Which Social Media Platforms Should You Use for Your Business?
There is no longer any doubt that social media is an essential instrument for marketing for any company that wants to continue to be visible and relevant in the modern era. In point of fact, 88% of marketers believe that social media has helped them boost their exposure, with increased visitors coming in second at 77%. This indicates that you are passing up a significant chance if you are not utilizing social media to the fullest extent possible.
However, getting started can be challenging, and even tasks that appear to be straightforward, such as selecting a social network, might be more complex than you might expect. There are numerous social networks available, making it challenging to select the appropriate channels and formulate an effective approach. The good news is that you may begin by selecting only the platforms that are the most generally known and utilized by a large number of people.
Which of the various social media platforms should I use for my company?
The first thing you should do when trying to choose which social media platform is ideal for your company is to make a list of the things that are most essential to you. Is it about extending your sphere of influence? Is it producing a greater number of leads? Is it about raising awareness of the brand?
After that, you need to choose a platform that will provide you with the appropriate amount of exposure among the appropriate audience. Is your brand highly visual, such that it would work well on social media sites like Instagram or TikTok? Is it centered on happenings in the here and now and would it translate well on Twitter? Or does your audience require a combination of sites, such as YouTube and LinkedIn, to meet their informational needs? Let’s find out by exploring the various social media networks, shall we?
How to Select the Best Option Out of Many
There are social media platforms out there for everything and everyone, including ones to connect people with common interests, similar hobbies, comparable demographics, and a great deal more. As you undoubtedly already know, there are social media platforms out there for everything and everyone. To get to the point, there are far too many for you to be active on all of them at the same time. In addition, you will get more out of your time by concentrating on the websites that bring you closer to achieving your objectives.
According to the most current report titled “Digital 2022: Global Overview,” the most popular social media websites in terms of the number of active users are Facebook, YouTube, Whatsapp, and Instagram, respectively.
Establish Your Objectives for Social Media Use
Using social media can provide a variety of advantages, but before you move forward, it is essential to define and prioritize your objectives. In this approach, you will be able to develop a social media plan for your company that is successful.
To begin, your goals will play a role in determining not only the social platform that you use, but also the content that you produce, the audience that you target, and other aspects of your social media strategy. You may wish to place more of an emphasis on the following, as these are among the most frequently cited advantages of using social media:
• If you want to improve the quality of your customer service, you should offer additional channels via which clients can contact you with their inquiries, complaints, and other concerns. Observe what other companies are doing to successfully implement social customer service to get some pointers on how to proceed with this endeavor.
• Find new potential consumers and leads that are comparable to your most profitable clients.
• Make an effort to connect with new demographics and audiences on social media who could be interested in the products or services you offer.
• Raise the profile of your brand and introduce new potential customers to your company.
• It is important to educate yourself about the requirements, preferences, and routines of your audience and clients. raising the number of customers who visit your website and increasing sales.
Find Out Which Platforms Your Target Audience Utilizes
The purpose of social media marketing that is done well is to bring you into contact with the portion of your audience that is most likely to respond positively to what you have to say. Therefore, it is not a good idea to select a platform on which your audience does not actively participate.
Unfortunately, there is no “Field of Dreams” possibility available here in which your potential customers will begin utilizing the social platform of your choosing simply because you have built a profile on that site. Instead, it is a lot better idea to conduct research to determine which platforms your audience favors and then seek them out on the networks that they are already using.
When beginning this process, one of the most important things to accomplish is to carry out some audience research in order to develop a customer persona. In this way, you will know who you are looking for, and you will be able to filter down the platforms that they utilize based on gender, demographics, interests, and other factors.
Discovering the web locations frequented by members of your target audience can be accomplished in a number of different ways. One of the simplest approaches is to conduct a brief customer satisfaction survey. Inquire about things such as the social media platforms they use, the internet resources they turn to for information, and the opinion leaders they follow.
You can also obtain information about your audience by using the social media sites themselves as a source of information. You may tell platforms like Facebook about your target clients, and they will estimate the size of the audience for you if you are running paid advertising on their sites. You may also know who your audience is and what they are doing by using analytics to examine their behavior.
Take a Closer Look at the Kind of Content You Produce
It is essential that you give careful consideration to the type of material you want to develop and disseminate that will work best with your business. Since different types of content perform better with various social media platforms, it is imperative that you do so.
Since Instagram, for example, is primarily focused on graphics, this platform is probably not the best choice for sharing long-form information such as whitepapers. The kind of content that you produce will be determined by a number of factors, including the sector in which you operate, the reputation of your brand, and the people you intend to reach.
Utilizations of various social media platforms and types of material that are successful:
• Blog posts – Business blogs can be just as great as personal ones for audience engagement.
• Podcasts – Collaborate with industry leaders to tap into their audience on social networks and use hashtags when sharing to increase reach.
• Testimonials – Your customers are your most important asset, so make sure to use their opinions and experiences to promote your brand.
• User-generated content – This is the holy grail of content because it’s not you creating it but your brand.
• User-generated content is the content Find some amazing examples of user-generated content initiatives to study.
• Webinars and live streams – Live video is fantastic for audience engagement and learning more about your buyers, particularly through a Q&A session at the end.
• Ebooks – This type of long-form content can provide enormous value to potential customers and are great for lead generation.
• Whitepapers – The ideal content to demonstrate industry knowledge and generate leads through downloads.
• Videos are the pinnacle of content, and they have the potential to significantly broaden your audience if what you make goes viral. Check out these nine suggestions for videos to post on social media to get you started.
• Photographs – Showcasing the inner workings of your company, your staff, or even something hilarious through the use of photographs can help boost engagement and traffic to your website.
Determine which platform is the best fit for your objectives, target demographic, and existing content.
After you have resolved on the goals for social media, identified where your audience is located, and decided what kind of material is most successful, you can next analyze the various social media platforms to determine which one will best fulfill your requirements. In order to assist you in making a decision, the following is a summary of the most popular platforms in terms of audience size, what they excel in, and what a typical user looks like:
Facebook for Commercial Use: This platform presently has more over 2.89 billion monthly active users, making it the largest one available; in terms of country usage, India and the United States are currently in the lead. Facebook is excellent for the creation of leads, and its advertising platform can be greatly customized to target particular audiences.
Facebook is an excellent tool for developing relationships, showcasing the personable side of your company, and converting leads into dedicated followers and consumers. The key is material that reveals a different side of your firm, such as behind-the-scenes content, combined with user-generated content and interest-driven community groups. Although many various forms of content do well, the key is content that displays a distinct side of your organization. Additionally, video is extremely well-liked, with Facebook Live’s popularity jumping by 26% in 2020 and expected to continue on an upward trend after that year. It’s crucial to keep in mind that there’s a lot of competition on Facebook and Twitter, so your material needs to be distinctive if you want it to be seen by as many people as possible. Both of these platforms are ideal for reaching big numbers of people.
YouTube for Commercial Purposes: Over two billion people are actively using the video platform, and 74% of adults in the United States view videos on it. After Google, it is the website that receives the second-most visitors, therefore it offers a significant opportunity to communicate with your target demographic.
It should go without saying that if you want your material to do well on YouTube, you should focus on making videos. It’s interesting to note that the number of people watching videos that include the word “beginning” has more than doubled in recent years; this could be an excellent approach for you to increase your viewership. Is there anything you know about running a business that you could pass on to those who are just getting started? Is there a how-to that either you or one of your coworkers might host in order to show the value of your product or service?
Paid advertising on YouTube is another something that should be tried because viewers on this channel are very engaged; in fact, 70 percent of customers make a purchase after watching an advertisement. Learn the fundamentals of building and expanding your YouTube channel so that you may achieve your goals.
The Whatsapp for Business app includes: Whatsapp has more than 2 billion active users around the world, making it the third most popular website behind Facebook and YouTube. Because of its extensive reach, it is an excellent platform on which to build traction for your business. It is a contentious decision, but Whatsapp’s parent company, Facebook, has stated that it would not permit advertisements to be placed on the platform. However, the platform shines when it comes to providing excellent support for customers. Small businesses have the ability to reply to consumers and interact with them through WhatsApp’s Business option. Additionally, the “Catalog” feature of WhatsApp allows for the showing of products and in-app browsing.
Instagram for Commercial Use: There are currently 1.2 billion people using Instagram, and 500 million of those people look at Instagram Stories every single day. That’s a certain amount of activity that can be utilized. Instagram, much like Facebook, has seen a surge in users watching live video, particularly during the influenza pandemic for reasons that are self-explanatory. Because Instagram Shops now allow users to make purchases from within the app, rather of having to be directed to a landing page or website, it is now much simpler for businesses to make money through the use of the Instagram platform. There are plans to implement a Shopping tab (similar to the Explore tab) for customers, which will make it easier for them to make purchases with only one click.
Businesses have the option to demonstrate topics that concern to them such as diversity or climate change, while non-profit organizations can use give buttons for the purpose of fundraising on Instagram as more Instagram users place a greater emphasis on the importance of social causes. Consider what it is that your company stands for and the causes that you want to associate yourself with. Then you should publish them around Instagram in order to expand your clientele!
You should also take into consideration the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is planning to combine messaging across all Facebook apps, including Whatsapp and Instagram. This will imply that your audience will soon be able to connect freely across other social channels. When it comes to providing service to customers, some food for thought.
