Social media has become an essential pillar to any digital marketing strategy. Social media offers huge potential to help businesses go from strength to strength for many reasons.
When the right social media platforms are used with the right marketing approach, it can help to increase brand awareness, enable businesses to engage with customers and share their brand personality. Whilst also increasing their enquiries and sales for their business.
However with so many social media platforms it can be challenging to know which ones to use for your business. In our blog post we will look at the best social media platforms for businesses.
Gemma Finch
Social Media & Paid Ad Specialist at 1PCS Creative. Love engaging and impactful social content, family time with my little girl and helping companies grow and build their presence online.
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Know your audience
If you are looking at which social media platforms to create a business page for or if you are already using social media platforms, it is important to regularly review they are still the best social media sites for your social media marketing.
There are a couple of main focuses which will help. Firstly it is important to know your audience and where they are, you want to be on the social media site they are using frequently. This will give you the best return from your social media efforts. There is no value in targeting social media users who are unlikely to engage with you or be potential customers.
Having this information such as their demographics and interests will help to choose the right social media platforms for your business. Another useful tactic during the planning stages is to take a look at the popular social media sites and see where your competitors are.
This doesn’t mean they have the right social media presence or chosen the right social network to use. It does however give you a steer of which social media sites are likely used by your audience. The odds are your competitor has done their own research and using social media platforms to reach an audience you also wish to reach.
Popular Social Media Platforms
Year by year more and more social media sites come to market and it is important for businesses to know the right ones that will fit for their brand, industry and business goals. Examples of popular social media platforms include having a YouTube channel, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok and of course many other social media platforms.
For this blog post we will be focusing on our top social media sites for businesses to look deeper into. This will be Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Below we will look at each in regard to their audience and popularity along with the app capabilities for content to explain which types of post suit each social media platform best.
It is by far the largest social media site with the most monthly active users, with it reported to have 2.9 billion monthly active users. Therefore Facebook cannot be ignored as part of any social media strategy when choosing social networking platforms. It is one of the top social media platforms.
With such a high monthly active user number, it is likely your target audience and next potential customers are using Facebook. It provides a wide variety of ways to be able to raise brand awareness and build a brand personality, generate leads and increase your sales. This includes being able to post images, short videos, text only posts and ability to include external links. For example you could share a testimonial, with the main points on a Facebook post with a link to find out more on your website that features a full case study.
This publishing platform isn’t just useful for organic posting to your business page, Facebook is an impactful social platform that enables users to reach their target audience with Facebook advertising. Giving businesses the ability to be specific with their targeting for Facebook users including age, interests and purchasing behaviours.
Owned by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. Instagram is a popular social media platform with reports showing 2 billion monthly active users. The social networking app originally was popular with younger users, but as the popularity has increased they now have a wide audience size which can be reached and maximised for your business. Similar to Facebook it is typically used by business to consumer companies.
Instagram is a more visual platform, unlike Facebook which allows text only posts. Instagram is suited to post images, user generated content and is a popular video sharing platform. Typically this is in short form video content either within the newsfeed using reels or instagram stories.
As Instagram is owned by Facebook, it also offers the benefits from advertising on the platform to reach your target demographic, further making the most of the social media platform. This could be with images, video ads or user generate content.
If choosing to use Instagram it is important to take customer service into account as it is a great platform for the primary audience to have direct contact with companies through comments and direct messages to ask any questions or to engage with your business. Therefore being responsive is essential to continue to build the right impression with your target demographic and online community.
It is reported to have 303 million monthly active users. In its early days LinkedIn was known for job posting, so was popular with employers and recruiters or job seekers. Therefore it is no surprise that LinkedIn is now one, if not, the most popular social media platform for business to business models.
LinkedIn can be viewed as more reliable for its statistics being accurate such as employer, work email address and job position if looking to be specific with targeting. LinkedIn is an impactful social networking platform to share industry specific tips and advice. Many businesses aim to become the known expert in their field on LinkedIn.
It is a powerful tool to share relevant case studies and for B2B companies to direct companies to find out more on their website. For example if you write blogs, LinkedIn can be used to share the main highlights and include the external link. LinkedIn can also be used to share company news and updates, along with sharing the company culture. This can beneficial when looking to hire, as it will likely attract the top talent when they do their own research on the business, potentially before they even apply for a role.
Although LinkedIn is aimed towards B2B and networking, it is worthwhile for any business to consider if your audience is using the social platform. Using LinkedIn alongside Facebook or/and Instagram could be one of the best social media platforms or combinations to reach your customers.
We hope our blog post has helped to show the strengths of each social media platform and the importance of ensuring your business is posting, engaging and advertising on the right social media sites. It is important to understand your audience and ensure your business is on those social media platforms.
We provide social media management for organic posting, social advertising and community engagement. Please feel free to get in touch to speak with one of the team to see how we can help your business make the most from social media.