Social media is one of the main anchors in digital marketing. 10 years ago, the influence of social media was just beginning to take off. Today, social media is one of the largest forms of media that take up our media consumption, for some people even passing up traditional forms of media such as newspapers. People spend an average of 6 hours a day online, and about 35% of that time on social media. Nearly everyone is on one or more platforms, expressing themselves digitally, connecting with friends and strangers, and sharing ideas and information. 

As a free or inexpensive service compared to other avenues of online messaging such as digital advertising, your business should absolutely be utilizing these tools. What do you have to lose? It’s a great way to help gain organic business growth, start connecting directly with your target audience and with the general public, and gauge how your messaging is received and what people are saying. 

So now that you want to dive into social media apps with your business, the next question to ask yourself is: which one do you want to use? It’s a lot of work managing a social media channel, which includes planning consistent content and promoting engagement by interacting with and responding to people online. Some may think that being on every platform and sending out messages to as many people as possible is the best way to go about it, but that’s not necessarily the case. You should be keeping your target audience in mind –– what they might want or find useful –– as well as the things that you are willing to do so that your efforts aren’t wasted. 

Here are some tips to help you think about what social media platform would work best for you, your goals and your audience!

GET TO KNOW THE PLATFORMS

Understand that each platform has its own purpose. You probably have ideas of how they function and differ from each other from your own personal use of social media. Although many of them achieve similar things –– connecting with people, sharing information and entertainment––These platforms were created with immense work and planning for specific purposes. However, they have and do change over time as people use them and as features become necessary or arbitrary. Twitter was originally created as a means to send a message and broadcast it to all of your friends as opposed to texting one person at a time. Facebook’s original idea was to connect students online on a Harvard campus. Instagram was created as a platform solely focused on communicating through images. Today, all three of these apps have morphed into something similar but different in the way people currently use them. 

Learning about how these platforms were created and how they are used now will help you gain a better understanding and decide if it’s right for you and your business or not. Do some research, play around with your own personal accounts and you’ll get a feel of the tone pretty quickly as well as what people usually use the app for. Twitter is all about sharing opinions and quick news. Facebook is mostly used to share information and connect with family and friends, typically people you know. TikTok is more for sharing short, fun entertaining and creative videos. There’s obviously more to the apps that I listed, but you get the point! 

CONSIDER YOUR BRAND IDENTITY AND YOUR BRAND VOICE

As mentioned before, each platform has its own purpose and therefore its own style. If your brand doesn’t match the style of the platform, you might not be as successful using it. Think about your brand voice and your brand identity and how you want to use them to grow your business. Then consider what platforms might match that. Facebook is a must for online businesses because it’s the largest platform with over 2 billion people actively using it, and it’s used for a variety of things: events, images, videos, news, opinions, etc. But pretty much every other app is slightly more niche than Facebook, and requires you to really think about what you want to do on social media and if your efforts will be beneficial to you and your audience. What kinds of messages will you be putting out into the world? Do you want that communication to be more visual or textual? Short or long form? 

THINK ABOUT HOW YOUR AUDIENCE IS USING SOCIAL MEDIA

Your audience might be on one platform but not the other. If you understand your audience, and understand the different platforms, you will likely have ideas as to what platform they are most likely to be on and where they’re most likely to engage with your brand. If your business is all about lifestyle blogs or hand-made home goods, Pinterest would be a great app for you to use as it is mainly used by people who are interested in those things. They’d be more likely to engage with you there as opposed to on Twitter where people are more interested in politics, breaking news, and strong opinions.

The main social media platforms used for business include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. But as mentioned, there are a lot of other platforms to think of too. To help recap, here’s a quick breakdown of some of the most popular apps.

Facebook: Approximately 2.7 billion users. Mostly used to connect with people you know, friends and family, looking at local business pages and reviews, sharing casual or official photos, joining private groups, sharing events, funny memes and status updates. The app has incredible targeted advertising services for that elevated step in digital marketing too.

Instagram: Approximately 1 billion users. Mostly used to communicate through images and videos. The tone and style is all about aesthetic and allure, but entertaining too. If you want to be successful on the ‘gram’ you need to have strong visual content.

Twitter: Approximately 350 million users. Mostly used to share your thoughts and opinions with short messages (limit of 280 characters) on the news, politics and current events, quick updates, silly memes, asking questions, etc. The tone is clever and witty. Lots of businesses use Twitter to provide those quick updates or engage in conversation with people online. If you want to be successful on Twitter you need to have a strong brand voice.

Pinterest: Approximately 416 million users. Mostly used to create digital vision boards, find ideas, search crafts, recipes, DIY projects, and educational materials. If you want to be successful on Pinterest you need strong visual content and be able to provide some kind of relevant, helpful content.

LinkedIn: Approximately 290 million users. Mostly used for showcasing digital resumes, professional networking, career development opportunities, and job boards. You should definitely make a personal account for LinkedIn for networking, and you can make a profile as your company if you want to establish authority in your industry and attract talent.

Youtube: Approximately 2 billion users. Mostly used for sharing educational or entertainment content. To be successful on Youtube, you must have consistent, strong video and audio content that is either informative, entertaining, educational, or highly creative. People come to Youtube to watch videos so it’s great for longer content, as opposed to other apps where people are likely scrolling through a bunch of messages.

Tik Tok: Approximately 689 million users. Mostly used for sharing quick (limit 1 minute) videos that are highly creative, funny or entertaining. Think dance videos, internet challenges, pranks and skits. If you have a bunch of fun ideas for creating these types of short videos for your business, then you may be successful here. 

Quora: Approximately 300 million users. Quora is like a Q&A board. People can post questions and anyone online can answer them, and like or comment on other people’s responses. You really should only be on Quora actively if you want to establish yourself as an expert on a topic.  

There are even more social media apps than listed above! Take the time to research and play around with your own social media pages to figure out what will work best for you and your audience. While social media is key in digital marketing, it’s important to balance this effort with other efforts on your website, emails, ads and everything else you do digitally in order to create a balanced, consistent flow of information and messaging.

Author: Destanie Martin-Johnson

Destanie is a writer from Minnesota and is based in the Twin Cities area. She has a background in journalism, communications and public relations.

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