What's the best social media platform for my business?
Posted 10th September, 2020 by Sarah
During lockdown, you may have found that you were on social media more than ever. The good news is, so were your customers.
Research conducted in May this year showed that 42 per cent of consumers spent longer on social media because of the lockdown. This figure is even higher for younger people.
Whether it’s old favourites such as Facebook and Twitter, or emerging social media channels like TikTok, your prospective customers are already invested in social media. This makes it a great marketing opportunity for your business. The question remains though: how do you know which channels are right for you?
Using figures from Statistica, we’ve ranked these channels according to the number of users they have, then broken down a few ways you can use them to get your brand out there.
Since its inception in 2004, Facebook has been on a meteoric rise. Its last reported figures gave it around 2.6 billion MAUs (monthly active users).
Facebook is clearly the channel most people are on, so it’s where your content could be seen by a massive new audience. If you don’t think of it as a platform for marketing, Hootsuite research indicates that there are a massive 90 million small businesses on Facebook.
In addition, Facebook’s audience insights tool enables you to ‘learn more about the people that matter to your business’.
This, along with the platform's numerous advertising options, mean you can target your advertising to reach people who may be interested in your product.
Along with this, you can create engaging content which resonates with your audience and builds brand awareness.
YouTube
How many hours a week do you spend on YouTube? Well, the top level statistics for YouTube are astounding:
● 500 hours of content is uploaded every minute.
● One billion hours of YouTube content is viewed per day.
● The platform boasts 2 billion MAUs.
Despite these figures, many businesses still don’t consider YouTube as a viable marketing channel.
They should, though. The marketing potential for businesses on YouTube is actually considerable. Ask yourself: how often have you tried to fix a problem at home and found yourself watching a YouTube tutorial? Well, whatever your business is, you can share your expertise through YouTube videos.
Great YouTube videos can increase awareness of your business, establish you as an expert at what you do and, therefore, lead to more business.
You can also advertise directly on YouTube to get more eyeballs on your product. Whether you’re looking to upload original organic content or pay to get your product in front of people, check out our article How to get started with YouTube marketing in four steps then start promoting your business.
With Instagram boasting 1.082 billion MAUs and more than 200 million users visiting at least one business profile a day, it’s perhaps little surprise that more than 25 million companies are using it.
And the social channel is fully aware of its own commercial value. Initiatives such as the introduction in July of Instagram Shop mark active attempts to encourage businesses to advertise with them.
Instagram is great for showcasing your brand, as well as engaging with influencers. It’s a very visual platform and is perfect for sharing photos of your products, business and wider team.
Want to reach more people and increase followers? Then utilise relevant hashtags in your messaging. This way your content will slide in front of your target audience with the precision of a concert pianist.
So, get your camera at the ready and start creating content to engage your audience.
TikTok
With an estimated 800 million monthly active users, TikTok has seemingly emerged overnight, flourishing in the UK during lockdown.
Tik Tok isn’t new to the social party, though. It was initially launched in China in 2016 and pushed out globally the following year.
TikTok describes itself as “the leading destination for short-form mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.”
The channel can be a powerful way of reaching a younger audience. It’s a place where you can have some fun showing the lighter side of your brand.
The platform allows the user to create and share short-form mobile videos. Creators can make and share looping videos that are between 15 and 60 seconds in length. So, get creative and have some fun with your audience.
LinkedIn is described as “a business and employment-oriented online service” which reports that it has 660 million users, spread over 200 countries. There’s also over 30 million companies that have profiles on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn users include 90 million senior-level influencers and 63 million decision-makers. So, it offers a professional networking opportunity on a grand scale.
The platform can be a great place to share educational content and connect with others in your industry. It can also be a good way to showcase your company's culture and highlight your team, all the while reaffirming your expertise.
Not only that, it can be a fantastic platform to post out job vacancies and attract talent to your business.
Pinterest publishes quarterly user figures, and confirms that it had 367 million active users for the first quarter of 2020, up approximately 20% on the year before.
Pinterest Inc. describes its channel as a “productivity tool for planning your dreams …. Visualizing the future helps bring it to life.”
What this means, in practice, is that people who are looking for inspiration look on Pinterest. That could be for presents, decorations, weddings or anything where a beautiful photo of your product or shop could get them to stop and find out more.
It’s a channel where potential customers come, looking for inspiration and if done correctly... you.
Twitter reports that it has 145 million monetisable daily active users (or mDAUs), and it defines mDAU as “anyone who logs in through Twitter.com or its mobile apps and is able to view advertisements”.
As to business applications for the channel, Twitter says: “Businesses come to Twitter to connect to our culture and be what's happening. And because people are in a discovery mindset when they’re on Twitter, you’re likely to make a lasting impression.”
There’s no denying that Twitter is a great way of testing the temperature of the culture. The word ‘trending’ has become common parlance now, and that came from Twitter.
The platform can be great for curating content relevant to your industry, engaging with your customers and connecting with others in your sector.
Summing up
Despite how it may sometimes seem, social media is not always about quantity over quality. Successful social media marketing is very much a matter of quality over quantity.
You need to concentrate your energies on getting a great return on the investment of time and effort. So, do your research and find out which social media channels your typical customers use.
Above all, use your social media channels as a chance to connect with your customers. Engage, educate and inform them.
And, if you've found a certain social media channel that works really well for your business, come and get social with us.
Categories: Marketing, Small Businesses