for business owners. However, since it’s still new, most people make the mistake of pushing it to the side. Don’t be one of those people.

#4: YouTube

Shocked to find one of the largest social networks on this list? YouTube has proven itself as a worthy social network again and again. We hear the stories about the people who make six figure incomes from their videos.

As awesome as those stories are, there is a disappointing reality. Most of the people who use YouTube aren’t taking it seriously. Maybe they upload a decent video every month (or worse, every other month). I know some people succeed by uploading one YouTube video every other month, but those people are the exceptions, not the rule.

For some marketers, YouTube is the sleeping giant. Wake up the giant by being active and growing your channel, and that giant will bring in the results.

#5: Instagram

Instagram is more than a social network for teens. It’s emerging as one of the top players. With just as many users as Twitter, Instagram needs to be taken seriously.

For a long time, it has been challenging for marketers to take Instagram seriously. Anyone like me with an active blog typically spends more time on the desktop than on mobile devices. While Instagram is mobile savvy, you can’t exactly call it desktop savvy.

Then the tools caught up. HootSuite now makes it possible for us to schedule Instagram pictures from our desktops. This makes it possible to do the following:

1. Schedule pictures you create on your desktop (i.e. pictures created with Canva that are optimized for Instagram’s dimension size)
2. Outsource the work (assign it to someone on your organization’s HootSuite team)

These two possibilities have changed the Instagram landscape. It’s now possible to schedule Instagram photos in a free and easy manner. Scheduling Instagram photos is now as easy as scheduling tweets.

Instagram is continuing to grow. Don’t miss the boat.

In Conclusion

Billions of people are on the web. Many of these people have social media accounts. With all of the social networks on the web, some fall under the cracks. Businesses forget to utilize certain social networks that can turbocharge their growth.

The best way to utilize a social network is by mastering it and then outsourcing the work. That way, you get to spend your time doing other things for your business.

Which social networks are you underutilizing? Have any tips for us so we don’t underutilize these social networks as much? Sound off in the comments section below!