There’s no denying that images speak louder than words. Add to that videos and you have 
a powerful combination of content that business owners have an ability to make use of online to spread awareness of your business.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using the three most powerful social media platforms that generate massive amounts of image-driven traffic. We’re talking about Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram.
Pinterest – The quickest to breach the “ten million unique users in a month” barrier.
Pros –
- Continues to grow at an impressive rate and drives more traffic to websites than any other social media site, such as YouTube.
- Women outnumber men on this platform. So, if your business targets the ladies, then this site is a great place to get in touch with many potential customers.
- You have to market your product and services in a subtle manner; stokes creative marketing.
- Visitors to Pinterest stay longer, giving you the opportunity for detailed communication.
- Certain businesses that are easier to market through images, such as home interiors, crockery, garments, accessories, etc can truly leverage this website.
Cons –
- The content is largely lifestyle focused; this is changing slowly but creating pins and reaching out to a community interested in your products requires creativity and planning.
- Content posted on Pinterest ages slowly, it does not really go viral like how a link on Digg or Twitter might.
- Re-pinned images on others’ pages can gain more popularity, negating your efforts to get traffic.
Instagram – More than 45 million photos uploaded daily.
Pros –
- It’s a free platform that is ultra easy to use. The important thing with Instagram is that it’s growing wildly.
- You can post event happenings in real-time; images and videos. Brand reinforcement through images.
- Great way to build a buzz around your product. Big and small brands do it. A teaser pic of a new pair of sneakers, announcement of a local contest, anything.
- Hashtags, geotags, and captions for the viewer’s information who can share the media you upload and comment on it as well.
- Converse with your audience informally. Images can give your business a face. Build a community and create qualified leads.
Cons –
- The Instagram app is available for iPhone and Android smartphones; that covers the bulk of smartphone users. That said, you have to make sure that implementors of any marketing project involving Instagram are using phones with these operating systems.
- Businesses need to ensure that the quality of pictures uploaded is of a high standard. You don’t want images put up via Instagram creating a negative impression about your product and service.
- The service cannot be used in isolation. You first have to create a presence on other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Tumblr – 134.5 million blogs on it and growing by the day!
Pros –
- The platform is easy to get started with and supports both text and images.
- It supports audio recording of posts directly from your mobile phone.
- Its support for visually appealing media has made it popular with photobloggers.
- The inherently social attributes in Tumblr simplify the process of community building.
- Businesses can open their blogs to user content and improve engagement.
- With a well-laid out content strategy, you can use Tumblr’s online presence to boost your site’s SEO score.
- Tumblr is popular with the under-40 demographic, which gives your small business or large brand the chance to reach out to this demographic, which is internet literate and shops online.
Cons –
- Lack of full control and limited capabilities offset ease of use. Tumblr does not offer the functionality and formatting control offered by a CMS like WordPress.
- The extent of analytics is not detailed enough. If you’re planning to use Tumblr for your business, you need to be able to see your effort in measurable terms.
- You’re business blog on Tumblr is not self-hosted. So if Tumblr is down for maintenance or from a technical snag, your site is down as well.
All three sites offer advantages to companies building a brand or selling a product online. Which one you choose depends on your product, your audiance and you specific online marketing goals.
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