As one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk, completed his jaw-dropping $44 billion takeover of Twitter, it seems the platform has been at the forefront of news agendas worldwide for all the wrong reasons. Introducing a subscription-based system for the coveted blue tick verification and a significant layoff of the platform’s employees seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. As post-takeover events unfold, reports reveal that people and advertisers, including Volkswagen, Pfizer and Audi, alike are leaving the platform to avoid potential risk and damage.
If this is the beginning of the end for Twitter as one of the core social media giants alongside Meta and LinkedIn, are there other social media platforms that B2B marketers should consider, to expand marketing reach?
In this blog we will look at some of the other platforms that have risen to prominence in recent weeks and whether they need to become an addition to your marketing toolkit.
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Discord
Since its initial release in 2015, Discord has grown in popularity within the gaming community. The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and instant messaging platform has experienced a recent surge in user registrations – boasting over 300 million registered accounts. Although its origins and primary popularity is amongst gamers, today, Discord has ample potential for B2B marketers. Organisations and brands can create groups – or ‘servers’ to use the official jargon – allowing you to connect with a like-minded audience. The benefit of this is that brands and their marketing teams can learn more about their audience and what they actually want, alongside engaging with users on interesting topics. Although Discord is not a suitable platform for increasing reach and exposure, if its increased conversations and interactions you’re looking to curate and enhance, the platform is a suitable tool for your marketing roster.
Mastodon
Decentralised, open-source social platform Mastodon has been around since 2016 but as the Twitter exodus accelerates, the platform has been touted as a viable alternative. It’s reflected in the stats too as since the end of October, the platform has gained nearly 500,000 new users, doubling its total user base. Visually, Mastodon resembles Twitter in the way users can post content (or ‘Toots’) and its structure reflects that of Reddit in the way users join servers based on their interests or geographical locations. The upsurge in users might be appealing for brands to jump ship from Twitter but, for B2B marketers and advertisers, there are limitations to using Mastodon for your marketing strategy. For example, the platform does not allow paid advertising due to the fact it is set up as a decentralised network for users to develop their own custom servers and the issue this presents is that brands and marketers have no capability to develop and deploy paid content. Time will tell if Mastodon will become a viable alternative to Twitter.
TikTok
Albeit not necessarily an emerging social platform by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s impossible to deny the staggering reach and potential of the short-form video sharing platform. Each month, 80 million people spend an average of 24 hours on the platform, and with such a captured audience, B2B marketers who may have been sat on the fence previously might now be seriously considering adopting the platform for their clients. Previously, we shared a blog outlining whether B2B marketers were missing a trick when it comes to TikTok, and with the platform showing no signs of slowing its growth as Twitter seemingly continues to lose users, now might be the time to embrace TikTok into your marketing strategy.
With Musk’s takeover of Twitter still in its infancy, it’s hard to say if B2B marketers will turn away from Twitter in favour of other platforms, but if they do, there are alternatives that have the potential to be fruitful. We will be watching this space over the coming months to find out if Twitter is going the way of MySpace and fizzling out of existence, or if it will put up a fight.
If you’re looking for support with your B2B social media strategy, get in touch with us today!
