Social Media Comparison Chart for Boating Businesses

marketing plansocial media comparison chartCompare social media marketing opportunities to reach and engage boaters and marine businesses

With so many social media sites available these days, it may be hard to decide where to focus your efforts (or even how to focus your efforts). Demographics and marketing opportunities are not the same for each social media site, and your social media marketing strategies should adapt to each one as well.

Not every marine business can afford a full-time social media expert on staff (or even an agency) and sorting through all the clutter can be a challenge for the average business. So to help guide marine businesses decipher the marketing opportunities, I put together the below social media comparison chart.



Social Media Highlights for Boating

If you are examining marketing opportunities for your boating business, here are some notable highlights of the below comparison chart:

Facebook: although very popular in boating (with a high level of use for boaters and boating businesses) the reach is very low unless you are willing to pay to boost posts to reach more boaters.

Twitter: the level of engagement is relatively high for Twitter (with a diverse demographic) but you must post / tweet often to get the benefits of website traffic, engagement and visibility due to the very short shelf life of your posts.

LinkedIn: this site is your best bet for professional networking and advancing your goals of building relationships with dealers, OEMs and other potential partners –  and with relatively lower clutter your posts have a better chance of being seen.

Google+: the most under-utilized mainstream social media site in the boating industry (and most industries as well), activity on Google+ can have a big impact on your SEO for Google search results so it should not be overlooked.

YouTube: a great way to tell your business story, demo a product or even sell a boat – YouTube is also an excellent utility for managing your video portfolio… with the added bonus of assisting you SEO because it is a Google product.

Instagram: popular with younger generations this highly visual site is perfect for raising brand awareness and creating buzz, but because it is used for real-time sharing the posts have a short shelf life.

Pinterest: just picking up for the boating industry, Pinterest can be a great traffic and online revenue generator that has a very long shelf life due to saved pins on boards.

Social Media Comparison Chart for Boating

Here’s the full comparison chart for planning your social media marketing strategies:

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social media comparison chart

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Got something to add? Please comment below and I will be sure to update the chart with additional input and/or corrections if needed.




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Diane is a marketer, avid boater and author of the award-winning book PR Tools to Toot Your Own Horn. In addition to being founder of MarineMarketingTools.com, Diane runs the small business site SBMarketingTools.com and the boating lifestyle sites MyBoatLife.com and BoaterKids.com.

2 Comments

  1. Nicely done, Diane. Now that Google has mercifully done away with Google Authorship for SEO purposes, do you have a sense for how that might affect Google+ in this calculation?

    1. Thanks Tom! My understanding of the authorship change is that it is no longer being shown in search results but they *may* still be using algorithms to determine author rank on a topic based on your Web content (a topic under debate with SEO experts). As for G+ – they are showing social posts for your circles in search results, so it does seem that is still a worthwhile effort. Of course the ever changing world of social media (and Google in particular) will likely continue to challenge us! Thanks for your thoughtful comment!

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