Choosing the Best Social Media Platforms for Businesses
Which Social Media Platform is Best for My Business?
Having a presence on social media is more critical than ever before. The number of people using social media has been growing year after year and will continue to do so in the future.
The problem is that there are so many platforms out there, it can be hard to know which one to choose. Of course, there are some obvious choices — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube — but what about TikTok? Or LinkedIn? Should your business invest time in Pinterest?
It comes down to matching the best social media platform with your brand and posting habits. You do not have to be a superhero who posts daily to every platform. It is better to focus on 2-3 where you can build a consistent fan base that will help you expand your brand naturally through user-generated content like shared posts, reviews, and comments. Start by doing the following:
1 – Identify your audience
Before you build a social media strategy, you need to know your audience. You should be able to answer the following questions:
What are their demographics (age, location, gender, etc.) What are their habits (sports, movies, interests, traits) What kind of audience have my competitors built? What would trigger them to engage with your brand?
You want to create a target audience under a general persona of your brand. That means if you are a Star Wars store that builds custom lightsabers, you should target an audience that uses them for cosplay, collecting, and dueling. Or, if you are a cat clothing company, you need to target an audience of pet owners with disposable income who think of their pets as family members more than animals.
2 – Define Your Goals
Before you begin, it’s essential to be clear about your goals and expectations. What do you want to achieve with your social media strategy? Are you looking for more traffic, or would you like to increase brand awareness?
You might be tempted to try and hit all those targets at once. But the truth is that it’s easier (and more effective) if you tailor your approach so that each platform is used in a way that helps with one of those goals in particular.
3 – Find Your Audience
Where is your target audience frequenting the most? Do they engage with one another in Facebook groups, or are there a few TikTok influencers that dictate how the niche market moves?
Go to the places with the most responsive interest in your business, industry, or idea. You want to lurk around and see what makes this audience tick. Social media is the best resource for market research outside your own numbers because it offers naturally gained insight into the aspects of your potential customers.
Choosing Your Platforms
Now that you have a general idea of where to start let’s look at the different social media platforms that can boost your online presence. Again, shoot for no more than 3 of these platforms when you are building an audience. A thousand loyal fans on Pinterest will do more for your brand than spread out across 7 or 8 different websites.
Facebook (Meta)
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. More than 2 billion people are using Facebook, and it’s a great place to reach your audience.
Facebook is not only good for promoting your product or service, but also for building brand awareness, increasing sales leads, and boosting conversions. The current demographics of Facebook lean towards an older clientele between 28-40. So think of an established person with a family, career, or more disposable income.
X
X is an excellent platform for businesses to offer real-time information about operations or updated news. This means that users can see what people are tweeting about at any given moment, making it easier for businesses like yours to connect with new parties.
You should try for more brand awareness than establishing a community, as there are thousands of tweets every second. However, finding trending topics is a great way to offer new products based on community desires.
Pinterest is a visual platform. It’s the place to go for inspiration, and there are endless opportunities for you to reach new customers by promoting your products and business there through a “scrapbooking” interface.
If you have a blog, Pinterest is also a great place to promote it. This is a more long-term strategy and leans more towards women users than men.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine and the second largest social media platform. It is also the most prominent video site in the world, with over 1 billion users.
Most businesses are using YouTube as part of their marketing strategy because video content is the top form to gain new leads. It’s no wonder that so many companies have turned to this platform as a way to engage their audience and increase sales. This is a great platform to build content and then break it into small, more digestible pieces for other social media you want to expand towards.
LinkedIn is a professional social media platform. It was founded in 2002 and currently has over 600 million users, making it the largest business-oriented social network on the internet.
LinkedIn is a good platform for businesses to connect with other companies, potential employees, and clients. You shouldn’t write this off initially, but do not think of it as a social media platform for endlessly scrolling. Users tend to have a goal in mind when visiting LinkedIn.
Instagram is the best platform for visual content and targets a younger audience than the others. If your business is centered on visuals – selling baby products, fashion brands, or even tech startups – then Instagram can be an effective strategy to grow your audience and increase sales. A lot of influencers live here, posting travel photos, food updates, and personal vlogs.
You need to have a certain edge or competitive advantage that differentiates your brand on Instagram, but as long as you are using hashtags and responding to comments, you should see a boost in followers. Also, be sure to use the Reels option. These are shorter pieces of video content to engage your clients.
TikTok
TikTok is a popular social media platform for short-form videos. Its parent company, ByteDance, is a Chinese technology company that acquired the app in 2018.
TikTok is popular among teens and young adults and offers some unique features, including musical lip sync videos that can be shared with friends over social media or messaging apps. The app also allows you to create and share live streams of your content, which can be an effective way to connect with your audience on platforms they use every day.
There is a ton of buzz around TikTok because of recent politics and how many musicians, actors, creators, artists, authors, and businesses are getting noticed on TikTok first.
Wrapping it Up
Do you feel a bit overwhelmed by all the information, or do you think you can make an educated decision about which social media platform is right for you?
This is where Interstellar Digital can help. We are well acquainted with each social media platform’s different styles, content, and themes. So we can match your business goals and brand with the best fit options for you.
Our professional and experienced team will offer strategies for those complimentary social media platforms sure to leverage the best features of your brand, products, services, and story. Reach out today, and let’s build something new together that can promote your product where your customers are the most!
