By now, most businesses realize the importance of social media marketing. But a challenge for your business may be deciding which platforms you should be using. There are three main questions to ponder when deciding which platforms to use:
- Who is your audience?
Think about who your business’s typical customers are. Important factors in determining your audience include their age, gender, interests, and more.
- What are your goals?
Besides gaining sales, there are other goals for social media that you may want to utilize. Goals may include building customer relationships and driving brand recognition.
3. How can you reach them?
You can determine which platforms your audience uses by looking at the demographics and uses of each platform. The information below gives you insight into four big social media platforms:
- Facebook:
Facebook has the largest amount of users than any other platform with 1.3+ billion users. Facebook’s demographics include people ages 25-54 with 60% of users being female. It is a good platform for building relationships and increasing customer loyalty. A downside to Facebook is that it may be hard to reach a new audience.
Twitter has 600 million users with the majority of users being ages 18-29. 66% of users are male. Twitter is a good way not only to connect to current customers but build awareness and reach new customers because of Twitter’s popular hashtag use. A downside is being restricted by Twitter’s 280 character limit. It is also time-sensitive, so tweets may be easily missed if you don’t tweet at the right time.
Instagram has 200 million users with the majority of users being ages 30-49. There is about a 50/50 split between male and female users. Instagram is one of the fastest-growing platforms, especially among a young audience. Instagram is an image-focused platform so it gives customers a visual reference for your products and services. However, Instagram’s algorithm does not favor business posts, so your posts may not be seen by everyone.
LinkedIn has 600 million users with the majority of users being ages 30-49. 57% of users are male. It is the most utilized platform for older audiences. LinkedIn is a great way to recruit employees and network with other businesses. LinkedIn is also a good way to show up in search engine results. However, because it is specialized for Business to Business connections, it is somewhat limited in its customer connections.
As you can see, different platforms have advantages and disadvantages that businesses should consider when deciding which platforms to use. It is not typically a good practice for businesses to try to be active on all existent platforms. Not only is doing so most likely beyond reachable efforts, but you are more likely to reach your audience if you choose the platform they are most active on. If you would like a marketing agency to assist your social media marketing efforts, Thrive Marketing would love to help. We can create and schedule posts on your preferred platforms for your convenience.
