Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok are social media channels that practically everyone is familiar with. Their emergence has revolutionized how people communicate or connect and significantly shortened the distance between brands and their audiences. A company’s official Facebook profile or presence on LinkedIn is now almost a marketing must-have. What are less popular social networks worth exploring to stand out?

QUORA

What is Quora?

From a PR point of view, it’s a platform even made for knowledge sharing by experts from almost every industry. The portal connects those who like to ask questions and want to know more with those who want to answer them.

The site has been running since 2010 and was founded by Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever, one of several godfathers of Facebook’s success. Their knowledge of the technological environment and experience in building the popularity of social channels allowed them to build a community of hundreds of millions of users. In the first months of operation, the platform was available only to those who received an invitation to it, which gave the impression of exclusivity and attracted, among others, well-known technology journalists looking for interesting information.

How to use Quora in your marketing efforts?

The unlimited range of topics covered in the quora.com community means that almost every expert and brand can find its place there. Every day there are science, technology, and trivia topics, but also questions about health or personal life advice. However, as in most social media, it’s worth defining your area of expertise and building user trust through quality and substantive content.

Here you won’t find standard likes or hearts but a system based on the well-known hot or not mechanism on the Internet. Users can rate each publication as “upvote,” i.e., exciting and worth recommending, or “downvote” for those they think are not worth promoting. The service also allows users to comment on posts, share them on their profile, filter content by topic categories and build their communities around a given topic. Brands and individuals who want to share their knowledge but would like to do so in a more professional form than on Facebook and less formal than on LinkedIn may find Quora an excellent compromise. By regularly publishing quality and substantive content and being able to ask interesting questions, an international group with a genuine interest in a given topic can be built here.

DISCORD – Reach out (not only) to gamers

Who uses Discord?

While Discord.com is now considered a social media, it was founded as an instant messaging service. The platform was created in 2015 for gamers from around the world and was meant to allow them to play together, facilitate contact, and will enable them to organize their own spaces in the cloud. Users can create and manage their servers for free. It’s also up to them whether they will be public or private and thus available only to those invited to share them.

Currently, the platform has about 150 million users and is one of the most popular tools for communication, watching, and sharing streams among gamers. Over time, the site has also attracted other users, and on discord.com, we can now find groups centered around other interests like various branches of science, cooking, or sports.

Discord in brand communication – is it worth it?

Promotional activities on this platform are more complicated than with other popular channels. This is due to the structure of Discord, which does not have a so-called “feed” on which to publish content that reaches a broad audience. Each server and the community gathered around it is a single communication channel, which can be a challenge for marketers. Such dispersed audiences force a shift from a system of general communication, to which Facebook or Instagram are accustomed, to targeted actions, individually directed to particular categories of audience.

Despite the difficulties, Discord has great communication potential, noticed by more and more global brands experimenting with their presence on this channel. Its familiarity is a must-have for all those whose primary target audience is gamers, but not only gamers. So far, the platform owners have yet to decide to introduce paid advertising, so building a brand position here is only possible organically. However, it is worth considering joining the site and setting up a company server so you can share key content in one place, conduct live broadcasts or gain another tool for contacting customers. If Discord’s popularity grows, a community built patiently around a brand can repay with great potential.

REDDIT – Meet your audience

Is it worth being on Reddit?

The reddit.com platform is a less demanding social media platform for content development. The site has been around since 2005 and takes the form of modern forums where users share what they think are exciting materials, thoughts, or questions. The ability to discuss and join in the community is of greater importance here than distinctive graphics or slogans. Engaging content and consistently building loyalty from other users is the key to success on this platform.

Reddit comprises many intertwined communities where users gather because of a common hobby, profession, or idea. They create so-called “subreddits,” which they treat as a group of trusted individuals with common goals and views. Entering an already-built community is possible, but it requires great sensitivity and caution. Too frequent communication or purely marketing publications strongly deviating from the accepted style of the group can make a new user be treated as an intruder and disregarded. Persistence and quality publications and comments are crucial to building a position on this platform. As with Quora, here, too, each user can decide the value of unique content by voting with a down or up arrow.

Reddit and marketing

To use the potential of Reddit.com in communication and marketing activities, it is not at all necessary to publish content there on behalf of a brand or to conduct promotional campaigns. Due to the characteristics of this medium and the open sharing of problems, thoughts, and needs by the widest variety of social groups – the platform is an excellent resource for those who plan targeted communications. Without wanting to open another brand account on social media, consider a presence on Reddit as an observer and use this source of insights to understand your target audience better.

PINTEREST – Inspire with a picture

Who uses Pinterest?

Pinterest.com is a visual social network used by people looking for inspiration in various areas. Previously, Instagram was considered the channel to take advantage of the trend of the superiority of photos and video over text. Still, on Pinterest, you will find even less of it. The platform’s structure is simple and inspired by a traditional corkboard, to which we pin the illustrations that inspire us. Instead of “Like,” we have a “Save” button, with other materials added to our board. Each user can divide it into folders with any name, which allows us to organize the inspirations, for example, by thematic categories or time of addition.

Interaction between profiles here works similarly to Instagram. The “pins” uploaded by others can be commented on, and exciting creators can be followed through the “Observe” function. Each user’s board consists of two parts: the content he published and those from other authors he has pinned on his board. This way, Pinterest makes it possible to find users with similar tastes and interests. Within the channel, we also get the ability to send messages to individual users.

Pinterest in the communication of products and brands

Pinterest is a portal with tremendous marketing potential, but only for some products and brands. The characteristics of this medium mean that only those who can and can show their business through photos and short videos – have a chance to win the hearts of Instagram users. Notably, the published materials’ quality and visual appeal are crucial here. Pinterest users like everything modern, aesthetic and inspiring. Therefore, professional photos in contemporary settings or quality videos are a must when you want to start your adventure with this platform.

What brands should consider a presence on this channel? The most common content here is from interior decoration, fashion, broad beauty, or the culinary industry. On the other hand, you can also find exciting infographics, helping to learn foreign languages, or marketing or business guides in visual formats. The criterion for selection is, therefore, not the industry but creativity and the ability to show your business or product visually appealingly. For several years, Pinterest has also offered the possibility of paid promotional activities.