Important Differences to Consider For Your Social Media Marketing Efforts, For Dummies

(This blog post was written with help from Semrush, Sprout Social, and HubSpot. All other sources will be listed in the "Resources" section.)

Knowing the differences between marketing on different social media platforms is incredibly important (Image Courtesy of Wix)

Digital marketing is an exercise in finding out what content works for what people so that you can turn them into customers. With the increasing scope of the digital world, so too has digital marketing expanded, with social media becoming the main focus of those digital marketers. While most people don't go beyond the 5 to 7 main social media platforms, there are well over 30 platforms that a social media marketer can take advantage of that have their own niche, advantages, and disadvantages. Each of those platforms can be taken advantage of in a way that the others might not be able to replicate.

With the emergence of newer social media platforms over the last 10 years, most notably Snapchat and TikTok, marketers wasted no time building their strategy to turn those apps into vehicles through which they could create customers. On Snapchat specifically, with the recent introduction of stories from various companies including ESPN, the NBA, and other massive brands are sat alongside "sponsored" stories from companies attempting to advertise like Chick-Fil-A, BetMGM, and even the Marines. In my own personal research for this post, typically 1 out of every 5 to 8 stories are "sponsored", showing that companies are taking advantage of any advertising space they can in the digital medium, assuming it fits their marketing strategy.

Regardless, each social media platform has its own quirks and differences from the others in terms of how to effectively market and the format in which you can market. We will go over some of the main differences between marketing on the most popular social media at the moment TikTok, and various other platforms including Snapchat and Instagram Reels, with a general analysis of short vs long-form content for content marketing purposes.

An Overview of Social Media Apps, What They Offer to a Marketer, and Their Pros and Cons

As most know each social media platform offers its own unique experience for both the user and the advertiser. Some platforms play more into one form of content than the other. For example, LinkedIn is more suited to professional news and discussion relating to the goings on of any particular industry and will feature more blog posts, whitepapers, and e-books than any other social media platform. Instagram and TikTok however focus much more on the visual aspect, especially short-form videos as of late. Deciding on which of these platforms to use will depend very heavily on your marketing strategy, your market, and your online audience.

Some social media platforms have much more versatility. More specifically, Facebook and Twitter are much more versatile in the type of content you can post, whether it be text-based or video-based, and therefore are some of the more used platforms for social media marketing. YouTube has long been in its own area, being a video hosting website, but has since added things like "Community" tab, short-form vertical videos they refer to as "Shorts", and have overall turned the platform, both visually and structurally, into what most would consider falling into a social media platform.

Other platforms that are less popular including Pinterest, Letterboxd, and Quora each have their own advantages and disadvantages due to the more niche, sometimes less-accessible nature of the apps.

This is not to say that all of those apps have no disadvantages, quite the opposite in fact. Facebook and Twitter especially suffer from public criticism relating to a number of issues including confusing guidelines, unexplained bans for many, and the general talking point of data privacy. TikTok has recently fallen into this camp as well with the recent Congressional hearing related to TikTok and its parent company. Any social media platform could be subject to these disadvantages, but it tends to be most prevalent with Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.

Many people aren't falling over themselves to advertise on LinkedIn either due to the more secluded, more professional nature of the platform that would require a product or service that fits the needs of those people. YouTube also has its disadvantages due to being a video platform that may or may not fit the needs or specifications of a certain marketing strategy. The other platforms listed before, most specifically Letterboxd pertain mostly to film reviews and advertising on the app is sparse at this exact point in time. Quora suffers from the disadvantage of just not having a very expansive user base and Pinterest is subject to most of the same restrictions that Instagram is, being a mostly visual platform.

The point of this section is, the social media app that one uses should fit the digital marketing strategy of the company. Advertising on Letterboxd while attempting to sell a lawnmower might not be the soundest use of funds. Make sure that what the platform offers fits what you need and fits your market and audience.

Assuming that the platform you chose fits what it needs to fit, most of these platforms turn out to be good investments, with all of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok providing a return on investment (ROI) north of 10% according to HubSpot, with Facebook providing an ROI north of 20%. Snapchat, despite growing daily active user numbers, and revenue steadily increasing since the beginning of 2022 (BusinessOfApps), the platform has not been proven to be incredibly beneficial for brands, instead being seen as more useful for getting in front of eyes rather than selling products.

Short-Form vs. Long-Form Video

The length and content of your video can impact where you should post and how you should promote said video. (Image Courtesy of Wix)

Another that some marketers can struggle to answer is what form of content to use that will have the greatest effect on moving prospects through the AIDA funnel. Throughout the evolution of social media becoming an advertising tool, it has long been a question as to what type of content is most effective. While every person will have their own preferences as to the type of content they prefer, the prevailing opinion seems to be that most people prefer video. Oberlo compiled a number of statistics related to video marketing and found that 91% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands. This goes hand in hand with one of the other statistics they included in which 86% of marketing professionals use video as a marketing tool. So if the sentiment seems to be that people like video, want to see more video, and marketing professionals already are using video, the question becomes "What type of video should one use?"

First, it is important to establish the definitions for short-form and long-form video. Most sources, including WebFX, define short-form video as video under 10 minutes long and long-form video as video over 10 minutes long. Social media platforms, by design, almost exclusively only allow short-form video by this definition, with the only exception being YouTube, although TikTok has increased their max video length to the threshold of 10 minutes. Even being the exception, YouTube has also dipped into the short-form video industry with the emergence of Instagram Reels and TikTok, with their own 10 to 60-second video feature referred to as "Shorts".

So considering that you will have a plethora of options for whatever length of video content you want to make, there are a few things you to consider when it comes to whether your video content should be short-form or long-form, with help from WebFX.

1) Your Audience

The audience to which you are trying to create this video content can alter the length of the video significantly, and subsequently, where you may post said video. For example, if you are a car part company that wants to begin posting DIY help videos, it is unlikely that your audience will want to watch a 15-minute video detailing the engineering behind what car part they are fixing. Instead, it is more likely that they will want a shorter video that is more to the point of what they want to fix.

2) Video Purpose

What you are designing your video to do or communicate can also effect the length of the video. It is always important to make sure your video has a clear purpose above all else.

3) Video type

The type of video you are attempting to make is probably the biggest indicator of how long your video is going to be. Tutorial videos for big projects will more than likely end up as long-form video while product videos and reviews will more than likely end up in the camp of a short-form video.

4) Budget and Channels

Another large dictator of whether your video will end up as a short-form or long-form video is your content marketing budget and the channels through which you have to disperse said content. If you have a low budget, making short-form videos in-house like TikToks or Reels might be your only option depending on your overall content schedule. Posting short-form videos on YouTube as a regular video instead of a "Short" may end up in fewer people seeing said video and negate marketing efforts.

Overall, the decision between short and long-form video will come down to factors unique to each organization and its factors. All of the factors listed above will have to be considered to determine what form of video will be made and where that video will be posted.

Conclusion

Different social media platforms will influence the type of content that marketers use to promote their products or services. A sound understanding of the differences in the marketing capabilities that different social media platforms have, in conjunction with a sound understanding of short and long-form videos, will provide you with the tools you need to impact your social media marketing efforts in a positive way.

To learn more about content creation and more, read this article from David, one of our contributors.

Resources

Barnhart, B. (2022, March 31). Instagram reels vs. TikTok: Which is the best short-form video platform? Sprout Social. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-reels-vs-tiktok/

Bonacci, J. (2022, February 22). Short-Form vs. Long-Form Video Content: Which Is Better for You? WebFX. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://www.webfx.com/blog/content-marketing/short-form-vs-long-form-video-content/#

Bump, P. (2022, March 29). Instagram Reels vs. TikTok vs. Snapchat: Which Should Businesses use? HubSpot Blog. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/snapchat-vs.-tiktok

Iqbal, M. (2023, February 3). Snapchat Revenue and Usage Statistics (2023). Business of Apps. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://www.businessofapps.com/data/snapchat-statistics/

Mohsin, M. (2023, January 13). 10 video marketing statistics you should know in 2023 [infographic]. Oberlo. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://www.oberlo.com/blog/video-marketing-statistics

Varagouli, E. (2021, June 30). Short-Form vs. Long-Form Content. Semrush Blog. Retrieved April 19, 2023, from https://www.semrush.com/blog/short-formvs-long-form/