What Is The BEST Social Media Platform For Your Business? | B2B Vault - Biz To Biz Podcast | Episode 230

You are now watching the Biz to Biz Podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Jeff Van Gundy of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we're gonna be, uh, asking the, the, you know, the, the hard question of which social media platform is best for your business. You know, a lot of people are kind of lost in the sauce when it comes to social media, especially business owners. You know, no one knows which platform to use or how to use it.

And there's been a lot of changes. There's been a lot of changes too.

And there's been changes in some social media platforms as well. So we're going to try to dive in and dig into that and figure out, you know, which is the best platform for us or give you guys some advice in trying to figure out which one you should use. How you doing today, man?

I'm doing good. Jeff Van Gundy, that's funny. So we had Stan Van Gundy coach the Heat for a little bit. And then Jeff Van Gundy, my favorite Heat story is when there was a brawl and Jeff Van Gundy was grabbing Alonzo Mourning by the leg.

That was—

Remember that?

Yes, I do.

That was probably one of the funniest NBA fights ever. Just watching him grab. And that's sort of like Congress trying to grab TikTok and eliminate it, which is kind of crazy because that's dominating like the news cycle right now.

TikTok.

Yeah, TikTok. Yeah, TikTok. Yeah, they want to ban TikTok or make them sell it or something.

When I think of TikTok, I think of the movie Saw.

Saw.

The first one.

Yeah.

And when he was on the phone with everybody, you got this, you know, whatever time is— I forget the word he said, but then at the end he'd be like, "Tick tock, tick tock." That's kind of spooky.

Yeah, those are crazy. That was like a crazy horror movie. Yeah, the week is moving along, man. We're in March. We're almost to the end of the first quarter. It's crazy. How fast everything's going.

Sure is.

The years, boom, boom, boom. How's your week going, Rocky?

No, uh, I'm here, brother. All right, I'm still congested, I'm still coughing, so yeah, there's that. And I'm tired, like I'm so tired. Like every time I cough, I just, I just feel like all of my energy is literally drained away from me.

I know how that feels when I was sick.

So yeah, man, um, other than that, I'm grateful to be alive, happy to be here on planet Earth not being bombed. So there's that. So yeah, man.

So what do you think about the whole TikTok thing and them trying to force a sale?

Uh, I mean, it's definitely I don't necessarily believe TikTok is like this undercover, you know, like the owner is sending the data to the Chinese government. And what data exactly is he sending over? Like age groups? I mean, I myself, when I sign up for those type of things, I have a specific email address that I use.

Um, yeah, but it's in your phone, so they're saying like they can get all your phone contacts. However, I don't know, dude. Like, when you go in there, it says, oh, it gives you a list, like, oh, these—

well, you gotta accept that. I mean, people, right? I mean, you know, you got to be able to know how to know what you're doing.

Exactly.

Like You know what I mean? Like you just don't click all the boxes, say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, you're an idiot if you do that. If you're going through life and just not paying attention to what you're downloading to your phone or accepting like what types of terms are on the phone.

Yeah, the terms and conditions. And oh, do you want to connect your contacts to this app and things like that?

So the one thing that, I was blown away when they showed how the difference between TikTok in America and in China. I wish that TikTok was the same in America and that all the nonsense and the stuff that's on TikTok in America was not there and that it was an educational platform like in China.

Yeah, it's crazy how it's completely different, 360 degrees.

180. I mean, 360, you're going back in a circle.

So I'm just saying it's complete opposite.

Yeah, it's a 180-degree difference from what we're doing here in America. So I mean, that's, that's, there's that, you know what I mean? I wish that, you know, that they, it was the same platform here that it was in China. But other, I don't use TikTok. I have an account because my granddaughter, well, my, my two youngest set it up when it first came out, and I never deleted it off my phone, so it just kind of comes with me as I go.

I get it.

Um, I don't think I've ever personally uploaded a TikTok video. I, I don't dance or—

well, they kind of got rid of like the whole, you know, I think like a lot of stuff going on in Europe with the social media lawsuits over there has kind of now spilled into the U.S. Because there's no more dance— there's not, there's not very many dancing videos anymore. They kind of eliminated all that because of the music rights.

Yeah, it's a lot of propaganda on TikTok in America. It's all opinionated and very right-wingy, and I don't know, it's— I don't know about that.

I think it's all over the place with a lot of, a lot of people expressing their opinion about different things and people and whatever. So, but they did away with like all the music.

Yeah, I, I, so, well, that's not the because of the EU thing, that's, that's because of the record labels. The record labels, Universal Music Group specifically, there was a huge lawsuit because there's, you know, people are these social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, etc. You were able to upload music to your posts.

Right.

And the artists were complaining because that's not counted towards their sound scans. Right. So they're not getting paid for the use of their music, which I agree that they should be getting paid.

Right.

So, I mean, I understand why. I think it's cool. I think it makes people be more creative. I think that, you You know, if you need music for your background, you know, pay for that shit. You know what I mean? Everyone's gotta, the artists literally, I mean, even the big artists, you know, their budget is allocated. They gotta pay the producer, they gotta pay the recording studio, they gotta pay the engineer to mix and master the music. You know, it all costs money, so, Pay the artists, dude. Like, pay for what you're, you know, people in America, man, want everything for the cheap, the low, a deal. You know what I'm saying? Free. So it's like, at the end of the day, I agree, you know, like—

It took a big hit for the, you know, I was reading an article and it was all about like influencer income. So a lot of the people—

Where, where, where?

A lot of them who were dancing, Right? And with music, they're not making money anymore. So their money went, dried up.

Oh well.

No, listen, it is what it is.

Go dance for a, go to Broadway, bro. Like there's a, if you're good at dancing, go be a backup dancer for one of the artists of the music that you've been pirating for the past 10 months.

Well, I think the social media companies allowed it, so. Because you would go on there, put a video and say, oh, what's on the media?

A lot. I don't think so. I bet you they had to— they had to contact these record labels to get the, the music from somewhere.

Well, I don't know, like I would make a video because like I would put Rocky in a video, then I would just— it would say, oh, you want to put a song on it? You hit a button and put a song. That's how easy it was, right?

But I'm talking about for the, the actual, you know, like the catalog or whatever.

Well, they were just using it, so—

but where would they get that from?

I don't know. I don't know how they got it. They just had it available on their platform. Yeah. So, so they were part of the, you know, they created the problem, you know what I'm saying? I don't, I don't know if they had a deal.

I think the record labels created the problem. They probably got paid from the social media networks.

Right.

And their idea was that this was publicity for their artists. Right. So then blah, blah, blah, the artists won't ever care. But then the artists started realizing Well, hey, this, this song has gotten 15 million views, right? It's, you know, where's my residual money at?

Remember you showed me a video of some guy riding a skateboard and there was like a famous song?

Yeah, yeah, Dogface, shout out to you, bro.

Yeah, and it got like millions and millions of views. Yeah, and then the artist's not getting any money from that.

No, that guy, them artists, that The band, I can't remember the band. That's your era. You should know this.

Was that Fleetwood Mac, I think?

Yes.

Yes. Was it Fleetwood Mac?

So Fleetwood Mac reached out to him thanking him because their streams went up like 3 million percent. No one in the— bro, no one's listening to Fleetwood Mac anymore. You know what I'm saying?

I like Fleetwood Mac.

Yeah, sure. I bet you do. Myself, I've never downloaded an album or listened to a Fleetwood Mac album. Sir, on purpose, unless I'm in the car with my uncle driving somewhere.

So yeah, he's got the classic rock station.

Absolutely. My dad is dialed into this XM Radio classic rock for sure. Me and your dad, he does like Fleetwood Mac for sure. Uh, well, I digress. I'm not sure if he does like Fleetwood Mac. My dad is very particular when it comes to music, so I'm not just gonna say that.

Okay, we'll have to ask him.

I will have to ask Pops if he likes Fleetwood Mac, he does not listen to the podcast. He gives two shits about this shit at all.

It's okay.

Yeah, man. So yeah, that guy, he actually, you know, he ended up doing all kinds— that's an instance of where the music didn't make the video. The video, the music was just like the cherry on top for him. Because he was literally like on a longboard sipping his cranberry juice. There was a lot of shit going on in that video.

Right.

And the music was just like an extra, you know, to it. Made it look cooler.

Right.

But he got sponsorships from Ocean Spray, the cranberry juice. He got a Toyota. He got all kinds of stuff from that video. You know what I mean? And, you know, that was cool, but we're way off the subject. So, so platforms for businesses, man. What platform do you think Nationwide Payment Systems should be posting on regularly?

Definitely LinkedIn.

Correct.

I think that there is some business to be done on Facebook, but LinkedIn is probably a lot— has a lot more businesses on it. I just don't think that today Like we did it, we talked on the podcast about our trade show is kind of over. And I think that when you think about businesses and people being shorthanded and not enough employees and things like that, I don't think people are spending the same amount of time that they were maybe 2 or 3 years ago on these, like business owners on these platforms. I think that time has been reduced because they might be shorthanded in their business. They're not really on the platforms anymore.

I don't agree with that. Okay.

I mean, it could be. I don't know. I mean, I think more and more people are joining LinkedIn, and that's for sure. I think they surpass like some billion, billions of people.

I think LinkedIn has its place for You know, but yeah, I mean, I agree that for, for specifically for Nationwide Payment Systems, because it's a B2B business model, right? Um, you— we don't try to reach consumers, right?

We're not reaching consumers.

We were trying to reach business owners. So, you know, if you're in the business of where you sell to businesses, LinkedIn is a no-brainer. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, you need to be active and, and trying to to expand your reach as much as possible.

I think when you, you know, when you do reach out to a business or some business is looking at, looking at your, looking for you, they will look at LinkedIn, they'll look at BBB, they'll look at your website. I think that people do their homework when they're spending a bunch of money.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, they better be, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's one of those things. But, you know, in my opinion, you know, we have to be active on all.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, Facebook is like— I feel like it's kicking a dead horse. But unfortunately, there is a large group of people— not unfortunately, I mean, there is still a large group of people that are extremely active on Facebook and they only use Facebook, right? And your age group is in that—

in— yeah, my age group I think uses Facebook a lot to post pictures, to tell people what they're doing and stuff like that. I think it's pretty active. I think, I think not enough business owners, especially like B to be people who are businesses like plumbers and electricians and stuff like that.

Well, they need to connect to people because they're trying to, right?

But I don't see enough of them like actively posting on there because all the time, like I have groups like near my house, Margate, right? And you go in the Margate group and people will be posting, hey, anybody know a plumber? Anybody know an AC guy, a lawn guy? It's like there's not enough of those. I was watching a video today and it was interesting and it was like When we— it was going back to like people in my age group to what the, what the toys were that everybody was given and what the TV shows were about. Like Tonka, like was very popular to have a Tonka truck and to watch like Bob the Builder on TV and things like that. And that, that influenced what kind of jobs people went into. Possibly. They called it some effect. And then now you don't have— now most of the TV shows kids are watching, they're not watching TV shows that have those type of blue-collar jobs. We actually have a big shortage of blue-collar workers and companies. Not enough people doing plumbing, electrical work, handyman, construction-type jobs. I mean, everybody I know— like, we just had a guy here to come fix some ATM machines. There's like no— there's like, yeah, they're, you know, nobody really does, you know, wants to be in those type of jobs anymore. Everybody wants to sit behind a keyboard.

But, you know, I have no idea.

Yeah, but you make websites, so it's a whole different thing. But I'm just saying, it's a, I'm just saying it's a, you know, any kind of business you have, you gotta have a social media presence. You know, you need a website, you need to have your Google My Business page, you need to have Facebook, the Gram. I don't know, everybody now, the Instagram, they call it the Gram. I'm on the Gram.

You late, that's old. Okay, well, it's always been called the Gram.

The Gram, you know, TikTok, Threads. I don't know what's going on with Threads. Doesn't—

I like Threads. I mean, I don't—

you think it's super popular?

I mean, everybody that I follow on Instagram— well, I mean, it's just pretty much piggybacking off what you post on Instagram, so But no, I think Threads has a place. It's competition to X is what it is. So this guy's yawning in the studio again, everybody. Yeah, man. So like, I mean, so I was looking at, I was talking to Sean, the videographer of B2B Vault and We were trying to, you know, we were going over what types of businesses or what, you know, who should use what, right?

Yeah.

You know, Instagram, if you're selling a product, you need to be on Instagram, right? Like, because people want to see what it is in action. If it's a shirt, they want to see what it looks like on people, you know what I mean? You know, if it's a new, uh, microphone or something, you know, people want to see it. You know what I mean? They want to see it in use. Facebook, like you brought it up, service industries. I really think that that's, you know, when I was, uh, when, when I'm doing work for outside companies, um, specifically service industries, people are always, like you said, looking to connect to plumbers, uh, electrician, um, roofers, that type of stuff.

Yeah, there's usually like neighborhood groups, and that's like the great place for it to be posted.

Next Store is a good one for another one for service industries.

What do you think about Pinterest?

Uh, Pinterest is for recipes.

Okay, so if you're selling cookware, right?

I mean, so it's interesting, right? Because when I, I, uh, I had a little— I was like really ahead of the curve along— I don't know how long ago when Pinterest came out. What was that, like 10 years ago? Something like that.

Yeah, maybe a little longer.

So I was posting pictures of my SEO service on Pinterest, and believe it or not, I got a bunch of clients.

Okay, cool.

Because the way Google indexes these social media networks, platforms, um, it indexes those way faster than your website. So If you want to like, you know, get into search, the SERPs quickly, you, you know, 9 times out of 10 your business will be— if someone Googles, you know, whatever, their SEO near me or SEO services in Milwaukee or whatever, um, that will pop up, right? Because how many times a day Google indexes the content on these social media platforms? Which is a billion or whatever, you know, it's a large, very large number. Google's not indexing your website like that.

Exactly.

So that, you know, Pinterest, I mean, if you're a visual artist or, you know, you're a cook or, you know, you're into health and wellness, interior design, I think, right?

What do you think about for restaurants? Where should restaurants be?

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. I mean, restaurants is— you got to be everywhere. Yeah, because you're not just— there's not just a single demographic that you're looking to hit. You're looking to hit everyone, right? Yeah, you know, you— food is food. You want— everyone's got to eat. Well, not everyone, but most people want to go eat food. Restaurants are tough. I mean, I typically don't like working with restaurants. Yeah, I just stay away from that. I don't, you know, there's nothing because, yeah, you know, what if they, you know, if the food is shitty or the customer service, you know, people relate you to that.

You know, I think one thing, like, you know, when it comes to reviews, I think restaurants are probably— restaurants and service businesses are probably two of the most reviewed type of businesses online. Absolutely. So you're going to get the most reviews, and, and you really need to make sure you're certain. You know, I was in the restaurant business for 20, 20 years, so, you know, Making sure you're giving good food, good service is very important because there's so many places people can review your restaurant. Google, Yelp, Nextdoor, Facebook. They can leave comments when you make a social media post. So you really need to—

Yeah, restaurants need to be— I mean, again, it's important to be all everywhere, you know, so you're, you're found. But like, if you're good at making videos of your food, then I would say stick to Instagram and TikTok, you know what I mean? And then connect your Facebook account to Instagram so that your Instagram posts go automatically to Facebook and you don't ever really have to log into Facebook and deal with it, right? Um, I think that's a great idea for, you know, platform for those types of businesses. But, you know, what about X or formerly known Twitter, formerly known as Twitter, the social platform formerly known as Twitter. I like that.

That's pretty cool.

Me and Sean were saying it was like, like a news network. I feel like artists who are like recording artists or, you know, record labels. Because you could connect to the fans immediately on Twitter or sorry, X.

It's like hard to think about it like that. It was Twitter, now it's X. And when they send out like the email updates, when they send out—

It's still called tweets.

Yeah. They send out the thing and it says X, formerly Twitter.

Yeah.

On the emails.

Yeah. So I think I think that there's a good— businesses can connect with people on, you know, B2B businesses, you know, like Nationwide Payment Systems. I think that there's, there's always an avenue, like a lane for you, right? Like you can always, you know, find that wave to ride to, to, to get your traction for your business. But it takes persistency and you have to be active where you're in the conversations and you're, you know, liking tweets or, you know, commenting on other tweets so that people recognize you as a brand, right?

And they kind of took away that one thing. What was it called? TweetDeck? Yeah, yeah, they kind of took that.

It's built into Twitter.

Yeah, but they took it away now. I don't think it's available.

No, TweetDeck was something totally separate, right?

That was a platform that you would Right, you would have on the side because I knew like friends of mine that would use that because you could look up like different—

monitor hashtags and you can see what's, what's trending. But that's all still built into X, right? You just gotta know how to use X. Yeah, I mean, I, I personally love, love it. Uh, it's one of my favorite social media platforms. I'm not active on there as I should be. I'm not active on any social media platform, honestly. Which, that should change. Like, get active.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it's like I talk to sales reps all the time that work for us or in the same business as me. And they're like, I'm like, you got to take at least 30 minutes to an hour every day. You don't need to post on Facebook 10 times a day, but you need to post a couple of times a week, your business. And, you know, the same thing on LinkedIn. You need to be putting out content. If you're putting a blog on your website, you're adding a new product, you got to get that information out there because, like Justin said, that's being indexed and then, you know, backlinked back to your website. That's going to get you some traffic.

Absolutely.

So, you know, it's important to, you know, let— you know, to, to be active where you need to be active. You know, like Like I said, you know, I'll have somebody call me on the phone and, oh, I never heard of you. You know, maybe they never heard of my company specifically. They got a referral and then, you know, and then they're, you know, then they're going out looking up information and they can see, you know, what you're kind of like if you're an authority in your business. For sure. You know, so if they see like, oh, there's— you have blogs, and you have video and you have information, then, you know, they maybe they get a warm fuzzy feeling about your company.

Well, that's the goal, right?

Or they think, hey, you got a neon sign, that's a cool business.

Very true. So yeah, man, that's the pod. The best social media platform is the one that you're good at using. I would say, I would say I would agree with that. Stick, stick to what you know. You know what I mean?. But also, like, you know, we went over to different types of industries. If, if it's something that people want to see visually, then you're going to have to— obviously that's Instagram or TikTok. Uh, Facebook is, you know, it's Facebook. You got— everyone is on Facebook.

Um, yeah, don't be afraid to go in Facebook. If you got a service and you're trying to get people in a specific area, get into the groups. They don't let you just spam the groups, but you know, you have to share your content to those groups.

I can't stand groups on Facebook, but that's me. Um, so yeah, man, I think there's a, you know, there's obviously a, there's a place and time for everything.

Exactly.

So pick it wisely, but don't be afraid to try something new. You never know what will happen for you or your business. Um, let us know what you guys think about, you know, social media platforms, where is it going, where, what platforms do you use for your business. We're looking for guests as well. So if you want to be on the podcast, hit me up @JustinOwings on X, @JustinOwings on Facebook, Justin Owens on LinkedIn. And that's about it. Other everything else is for myself to kick rocks. But yeah, man, B2B Vault. Subscribe to the channel, like the video, share to your peoples, leave some comments. Peace.

Peace out. Carpe diem.

So Mario