“It is not necessary to be present on all the social media sites, but it is important to be present on the strategic ones”
– Hakimuddin Chowdhury (Founder Leotics Consulting LLP)
With over 3.4 Billion people using various social media platforms, it is important for businesses to be present and market themselves on the social media sites. With the number of social media sites and its users growing everyday, it is important you choose the social media platforms carefully.
If your question here is How to make a social media marketing strategy for you business? What you should be careful of while doing social media? Why should you do social media in the first place? You can check out our blogs form this social media marketing series.
Choosing the right social media platform for your business is the key to your social media marketing success. There are a number of factors that determine the choice, nature of your product & services, type of business, target audience demographics, your business goals etc.
Here we have listed down some the most popular social media platforms with their features and user details for you.
Monthly Active Users – 2.41 Billion
Almost a third of the worlds population is on Facebook. This makes Facebook as the worlds most widely used social media platform.
Facebook has a diverse audience. It has users under all age categories. Majority of the users fall under the age bracket of 25 – 34 years. With 56% Men and 44% Women, it has almost all the types of audience you are looking for.
One of the best social media platform for business is Facebook. The reach, diverse audience and marketing tools for businesses that it offers, makes it stand out.
Whatever be your business goal, awareness, drive traffic, engagements, lead generation, app installs, conversions, sales etc., you can do all of it on Facebook. You can filter and target audience on the basis of:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Interest
- Relationship Status
- Work Status
- Language
- Education
- And many more
It has the most detailed targeting options. You can exactly draw your niche audience and see how many people are likely to see your ads on Facebook. All forms of content works well on Facebook, texts, videos and images.
Promoting business on Facebook is an idea which you should definitely think of.
YouTube
Monthly Active Users – 1.9 Billion
It is the second largest platform, after Facebook that has such a wide base of active users, it is a video based social media platform. YouTube allows you to watch and upload your content. Video content marketing is one the most important trends in digital marketing and therefore the is platform.
YouTube users watch over a billion hours of video each day. Since its inception is providing quick and easy access to videos, ability to share and upload your own videos. Google search indexes videos in search queries from YouTube. This makes YouTube attractive for business and it is also available in 80 different languages.
Many businesses are turning to video content as videos are attracting more and more of users. Video content has a higher rate of interaction, retention and conversion as compared to other mediums.
Another reason why YouTube is becoming popular is that it has an unlimited video hosting. With easy sharing features, you can upload your video content on YouTube and share seamlessly across the internet. The added benefit of being a Google subsidiary, videos get indexed in Google Search from YouTube.
For YouTube users demographics, over 50% of the Audience is Female, users are more likely to have college degree and children.
Facebook Messenger
Monthly Active Users – 1.3 Billion
Facebook Messenger is the messaging feature within Facebook, for which you have to download an app separately. The app contains additional features outside Facebook and is a standalone app now.
It helps Facebook users to send messages to other users directly and this feature is extended to businesses also. You can advertise your products and services, in-fact Facebook has campaigns designed for Facebook Messenger.
Can you advertise your business on it? Yes, you can not only advertise your business but can interact with your business customers and also have automated messages.
Facebook Messenger uses the same audience base as that of Facebook and therefore it is important. Messengers adds a personal touch and therefore gives an opportunity to a business to have a one to one conversation with its potential customers.
Monthly Active Users – 1 Billion
A Facebook subsidiary, Instagram is a popular social media platform for sharing photos and videos. It has 500 Million daily active users. Instagram, owned by Facebook, has the same features and advertising platform of Facebook with few additional features of its own.
There are few additional features of Instagram, not available on Facebook. The use of ‘Hashtags’. This feature alone can help you save on your marketing budget. It can help you grow your followers and reach more people.
Instagram, just as Facebook has a wide demographic distribution. It has users from Age of 13 to 65+ years. Majority of the audience that is 65% of users is between the age of 18 to 34 years.
Instagram business also provides you detailed analysis of your followers, engagements, the location they are from etc. This data can help you easily identify what content and where is it working.
Apart from the Analytics Reports, Hashtags, Instagram also has other features which are useful for business. Instagram stories, you can connect with your audience using these short stories and connect live with them. You can connect with your audience over messages, just the way in Facebook Messenger. It brings you closer to the customer.
Tik Tok
Monthly Active Users – 500 Million
With a user base of 1.2 Billion, Tik Tok has 500 Million monthly active users. The platform is relatively new compared to other old social media platforms and has surpassed Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The major audience on the platform is Gen Z. You can make a 15 second video clip, add music and effects to it. The video form content is allowed on the platform. It does have a lot of potential, with such a wide monthly active users base, but is far from marketing. The tools and features that are available on other platforms are lacking here.
The only form of marketing on this platform is through influencers. This platform is not saturated as of now like the case for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.
Snapchat
Monthly Active Users – 350 Million
Snapchat allows users to send snaps, that is a video or photo directly to a person or in their profile story. A snap send to an individual can only be viewed for once, but in profile story, it stays for 24 hours.
The app was adopted by the younger generation and majority of its audience that is 71% is under 34 years of age. Almost 50% of its users are between the age of 18 to 24 years. It has 203 Million active daily users.
If your target market matches the audience on Snapchat, then here it is. Brands can target the audience by putting there stories and/or do paid advertising, where there link can be seen in the Top Story and Discovery Feed.
Monthly Active Users – 335 Million
Twitter enables you to post videos, photos with a character limit of 140. It is a social media site where users look out for news, entertainment, politics, sports and more on real time basis. Often it is referred as well suited for customer service.
Video, text and images are the content type that works on twitter.
It is a great way of engaging with potential customers by the use of Hashtags. Hashtags are a vital part of Twitter. Just as Instagram, you can search a hashtag and find people, brands that are using that hashtag.
Using the hashtags correctly can connect the business with potential customers and connect the potential customers with the business.
Monthly Active Users – 303 Million
LinkedIn is considered as a social media platform for professionals. Content in the form of images, texts and videos can be shared on the platform. A variety of content is posted on this channel, from job openings to product ideas, innovation ideas etc. It though leads to be a recruiting platform as recruiters can see the user profiles and who are open to job opportunities.
LinkedIn profile just looks like a resume of a person. Some of the cases of application, the LinkedIn profile link is considered to be enough and a replacement of a resume.
As knowing the social media is of professionals, it is best suited for B2B communications. Businesses that deal in B2B products and services can market themselves to the professionals.
LinkedIn being a platform for professionals, the information of users is more accurate and detailed. The current job profile, employers details, email addresses job positions, education etc.
LinkedIn has tools for marketing where you can target the audience on the basis of job status or position. It is considered as one of the best platforms for lead generation. Chat and calendar chat-bot are some additional features. In Calendar chat-bot, it helps fix and syn two users calendar so that they can meet up.
Monthly Active Users – 300 Million
Around 54% of Pinterest users are under the age of 35 years. Pinterest has a spread across all age groups from 18 years to 65+ years. 70% of users are female on Pinterest.
Pinterest is used more like a search engine. Users search on the platform for new things, DIY things etc. It is very different from any other social media platform. The users are more in the mode of discovering new things here.
Businesses that cater to women and/or creative industry of any kind, Pinterest can be useful for them. Bloggers, Fashion, DIY, Fitness, Cooking, Lifestyle, Food, Wedding Themes/Outfits/Decorations etc. are some of the examples of categories that do pretty well on Pinterest.
As the users are in search of new things to try or buy, having a presence on this platform can help you influence their buying decision.
For business Pinterest shows a detailed analytics report, with which pins are working and which are not, the type of demographic of the followers and paid ads to boost reach.
Apart form these, Pinterest is also a search engine, therefore the play of keywords is really important. The keywords used in the right manner can help pins reach users organically.
At Leotics Consulting LLP, we help you achieve your business goals. We are a Management Consulting & Marketing Solutions Company. Our objective is to leverage technology and help brands/businesses grow.
The power of data and insights to help you achieve your business goals. In this century, with all the amount of data available, it is important to draw actionable insights from it.
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