There are currently a myriad of social media platforms you could use to promote your business. It seems impossible to be active on all of them, and it's challenging to winnow them down to a manageable few. See how you can select the right social media platforms to achieve your business goals in an efficient way.
There are currently a myriad of social media platforms you could use to promote your business. It seems impossible to be active on all of them, and it's challenging to winnow them down to a manageable and effective few.
This guide explains how you can select the right social media platforms to achieve your business goals in an efficient way.
Be as specific as possible about who you want to target and do business with. Develop buyer personas that document the critical characteristics of your ideal buyers. Create a persona for each different type of consumer. For instance, if you own a children’s store, you would probably want to create different personas for parents and grandparents because they would likely interact with your business in unique ways.
Consider the following questions as you build your personas:
When you have these answers, you can help build out your profiles.
After you’ve defined your ideal customers, you can set sales and other goals based on them. Use the following questions to guide you:
Once you understand your goals, you can figure out how to use social media to achieve them. For instance, you could use it to build brand awareness, as a customer service tool, and to collect positive reviews from happy customers.
Next, do some research about social media to find out where the people you are targeting spend time and what they do there.
Do your due diligence and review the demographics for each platform. Consider how active your target audiences are on each channel as you evaluate your options. Here are some general guidelines.
If you’re trying to build brand awareness and educate consumers about your products or services, Facebook and Instagram could be excellent choices. The two platforms have almost 3.5 billion monthly users worldwide. Since the user base of both social media channels is so broad, you can likely find the consumers you are looking for using careful targeting.
You can create marketing campaigns on Facebook and Instagram that target things like:
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, provides powerful targeting tools and tracking to ensure you reach the people you want to connect with.
Facebook and Instagram are great for building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, and generating sales. Facebook can go beyond Instagram to help educate consumers about your brand and offerings.
In 2023, Meta launched Threads. It became the fastest social media platform to reach 100 million users and has since become a regular part of many people’s lives.
Most people use Threads for entertainment and to stay current with news and real-time events. While entertainment and education are key draws, users also enjoy seeing brands interact with one another. Partnering with related companies could be an effective strategy to build engagement. For instance, a gym could interact with a health food company to generate brand awareness and engagement among consumers with an interest in healthy living.
Before there was the ubiquitous (and consistently under threat) TikTok, there was Snapchat. Many younger people use both regularly.
If your customer base falls into the younger (Gen Z) category, you likely need to be on these platforms. They feed the insatiable desire for short-form content. Currently, TikTok has more than 1.8 billion active users per month worldwide, while Snapchat has more than 800 million. Taken together, these platforms can allow you to connect with the younger consumers you want to reach through humorous and helpful video and image content. They can be great tools for building brand awareness and educating consumers.
If your business sells simple-to-understand, highly-visual products, Pinterest could be an ideal platform to showcase them. Pinterest can help you build brand awareness among people looking to purchase something. Because Pinners are in shopping mode, they’re more likely to pay attention to ads than people on other social media platforms. Beyond this, the typical cost per click on Pinterest is typically lower than on other social sites.
Almost half of all social media users across all ages have an X profile, with men significantly more likely to have one than women.
Consumers use X for entertainment, connecting with friends and family, keeping up with influencers and celebrities, and accessing news and opinions. When it comes to advertising, X serves a different purpose. It is a great tool for educating people about products and services and promoting contests and giveaways.
Be aware that even though X has many pluses, some people have negative impressions of it because of the controversies associated with it. Before promoting your business on X, consider the impact doing so could have on your brand.
LinkedIn’s users are mostly Gen Xers and Millennials working in corporations. It is the top platform for everything career-related—jobs, networking, professional development, sharing industry insights, and personal brand building.
LinkedIn is currently the leading platform for business-to-business (B2B) marketing. It’s also an excellent place to source leads. Recent statistics from LinkedIn report that 62 percent of B2B marketers generate leads through its network. If targeting is done thoughtfully, you can earn relatively high conversion rates at an effective cost.
It is fair to consider LinkedIn the adult in the room of social media networks.
Promoting themselves across many social media channels can be challenging for businesses. It can also be costly and inefficient. That’s why it's wise to pick your battles.
Leverage the information in this guide to choose the social media channels that the people you’re targeting engage with to improve your business marketing program. If you have questions, the experts at Jarrah are always available to help.
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