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10 Ways To Market Without Facebook or Instagram

Looking for more unconventional ways to market your brand and product? In this video, we introduce to you ten digital marketing platforms that aren't Instagram and Facebook so you can get creative with marketing and diversify your channels. Remember, just because you're not on a particular platform doesn't mean your audience isn't. 

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Magda: In today's video, we're gonna be covering Facebook ads and Instagram influencers

Jessica: Not again, I feel like all we're doing is talking about Facebook ads and Instagram influencers in every video. 

Magda: Well, Jessica, to be honest, those are the two most popular marketing channels for ecommerce entrepreneurs.

Jessica: Yeah, but just because they're the most popular doesn't mean that they're the best. And I feel like the creative entrepreneurs who choose new marketing channels are usually the ones that break apart from the rest, both in terms of their marketing channels and their success.

Magda: Okay, I'm an entrepreneur, I have an entrepreneurial mindset, I can think a little bit out of the box for this video, but I don't have all day. 

Jessica: Okay, well then let's make things snappy. Let's go over ten non-Facebook, non-Instagram marketing channels in ten minutes. 

Magda: That's fast, but I think we can do it. 

Jessica: Okay, ready? Go.

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1. Quora

Magda: Alright, the first marketing channel that is not Facebook or Instagram is Quora. You know Quora?

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Jessica: I've heard of it, but how is it a marketing channel? 

Magda: Quora is a Q&A forum where you can go and ask questions, people respond with answers, and it's kind of this huge, huge, huge community that talks about every niche. 

Now, Quora actually has paid ads where you can set daily budgets and use ad bidding like Facebook. 

You can do paid ads or what you can also do is you can respond to questions and link a product or link anything that is a solution to someone else's problems. Now, these questions and answers sometimes get hundreds of thousands of views because they're emailed out to Quora’s database. So this is an amazing underrated marketing platform.

2. byte

Jessica: I see your Quora, and I'll raise you byte. Remember when everyone else was talking about TikTok getting banned? Oh wait, they still are. Listen, we don't know what's gonna happen with TikTok, but byte is the remake of Vine, which was the darling of 2018, 2019... 2017, 2018?

Who cares, we only have ten minutes. The point is that right now, there are only about a million people on byte, not as many as TikTok, which means, yeah, smaller audiences, but no competition. 

Check it out, be a first mover there, and you can be there first when TikTok gets shut down. It's not gonna get shut down. We don't know. 

Magda: You're gonna make a lot of people cry. 

Jessica: Including our TikTok manager. 

3. TikTok

Magda: That's a good one. Sorry, Neil. The rumors are not true, or not yet anyways, and until they are, people still need to be using TikTok. That's why TikTok is the third underrated marketing channel on our list today. Yes, you know what TikTok is. But a lot of people still don’t. And most people don't realize what an amazing powerhouse it is for ecommerce and business. 

Everybody of every demographic and niche is on TikTok. 

It's one of the best marketing platforms. Now, here's a quick hack. If you want to sell your product or sell something on TikTok, make your own videos and then send them to influencers. That way, you don't have to get them to make their own videos, and you can mass distribute your advertisement. 

4. Bing

Jessica: Hey Magda, Bing is the next underrated marketing channel that is not Instagram and it is not Facebook. In fact, it's, on average, 20 percent cheaper than Facebook ads if you're looking at average Cost-Per-Click.

Bing is a search engine that's owned by Microsoft. And just like Google’s search engine, you can buy little ads that appear when people search. The cool thing about Bing? 

Tons of people are using it and the demographic is split between men and women. 

So if you wanna go after a broad audience, varied in terms of its gender demographic, and get in front of search traffic for a fraction of the cost of Google, check out Bing.

5. Tumblr

Magda: Bing is a little bit obscure. But to be honest, obscure marketing platforms are actually how some of the best ecommerce entrepreneurs make their millions because there's little competition. 

Now, speaking of little competition, the next marketing platform is Tumblr. I know, you're thinking, “Tumblr? I haven't really used it since middle school.” Well, guess what? There are still millions of people using Tumblr every single month. 

And on Tumblr, you can make posts, add tags, and also use SEO to help your content and your products be found. 

So do not underestimate Tumblr. It is an amazing platform that most dropshippers and ecommerce entrepreneurs would never even think about. So you've got no competition. Tumblr is one of the most underrated marking platforms that you need to check out. 

6. Reddit

Jessica: Maybe you haven't heard about Tumblr since 2012. But you have for sure heard about Reddit. Reddit describes itself as “the front page of the Internet,” and it's just plain where a ton of people hang out. 

They hang out, in particular, in a variety of subreddits, and the subreddits are organized by topics. Now, you can pay for ads to get in front of this massive Reddit audience. But you can also find sneaky, and you do have to be subtle about this, sneaky ways to post your product on Reddit. I've actually done this by viewing my own product, so that’s one way you can get in. 

You can also create a listicle Reddit posts and include your products in there. You've got to be creative. But if you are creative, you're getting in front of hundreds of thousands if not, millions of eyeballs for free. 

7. Snapchat

Magda: The next underrated marketing platform is Snapchat. Do you use Snapchat, Jessica? 

Jessica: Not anymore. 

Magda: Me neither. I used to use Snapchat all the time. I thought it was totally gone and it had been overtaken by Instagram. But as it turns out, the majority of teenagers between 14 and 17 are actually using Snapchat more than other platforms. 

So, just because you don't use a particular platform doesn't mean your audience doesn’t. 

Now, Audrey and Sarah are two dropshippers who were featured on the Oberlo French blog. They've been over $4 million since February of this year using Snapchat ads. Yes, Snapchat is not super popular with ecommerce entrepreneurs. 

So guess what? There's barely any competition, the ads are a lot cheaper, and you don't have a lot of competitors who are showing and advertising the same product as you. So if your product caters to a younger audience, Snapchat is absolutely the way to go.

8. Pinterest

Jessica: One of the things that I'm taking away from this list is that a lot of us only think about marketing on channels that we use, and it's really unusual for any one person to use every social media channel available. And the channel I'm gonna recommend next follows that pattern. 

I know we have a lot of people in our audience who are young, a lot of people who are guys, and both of those factors are not the average for Pinterest. And yet, Pinterest attracts a massive audience of people who are looking for pictures to put together their mood boards, to plan their interior decorating projects, and so much more. 

In fact, Pinterest overtook Snapchat in 2020 to become the third biggest marketing platform. Pinterest is great because you can get started on Pinterest for free, and Pinterest is a place you wanna go if you want to reach international audiences as over half of them are outside of the US, or older, female audience. Two-thirds of Pinterest’s user base are women and moms. 

So when you're tired of being on Instagram and Facebook with those wheels spinning, start pinning. 

Okay, Magda, we are racing against the clock. What is the second-to-last marketing channel that isn’t Instagram or Facebook? 

9. Twitter

Magda: This marketing channel is probably gonna be a surprise to you. It's one that you know, but it's not one that you typically would associate with advertising products. And that is Twitter

Jessica: What?

Magda: Yeah, how are you gonna use a text-based platform to advertise your products in your store? Well, let me tell you. A few weeks ago, Kamil, or better known as Ecom King, who's been featured on our channel, used Twitter to advertise products. 

Now, what Kamil did was he actually responded to viral tweets with links to his store and his product. Now, after a while, with enough responses, he started to make lots of sales because if someone saw a viral tweet, they would click the responses, see the product, and then go and check it out. 

So this an ingenious tactic. Now, this isn't the only way that you can use Twitter, but it's a great example to show you how creative you can be with different types of marketing platforms that you wouldn’t typically expect to use when it comes to a product.

Jessica: I love it. Kamil was like, where is the audience? That's where I'll put my product link.

Magda: Absolutely.

10. YouTube

Jessica: Okay, the last channel that not many people are thinking about when it comes to advertising, but you’re on, is YouTube. Now, when you think of Instagram, you might think of influencers. But I want you, creative entrepreneur, to start thinking of YouTube when you think of influencers. 

That's because YouTube influencers, when they post about a product, get more engagement on average than Instagram influencers. 

And engagement is clicks, comments, and hopefully, sales. Plus, on Instagram, influencers just post about your product in an Instagram Story, and then it's gone in 24 hours. Not so on YouTube, where a product can feature in a video that has a long shelf life, and in fact, it keeps getting recommended to other people. 

When working with YouTube influencers, ask them either to review your product or ask if you can sponsor one of their videos. 

Magda: Wow, that was an amazing list.

Jessica: And we made it just in time.

Magda: I hope so. That's a note to the editor.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay, Magda, time’s up. 

Magda: I think we came up with an amazing list of ten underrated marketing platforms that really hold their own compared to Facebook and Instagram. 

Jessica: I agree, and we save you time by keeping it short so you can get started on any of these marketing channels ASAP. 

Magda: Let us know if you're gonna use any of these yourself or if we missed some. We'll always be reading and checking out the comments. And until next time, 

Jessica: Stay in the know, DIY CEOs.

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