The information in this blog post was obtained from Hootsuite Blog, Social Media Today, and Sprout Social.
Trying to choose a few social media platforms to use for your business can seem tricky. However, I am here to help give you some tips and tricks to finding what platforms will work best for you and your business. To know what will work best for you we must know a few details about social media platforms, but we must also know about our business and to who you wish to market your product. One of the biggest things to remember is not to assume where your audience will be. You must also remember that a social media marketing strategy is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Knowing Social Media Platforms
One of the most important things when it comes to social media marketing is knowing the social media platforms you want to use. I am not talking about how to use them but who uses them. In this blog post from Social Media Today, we are offered a great infographic to answer the question of who uses social media platforms. You will find in this infographic that 60% of social media users are on Facebook. This is a large percentage and you should probably put Facebook on your list of platforms to use! In regards to other platforms, you may have some predetermined assumptions about who uses them. However, while you may be quick to assume you will find younger generations on platforms such as Twitter you will find in the infographic that 63% of users are between the ages of 35 and 65! We also find that 14% of U.S adults have never even heard of Instagram. Upon further exploration of this infographic, we find that 70% of Pinterest users are female. This would be great to know if you have a product that is mainly geared toward the female population. All the statistics provided will help give you a starting point in choosing your social media platforms. Here are a few of the main statistics to remember:
Average of 10 minutes spent on Facebook App per day
62% of Instagram users log in at least once a day
1/3 of Pinterest users follow companies
10 times more engagement on tweets with video!
4 billion snaps are created on Snapchat each day
Why You Should be Using a Social Media Platform
Aside from knowing you should be marketing on social media platforms because they work. There are other reasons to be using different platforms to market your product. In this blog post from Sprout Social, you will be able to see a great deal of information from statistics to why marketers like yourself should and do use these different social media platforms. At the start of the blog, we read this quote “Rather than employ the spray and pray method, identifying which social media platforms a brand’s customers use is a more effective way to connect with one’s target audience.” This tells you that you should not just put your business and market on every platform available. Using every social media platform would be time-consuming as you would need to create content for each one.
Instead, choosing a few that best fit your business needs and target market will ensure you are using social media to your advantage! Information such as “60% of users want to see brands use more of the platform” in regards to Facebook is something that will be more helpful and productive to you as a marketer than trying to create content for 15 different platforms. In this same blog post, you will also find information such as the largest age group that uses the social media platform. For example, on TikTok, the largest age group is 18-24-year-olds. Therefore, you would have the best luck on this platform if you have a younger target audience. Whereas Pinterest's largest age group is 50-64-year-olds. That is a big difference in age groups and something you should definitely keep in mind when choosing your social media platforms!
Make a Plan
Now that you know how social media platforms are used, who uses them, and why you should be using them. Create a plan to decide what platforms will work best for you. There is no one size fits all explanation for what social media platforms to use for your business. You can look at businesses that are similar to your own and get an idea of what your plan should be. However, also use the information you have learned here to make your own plan of action for entering the world of social media marketing. In this blog from Hootsuite, you will find a great deal of information in regards to social media and how to use it. This is what they have to say about creating a plan “This ensures all your social efforts support specific business goals.” There is also a great section on deciding what platforms are best for you. This section opens by telling you not to make assumptions. By keeping this in mind you may be surprised by who uses different social media platforms. This thought process may help you join a social platform that would not have even crossed your mind at first!
For more information about your target audience check out my colleague's blog post here.
Resources
Kim, Katherine. “15+ Social Media Platforms Your Customers Are Using in 2021-and Why You Should Be Using Them.” Sprout Social, 7 Oct. 2021, https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-platforms/
Newberry, Christina. “How to Use Social Media for Small Business: 12 Simple Tips.” Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard, 4 Dec. 2021, https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-tips-for-small-business-owners/
Walker-Ford, Mark. “The 8 Best Social Media Platforms to Market Your Business in 2021 [Infographic].” Social Media Today, 28 Feb. 2021, https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/the-8-best-social-media-platforms-to-market-your-business-in-2021-infograp/595834/
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