How To Choose The Right Social Media Platforms To Market Your Business
Choosing the right social media platforms are a crucial part of your marketing strategy. It is vital to ensure you are reaching your target audience, which will consequently generate leads, sales and growth for your business. The target audience of your business will be unique to you and how you define your customer. Firstly in order to choose the right platforms there are a few things you need to consider about your business:
What is the nature of your business?
The social media platforms vary in effectiveness depending on your type of business. If you’re a business to business (B2B) company, LinkedIn is often used as it directly interacts with professionals and can identify those in the field you are targeting using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. If your company is business to consumer (B2C), perhaps Instagram, TikTok and FaceBook are better suited platforms as they have a greater reach and engagement with individuals in both personal and professional time.
Who is your target audience?
To define your target audience consider your customer’s demographics, are they male/ female? What is their age? What are the challenges you solve for them? Understanding your customer and their needs and wants, as well as who they are will affect which social media platforms you use to market to them.
Where is your ideal customer?
After considering the nature of your business and your target audience it is best to identify where your ideal customer is and what platforms they are spending the most time on. If you are a B2B your ideal customer is most likely on LinkedIn, whereas if you are an e-commerce B2C instagram would be the most effective. Make yourself visible to your customer and be consistent and add value to where they spend their time.
What platforms do your competitors use?
Identify your competitors and how they target their audience. Look at their social channels and identify their consistency in posting, what content they post, their engagement rates. Whichever social media platform your competitors have the best results, it is advised to carry out your marketing on the same platform, to remain competitive and visible in your industry.
Matching the platform with your audience. What each platform’s audience is;
Facebook has a large number of users and a large group of young followers, however it is evenly split across all demographics. It is the most effective social media to target 30 - 65 year olds, both male and female.
Instagram has a younger group of users however there are still users in all age groups. Both male and female are active on the social platform. With the rise of stories and reels, the platform caters for a variety of content styles which all engage with users.
Twitter has limited usage of both men and women with only 24% of men and 21% of women having a twitter account. Generally younger generations are the most active on Twitter. Twitter is a reactive platform therefore users want the businesses they follow to be both reactive and engaging with them and others.
Youtube
Youtube is a platform which all generations use, whatever the content. With recent changes in SEO for google, youtube and video content is becoming more prominent in its importance.
TikTok
TikTok is most popular with younger generations however 20.3% of users are aged between 40-49. TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform, taking half the time to reach the same level of users as Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, it should be considered by all brands in their marketing strategy.
Snapchat
Snapchat has a younger user age bracket of up to 25 year olds. Therefore if used correctly and reaches the right target audience there is potential in marketing on the platform.
Pinterest is often overlooked by many when it comes to marketing strategy, however it is often a high generator of traffic when used correctly. The majority of its users are female of all ages. Pinterest has over 110 million active users.
Linkedin’s age groups are consistent amongst all generations, as it is a professional platform. LinkedIn is mainly used for networking, lead generation, collaboration and sharing content. The majority of its use by businesses are B2B companies.
Whichever social media platforms you decide to use in your marketing plan, it is imperative to build a strategy that is consistent and aligns across all platforms. If you would like any guidance or advice on developing your social media strategy and which platforms to use, Method Marketing is here to help. Contact us on, 01252 265166 or email hello@methodmarketing.org.uk and we will be happy to assist you.
