Creating a social media strategy for any business comprises various parts, and one of the essential parts is to decide which social media channels to use and how you should use them for your brand. If you want the best possible returns from your posts, content and ads, then you should know the difference between social media channels that way you can adjust your message to your specific target audience.
In this article, we will break down social media channels and help you to find the best social media channels for your business.
Why is Social Media Important for Businesses?
If you are not using social media, then you are missing out on the excellent opportunity to grow your business. There are about 3 billion active social media users worldwide. So social media provides incredible benefits to businesses and helps them to reach customers.
Here is a list of the benefits of using Social Media for your business.
- Brand Awareness: Social media can be a great tool for businesses to increase their brand visibility and put their products/services in front of a large audience. If you have a solid social media strategy, you can build followers that recognize and remember your brand.
- Attract New Customers/Clients: By using social media in the right way, you can engage with your audience/followers and attract new customers/clients to your business.
- Validate Your Business/Brand: Social media makes it easy for customers to find you and connect with you. All these things will help you to improve brand loyalty for your business.
- Trustworthy: A business can use social media to show their expertise and boost customers’ confidence in their brand.
What Social Media Channels Do Most Businesses Use
According to Buffer:
- 94% of businesses use Facebook
- 84% of businesses use Twitter
- 81% of businesses use Instagram
- 70% of businesses use Linkedin
- 62% of businesses use YouTube
- 30% of businesses use Pinterest
- 9% of businesses use Snapchat.
Facebook is still one of the most used social media channels. More than 1.62 billion people use Facebook daily. So by this, you can imagine how much potential Facebook has to grow any business.
About 80 million small and medium businesses have a Facebook page. Moreover, more than 6 million businesses use Facebook advertising services to grow their account as well as their business.
Facebook is the most preferred choice for businesses that want to capture a large amount of audience. Furthermore, all types of content work well on Facebook, including texts, images, videos, and live stories.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Facebook:
- Older generations are the fastest growing group on Facebook. In 2018, 26% of Facebook users were 65+ years old. Today, it is 40%.
- Teenagers active on Facebook have decreased. In 2017, 71% of teens were on Facebook compared to 51% today. This is because teens today prefer YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.
- Facebook has an amazing international presence. In fact, only 10% of users are from Canada and the US. However, don’t think that Facebook is not good for US or Canadian businesses. According to Facebook, US and Canada account for over 48% of Facebook Ad revenue.
- High earners are active on Facebook. That is 74% of users on Facebook earn $75,000 or more.
- 68% of U.S. adults use Facebook
When it comes to marketing, Twitter has the most active engagement since it has become a news and current events platform. With that said, Twitter is the easiest social media platform to start a trend and can make anything viral within a day. That is why 22% of US adults use Twitter.
However, the content strategy for twitter is quite different as compared to other social media platforms. It is mainly a text-based platform, but you can also use the Gifs, Images, and videos to capture the attention of the audience.
If you want to share your thoughts especially on politics/news, promote any event, respond to clients/customers or want to ask some questions, then Twitter is the best social media channel for you.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Twitter:
- Twitter has 330 million users and 145 million daily users
- 63% of Twitter users are between the ages 35-65 years old. The average age for US Twitter users is 40 years old.
- Twitter is more popular among men. Worldwide, 66% of twitter users are male while only 34% are female. In the US users are 56% male and 44% female.
- 67% of B2B businesses use Twitter as a social media platform.
- 40% of Twitter users say they purchased a product or service after seeing it on the platform.
Instagram has more than 1 billion users. Additionally, if you want to target a younger audience, Instagram is the ideal choice for you. 75% of people between the ages of 18-24 use Instagram.
Instagram is a mobile app platform only. So you must upload high-quality photos and videos if you want to represent your brand in the best possible way. Keep in mind, Instagram stories are also a great way to promote your business and brand. So make sure to use the story feature to maximize the results.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Instagram:
- Instagram has 2nd most daily logins (just behind Facebook). 63% of users login into Instagram daily.
- Instagram is more popular with women. 43% of users are female compared to 31% male users.
- 35% of teens say Instagram is their favorite social media platform.
- International presence: 116 million US users, 73 million India users, and 72 million Brazilian users.
LinkedIn is the best place for B2B marketing and professional networking. If you are targeting young, professional people 25–49 years old, then LinkedIn is an excellent social media platform.
Through LinkedIn, you can share information about your company in the form of blogs, videos and articles. If you are uploading video content on LinkedIn, then make sure you add subtitles. Majority of people use LinkedIn in silent mode at their office. It should be noted that LinkedIn is becoming increasingly “pay to play.” Learn how our LinkedIn Advertising Firm can help your business achieve its goals on the platform.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Linkedin:
- Daily usage is much lower than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Only 12% of users go to Linkedin daily. However, with updates to features such as advertising, invite to follow, Linkedin Live and new posting options – Linkedin made 6.8 billion in revenue in 2019. That is a 22% increase from the previous year.
- Most Linkedin users are from the United States. That is 160 million. Next largest group of users are from India with 61 million.
- 51% of Linkedin users are college graduates which means 49% of them make $75,000 or more.
Over 300 million people use Pinterest every month. 78% of the Pinterest audience says that they find the brand content useful. It is worth creating a Pinterest account for your business.
Moreover, more than 1.5 million people use Pinterest to promote their products and services with the help of pins.
On Pinterest, every pin either includes an image or a video that links back to the source. So Pinterest is a great tool for driving traffic to your website. The best-performing pins usually consist of tall images of 2:3 aspect ratios.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Pinterest:
- Pinterest has over 300 million users worldwide – 322 million international users and 87 million US users.
- Majority of users are women. In the US, 42% of Pinterest users are female while 15% are men.
- 38% of Pinterest users are 18-24 years old.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a social media platform that mainly focuses on sharing photos and videos in the form of snaps. However, the snaps have a limited lifespan.
Snapchat has more than 210 million daily active users. In addition if you want to target the teen audience for your brand, then Snapchat is essential. More than 43% of teens consider Snapchat the most important social media channel.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for Snapchat:
- Snapchat attracts younger users and millenials. 69% of teens between the ages 13-17 years old are on Snapchat.
- Most users are from the US. There are 97.55 million US users, 20.4 million France users and 18.8 million India users.
- 73% of Snapchat users are 18-24 years old.
- Businesses use Snapchat to create personal connections with their customers.
YouTube
YouTube is one of the most used social media platforms, and the second-largest search engine after Google. More than 73% of the adults of the United States use YouTube. So all businesses can benefit in posting video content to YouTube.
Here are some key demographics and stats to know for YouTube:
- 38% of YouTube users log into the platform several times a day.
- YouTube users breakdown is 78% men and 68% women.
- Youtube is used across all age groups, educational groups and income groups. Therefore, you can reach a wide audience on your YouTube channels or advertising.
- The best performing YouTube videos are 2 or more minutes long. This is longer compared to the video for other channels like Instagram and Facebook.
How to Choose Social Media Channels for Your Business?
In order to find out the social media channels for your business, firstly, you need to create your social media strategy.
To create your social media strategy and decide which social media channels work best for your business, you need to ask yourself the below questions.
- How do you want to use social media?
- What type of content are you going to publish on social media?
- Whether you need multiple social media channels or not?
- Who is your target audience, and on which platform it presents?
- What is your main goal? Do you want to increase brand awareness or want more leads for your business? Firstly set clear goals.
Once you get the answer to all these questions, it’s time to start with the work of creating accounts across different social media channels and start publishing content on these platforms.
It is better to go slow in starting because this will make it easy for you to analyze whether your social media marketing strategy is working with the platform or not. By going slow and steady, there are fewer chances of making mistakes, and you can easily analyze what is working and what is not.
So if you are managing your brand’s social media accounts, pick 2-3 channels. This way you can focus on posting frequently and consistently. With that said, many businesses struggle with creating content and regular posting. “Social media is a key part of marketing strategies, yet nearly 20 percent are unsure how to measure effectiveness.” (Buffer)
Therefore, you may want to hire a digital marketing firm to manage everything for you.
SunCity Social Media Services
In case you are facing issues in implementing your social media marketing strategy or in finding the social media platforms for your business, then you can get in touch with us at SunCity Advising. Our social media managing service includes analyzing your competitors, auditing your current social media accounts, building a calendar, creating content, and scheduling posts.
