Information for this article was obtained from Hootsuite.com, Hubspot.com, and SocialMediaShepard.com.
In marketing, we call them "personas." To everyone else, they are more commonly referred to as "demographics." Personas or demographic profiles are integral to understanding and optimizing your marketing budget. This blog will cover a broad overview of demographics on the most popular social media platforms that you or your business may market on. Utilizing the appropriate social media platform for your business and targeted personas is integral to how you and your company are recognized in the online world.
Facebook is probably the most well-known social media platform that has seen rapid change since its inception almost 20 years ago. Facebook has become a platform for not only connecting individuals but also a marketplace for private sellers. Small businesses tend to create Facebook pages alongside major companies to act as main websites for their business operations while perhaps opting out of traditional websites to drive business.
SocialMediaShepard.com reports that Facebook has the largest growing users at the ages of 65 and older. So, if your business wants to reach older consumers, Facebook would be a primary target for your social media campaigns. Younger demographics are still fairly active on Facebook and the site boasts 2.95 billion active users a month. This has made Facebook ads very popular for social media campaigns.
Facebook social media postings are the most varied of all platforms we will discuss today. Marketers can choose to either promote ads through Facebook ad displays, post and reply to consumers directly, or participate in Facebook's new Reels, a take on Snapchat stories. Facebook is well suited for a broad marketing approach and is a great base for new and upcoming businesses that want to increase visibility. The platform is also widely used outside of the United States.
Instagram which is also owned by Facebook, is primarily used by females under the age of 35. There is still a significant male demographic however that utilizes Instagram.
Instagram's approach to marketing is rather interesting. Essentially marketers have two major options when marketing on Instagram. The first is organic picture posting that incorporates your brand and links relevant information back to your profile.
Instagram does not have an organic way to link content such as blogs or direct users to websites through a post. Most posts will refer the user to check the poster's profile and find links there that will send them to their desired site.
Utilizing influencers is the second method for Instagram posting and a rapidly growing part of a social media campaign. By paying already prominent Instagram influencers to post with or talk about your product in their pictures is a great way to create a pairing with your product. However, hiring influencers always comes with a risk. Influencers also post organic content of their own that is not sponsored and may create a negative image of your brand if they are not vetted first.
Overall, Instagram is an excellent way to get your product an image within the social media world and create awareness through already-established influencers. It is a surprisingly good choice for startups to get immediate brand recognition by using consumers and influencers. Several major companies do not post on Instagram and utilize influencers instead.
Twitter is synonymous with #hashtags. While Twitter enforces short text posting, hashtags have been a great tool in creating posts and linking posts together. Several marketers use trending hashtags to find what is trending and follow suit with their marketing campaigns. Hootsuite.com outlines several ways that marketers can benefit from using Twitter as a platform for their marketing campaigns. They discuss that Twitter has created identities for businesses and acts as the "face" of the business. As an example, Wendy's has been notorious on Twitter as a bold company ready to attack its competitors and sometimes its own customers which has garnered them a rather large following.
Twitter's demographics are primarily younger and more tech-savvy individuals in the age range of 25-49 and have a slightly higher male than female user base. Similar to Instagram, marketers have the ability to promote or partner with influencers to promote hashtags and polls for garnering interest in products. Twitter is, however, going through a reforming phase with a new CEO and many of its verification processes are going through massive changes. I would suggest caution with going all in until we see where Twitter goes in the next year.
LinkedIn is the Facebook of the business world. Owned by Microsoft and hosts over 740 million members from around the world. LinkedIn is an excellent networking tool for recruiting talent and B2B marketing.
Demographics for LinkedIn are geared toward business and college-level users. LinkedIn has evolved into a Facebook for business recruitment and sales. It hosts several blogs and boasts business successes and campaigns to other professionals as opposed to marketing to consumers unless those consumers are other businesses.
LinkedIn is an excellent site to accompany your social media portfolio if your business is looking to recruit talent, post blogs on business topics, or sell to other companies. LinkedIn is not targeted towards regular consumer campaigns which are best suited for Facebook or one of our other recommended social media platforms. The larger your company grows the more important a LinkedIn business profile will become.
Wrap Up
Readers may be wondering, "What about TikTok, Pinterest, or Snapchat?" While these are very prominent social media platforms, the four we selected would be the more prominent to a new social media campaign. TikTok, while increasingly popular, doesn't cater to long-term social media campaigns and would not help to establish a company's social media presence initially as something like Facebook or Twitter would do alone. This is not to say marketers should not promote these social media but that they would be great to focus on after utilizing the more established and researched social media platforms mentioned above.
Resources
30 Essential Facebook Statistics You Need To Know In 2023. (n.d.). [web log]. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/facebook-statistics#:~:text=The%20largest%20Facebook%20audience%20in,35%20are%20responsible%20for%2013%25.
7 Brands With Brilliant Facebook Marketing Strategies, and Why They Work. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-marketing-examples.
The Complete Guide to Twitter Marketing in 2023. (n.d.). [web log]. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-marketing/#:~:text=Advertising%20on%20Twitter%20can%20help,boost%20engagement%20and%20campaign%20visibility.
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