Emerging Social Media Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide to New Opportunities

No digital marketing strategy is complete without keeping up with and using the latest Social Media Platforms. If you’re not on social media, are you even really marketing yourself or your business properly or effectively?

Chances are high that you’ve already got a solid social media marketing strategy in place, which is an excellent start.

Are you on any of these emerging social media platforms below?

Tech is constantly evolving, and like BitCoin, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, those who get there early are the ones who reap the biggest rewards. Here’s our quick social media marketer’s guide to new opportunities on the internet!

Why is Social Media Important In Digital Marketing?

Social media is a massive part of digital marketing. There are close to 5 billion social media users in the world (60% of the population!), so it’s a no-brainer—you NEED it. There’s no other form of marketing with such a huge reach and ability to create brand awareness.

There’s no such thing as physical boundaries in social media! So in terms of social media platforms, you can connect with diverse audiences and really drill down into your targeting so you’re reaching exactly the people you want to reach.

Another huge pro of social media marketing is the ability to engage regularly with your customers, creating a sense of community, loyalty, and trust. And then there’s the fact that it’s super cost-effective… All in all, it’s one of the best avenues of marketing you can use.

Emerging Social Media Platforms to Be Aware Of

These social media platforms are less well-known but have the potential to be the next big thing! Check them out and choose which ones would work for your business. Commit to going all in for at least a few months and then reassess.

Clubhouse

Clubhouse is unique in the world of social media platforms because it’s audio-based. Around half of its users fall into the 18 to 34 age category, so if this is your audience, check it out—you can consider it to be a kind of live podcast app.

Once you’ve signed up as a business, you can start a “club”—your personal corner of the app that people can join. Once you have a club, you can open up various rooms within that club, so it can go deep!

Interested in learning and talking with experts about Bitcoin? There is a Clubhouse room for this!

There are no ads, which is a bonus for smaller businesses as there’s far less chance of being drowned out by bigger businesses with bigger budgets. But the unusual podcast-like nature of the app might not be practical for all businesses, so consider it carefully.

BeReal

BeReal has been called Generation Z’s favorite social media platform, which is a clear sign that it features a younger audience. With around 3 million users, it’s still in its infancy but shows promise for the future.

It has a bit of a fun twist on the usual social media style. Once a day, at a random time, users get a notification telling them it’s “Time to BeReal”. Users have 2 minutes to take a photo of what they’re doing—no filter and no time to plan it!

If you prepare in advance, you can use your 2-minute window to showcase products or share a “pro tip”. However, the app works on a mutual friend request system, so you’ll need to actively drive your fans and followers from other platforms to friend your business here, or you won’t reach anyone.

Lemon8

Lemon8 was launched in February 2023, so it’s fresh on the market. It’s a sort of hybrid between Instagram and Pinterest, with users uploading visual content and captions. There’s plenty of space for captioning, and the “micro-blogging” aspect could work well for certain businesses.

Most of the content currently is lifestyle, travel, and productivity-focused. If your business falls into one of these categories, this could be a worthwhile option for you.

DMs don’t exist on the platform, so focus on using them to direct people to your website through captions while providing value-packed visual or video content that hits your users’ pain points.

Threads

Threads is a free app that connects directly to your Instagram but gives you a Twitter-like experience. If your business is already doing well on Instagram but you want to expand your reach and make things more engaging, it could be worth trying.

It’s essentially a clone of Twitter (or X), so there’s no learning curve if you’re familiar with Twitter/X already. It’s nothing new or fancy, really, but it allows you to “tweet” to your Instagram audience, which could be handy if your Twitter isn’t big but your Insta is.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is an excellent choice for local businesses. It’s all about connecting with people in your neighborhood, so it won’t be a good choice for online businesses with a global audience, but great for small local companies.

It’s not a new app—it launched in 2011, but Covid supercharged its popularity, so it still counts as an “emerging” app at this point. Because it’s designed to connect just a small group of people, it has a naturally more intimate and friendly feel than other social platforms, so it’s not the place for hard selling.

Expect to be drawn into other conversations as well because it’s all about community. But if you do it right and remain respectful, Nextdoor can be a great place to advertise a local business.

Rumble

Rumble is a platform that offers video and web hosting services, and it’s become a lot more popular in recent months thanks to its free-for-all, anything-goes, censorship-free model. It beats YouTube in terms of free speech and makes a point of being accessible to everyone.

It’s also quite easy to monetize, so it’s definitely a worthwhile option for marketers looking for a video alternative to YouTube. Like YT, you’d need to be on top of SEO and create good quality, value-packed content.

It may be worth posting the same videos to YouTube and Rumble for a while and seeing how they perform. Alternatively, you could post different things to each channel, but that adds extra work.

Polywork

Polywork is marketed as a professional platform, and it’s a bit of a cross between LinkedIn and Facebook. It’s definitely a platform designed for professionals to collaborate on, so it’s an option to add to your marketing plan for collaborations and partnerships rather than your typical social media marketing.

Conclusion

We’ve spoken about emerging social media platforms you should be checking out. But don’t forget these oldies-but-goodies that you might not be using to your advantage.

• Discord: An excellent place to engage with your audience, create branded servers, host webinars or Q&As, and share exclusive content.
• Reddit: The perfect place to showcase your expertise, provide free valuable content, and contribute authentically to conversations, leading back to your site.
• Pinterest: A search engine that’s heavily focused on visuals. Marketing requires a mix of good SEO and pleasing aesthetics.
• YouTube: Visual content is BIG! Migrate your website’s videos to YT to take the strain off your web host, showcase products, share expertise, and put a face to your brand.

Every business has different needs when it comes to marketing. But it’s worth checking out some emerging social media platforms and seeing if they could fit into your marketing strategy.

Get creative! You might be one of the first businesses to make a huge success on some of these newer, lesser-known apps!

There are so many new social media platforms out there that you can take advantage of. Do some research and join these new social media marketing channels to advertise your small business or tourism site.

This could be the answer you have been looking for to get more customers. Start online by joining as many free social media platforms as possible. Then start interacting with fans and followers. Throwing up the off ad for your products or services can’t hurt either, if you have the budget.

But, that being said, join the most popular social media platforms at the very least. You will find that it won’t take long to get rewarded for your efforts.

No Time for Social Media Marketing?

If you don’t have the time to join new social media platforms then reach out to a local social media marketing agency that can manage all your social channels. There are digital marketing companies as well as social media marketing companies in Nova Scotia that can do it all like managing your social media channels, providing SEO Services, and even design your new website.

Go Smart Media is such a company that offers social marketing, SEO and web design! If you don’t have the time to join and manage your social media channels then talk to the social marketing experts at Go Smart Media to get started!

They have premium monthly subscription packages for SEO and Social Media that have helped local businesses and tourism operators become successful online.

About the Author

Paul Wheeler runs a web design agency that helps small businesses optimize their websites for business success. He aims to educate business owners on all things website-related, on his own website, Reviews for Website Hosting.