Understanding Which Social Media Platform is Best for Your Business
No one knows more than a busy business owner that maintaining several social media sites can be very laborious. The purpose of this guide is to assist you with choosing which social media sites will provide the best customer/prospect interactions for your business.
Facebook
Demographics:
As of 4th quarter of 2016, Facebook was still the most popular socmed platform with about 1.86 billion and counting users worldwide and with those most evenly distributed demographics compared to the rest.
While Facebook may not be the best tool for sales generation, it can boost brand awareness and is adding sales functionality with structural changes on a regular basis. Its ability to target customers through the Facebook Advertising Tool – as it helps you filter not only by demographics but other details such as job and other personal details that can help you present your message to the right customers.
Lastly, understand that Facebook usage among teens, especially when parents or adults in the family are using it too, has been on a percentage decline. If you want to target teen customers, you should focus on Instagram or Snapchat as teens favor these platforms over Facebook only.
What to share?
- Products and services: post images regularly to feature what you have and do.
- Promotions, discounts, contests and coupons, if available; get them interested.
- Post relevant articles/news/call-to-action that can engage/entertain/educate followers.
Post Frequency:
Once or twice a day
Tips:
- Posts with picture often generate better engagement by 125%
- Keep text posts shorter than 250 characters to keep audiences engaged.
- The best days to post are Thursday and Friday.
- Call-to-action posts generate more engagement from customers than nonquestion posts.
Should my business be in Facebook?
Almost any type of business should have a Facebook Page. These pages are still the most widely-used platform; and they can increase sales indirectly through brand awareness and customer interaction. If you want to increase Facebook likes, try having a contest, available downloadable coupons, and Facebook ads and even ‘Like’ buttons on blogs and websites.
Twitter
Demographics:
Surprisingly, despite Twitter’s popularity – they only come in fifth in terms of usage with only 24% of online adults in US using it. However, Twitter users do tend to interact more frequently compared to other platforms.
With the rise of President Trump and his prolific use of Twitter, users are following celebrities, brands and other users to get to know the latest and be up-to-date on what’s going on. Their engagement also is to join contests, get exclusive discounts and offers. Your Twitter strategy should be used as it is a good platform to give your offers an immediate push.
What to share?
Tweets will most likely be articles, a product/service post with a link that will lead the users to more information regarding your product/service. It can also be a quick preview on deals and offers and announcements regarding upcoming exclusive discounts or new products.
Post Frequency:
Multiple times per day
Tips:
Twitter now shows images and videos along with the tweets so just like Facebook – posts with images get more user engagement meaning greater chances of retweets, replies and favorites.
Which businesses should be in Twitter?
Twitter is obviously for businesses in the news industry including publications, marketing companies and sports-related businesses, the reason behind that is because Twitter is usually the go-to platform for the latest and hottest current updates; therefore, if your business works in that manner, Twitter is the best platform for you to reach your target audience and customers.
Google+
Demographics:
Google+ users are 67% male and the majority of that percentage is in the technical engineering fields with the average age of 28. Although the platform has over 500+ million users, only over 300 million are active and a chunk of it is logged in because of YouTube.
Google+ is best for sharing content because it has features like Google Hangout which allows video conferencing, Circles and Communities for easy sharing that makes brand awareness and content marketing simple.
What to share?
Google+ is on the formal and professional kinds of post and Hashtags are crucial for search value
Post Frequency:
Once or twice day
Tips:
- Including social share buttons or a toolbar on your site’s pages can increase post popularity by 700%.
- Google+ is one of the most important factors in determining SEO.
Which businesses should be in Google+?
Since the demographics of Google+ are in tech and engineering fields this means businesses like tech and engineering companies and even marketing companies can benefit using Google+, keep in mind that Google+ are mostly male professionals. All businesses where is SEO is crucial in acquiring customers. As well all know Android, Mashable and Chrome are the top three brands currently dominating Google+ with Android the largest.
The Communities feature also allows businesses in all industries to have a place to find individuals and businesses with the same niche hence if you are interested in learning or sharing more, then Google+ is the perfect platform for you.
Demographics:
Coming in 2nd with 32% of adult internet users is Instagram. They also have the second-most devoted users, with 56% of users logging in daily which is 11% higher than Twitter and only 6% behind Facebook. Since Facebook bought Instagram, its cross platform usage has been somewhat seamlessly merged for marketing purposes.
The demographics of Instagram are composed of only 17% adults but with 43% in the age of 18-29.
What to share?
Instagram posts are creatively taken product/service shots with equally catchy captions. Businesses usually have dedicated Hashtags so people searching on using that Hashtag can filter/see the rest of Instagram related post about your business or product.
Post Frequency:
Once a day
Tips:
Since Instagram lean towards users rather than businesses – you can have an Instagram photo contest where users can take a picture of your product/service and then decide on a specific Hashtag so you can see all of the entries. This can help boost your company’s popularity and you can even have future pictures that you can repost to recognize customers/clients.
Which businesses should be in Instagram?
Businesses in the Food and Fashion industry can benefit well in using Instagram, as well as, architecture, designers and technology business. Keep in mind that businesses that are targeting the 18-29 age-demographic should also use Instagram as one of their main platforms to promote their business.
Post fun and creative images that will interest your followers may it be the fun things you do, behind the scenes and your office environment, use fun props and the lighter side of your business to make it more relatable. Also, keep trends and latest in check with the help of Twitter as well.
