social media

How To Find The Right Social Media Network For Your Business

To get the best results out of social media you need to know where your potential customers are and get your content in front of them. There’s no point trying to be everywhere as your target audience will most likely be concentrated on one or two platforms anyway.

It’s important to understand the differences between the major social media platforms and which audience each of them attracts the most.

For example, if your target market is predominantly older males, you wouldn’t necessarily want to be active on social networks that appeal to younger females – especially if it meant less time spent on the networks that really count!

Here’s an overview of the major platforms and audience they mostly attract:

Facebook

With more than 1,870 million (1.8 billion+) active users, Facebook is by far the biggest social network out there. It holds (at the time of writing) an 18% market share – that’s 7% more than its two closest rivals (which are both actually owned by Facebook), WhatsApp and Messenger.

The beauty of Facebook is that it’s an all-rounder in the social media arena. It boasts a nice mix of genders, as well as a broad range of ages – literally everyone is on there!

It’s also got one of the most mature ad platforms out there and a native video offering – Facebook Live – that can really help you drive engagement with your audiences.

However, Facebook can be a crowded, noisy space, and that’s a reality that can make it hard for your brand to get the attention it deserves.

Twitter

Like Facebook, Twitter has got a broad audience, but the average age of its users is a bit lower at 18-29 years old. Yet with 328 million active monthly users (at the time of writing), Twitter is significantly behind Facebook in terms of popularity.

Nevertheless, Twitter is great for 1-2-1 engagement, real-time conversations and sharing current news/trending stories. Its fast-paced nature means that a single tweet can spread like wildfire and get a lot of attention in a short period of time.

There’s also a live video feature known as Periscope and has those all-important #hashtags, which allow updates to be easily found via searches.

However, Twitter can be somewhat complicated for new users and there are no bespoke accounts or page offerings for businesses. The 140-character limit can also be frustrating when you’ve got something longer you want to say.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most professional-focused of all the social media platforms. It’s primarily used by individuals for networking purposes and is less well known than the other social networks out there.

Despite this, LinkedIn does now have its proprietary blogging platform, Pulse, which is a great way for people to share their knowledge and become thought leaders in their respective fields.

With 106 million active monthly users (at the time of writing), LinkedIn’s strength lies in its specialist focus. Also, LinkedIn users are far less likely to use other social networks as well, so you could discover that your perfect audience is on LinkedIn and LinkedIn alone.

Instagram

Instagram has a very specific user demographic. Of its 600 million active monthly users (at the time of writing), 90% are under 35 years old. Moreover, there is a bigger percentage of women vs. men.

If you create highly visual content, Instagram is perfect for you. Its users love engaging with beautiful images, which makes it a great place to push new products (but not necessarily services).

Instagram’s Stories feature also enables users to share video to boost their levels of engagement even further. Hashtags can also be used to increase post coverage and searchability.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to platforms is that you should only focus on the ones that your customers and prospects are using.

Be active on the platforms that your ideal audience is using and create awareness, engagement and trust in your brand. Always remember, though, that social media is all about the conversation, so you need to listen just as much as you talk.

How about Pinterest, Snapchat or Reddit

I’ve decided to cover only the main four platforms, as most small business will only have the resources to cover one or two of them (and that makes perfect sense from my perspective).

But if you have an eye-catching product and can easily create high-quality visual content and your audience mainly consists of women, than Pinterest might be the right place for you.

Don’t try to be everywhere!

So where should your business be on social media? Before jumping in and setting up profiles on all networks, spend some time doing your research and stick to one or two platforms to start with!

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About Lenka Koppova

Lenka KoppovaLenka is a freelance Social Media Consultant who helps small businesses, startups and social enterprises to grow by using social media for brand awareness, online networking and community building. You can find Lenka hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

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