Every Network is an Island
Cheryl Lawson
Navigating your path through the terrain of social media marketing can seem daunting, particularly when deciding which social media platform is most suitable for your business. You’ve defined your objectives; you may be aiming to hone your skills as a social media marketer for an enterprise or leveraging your knowledge to boost your startup’s growth. In either scenario, the question of “Which social media platform is the best for my business?” inevitably arises.
This is a longstanding debate, yet it’s important to realize that each network carries its own significance. The choice of platform hinges not on general perceptions of ‘the best’, but on what best aligns with your unique business goals and fits the specific needs of your customer personas.
Social media platforms were developed with distinct objectives in mind. Facebook sought to unify individuals worldwide, LinkedIn established an avenue for professional networking, Instagram provided a platform for all age groups to capture and chronicle their significant moments. Consequently, understanding the benefits unique to each platform is vital. It’s about deciding which platform offers the capabilities that best serve your business goals, aligns with your industry and resonates with your defined customer personas.
Remember the initial chapters: “What business are you in?” and “Who is your customer?” Keeping your specific industry and your target customer personas in mind is key when assessing these platforms. Each one offers unique benefits and reaches specific demographics, so consider where your customers are most likely to be active and engaged. The platform that best reaches your customers and aligns with your business objectives is the one you want to focus on.
Side Note:
Regardless of whether you’re a budding startup or an established brand, it’s wise to secure your brand name across all social media networks, even if you’re not actively using them in your current strategy. This preemptive measure ensures your brand name isn’t hijacked or misused by others. The last thing you want is for someone else to lay claim to your brand’s name.
Who Lives There?
A primary appeal of social media for marketers is the extensive targeting options it provides. Unlike traditional marketing which often focuses on mass marketing, social media marketing allows you to precisely target the audience for your marketing campaigns.
Before launching any marketing campaign, it’s essential to set clear goals, including defining the type of audience who should view your ads and how they should interact with your business. For this, it’s essential to know the demographics of users on each social platform. Let’s talk Statistics for a bit.
Find more statistics at Statista
Facebook is populated mostly by adults of 25-34 years age group. The second largest group is 18-24 years who make up 23.8% of Facebook’s population and only 4.8% of users fall into the senior age group. The biggest country present on the platform is India, while users from the US and Canada are only 10% of the total Facebook population. As for gender, males dominate the platform with 56% of the total population. Also, 51% active users visit the website several times a day and 75% of Facebook users are at least college graduates.
On Instagram, the highest population is of 25-34 year olds who make up 33.1% of all users and age group of 18-24 years is second with 29.6% share. Most of them come from the US, whereas India and Brazil hold second and third positions respectively. 43% of these users are college graduates and 42% earn over $75,000 per annum.
Over 510 million users are females and males are behind with a difference of 20 million. These users spend around 28 minutes a day on Insta. Most users follow at least a single brand on the app and 73% of teens in the US find Instagram the easiest way to reach and interact with a brand.
TikTok
TikTok is a customer favorite app and stands second among the most popular free apps of 2019. Its users are present in 141 countries while China, India, United States, and Turkey are among the countries where it is more frequently downloaded and used.
44% TikTok users are females and 56% are males. Out of these, 41% users are aged 16-24 years who spend at least 52 minutes every day on the app, watching videos related to entertainment, dance, pranks, fitness and other categories.
90% of TikTok or Douyin users access the app via Android smartphones and maintain a healthy engagement rate of 52%. In 2019, people spent $115.3 million on the app for in-app purchases, influencer marketing, etc.
This was a brief overview of some popular social platforms. You can opt for the platform that suits your business needs.
What Language Do They Speak?
Whether you’re talking to friends in a party, communicating with little kids in social gatherings, or sharing thoughts with business associates in a professional setting, you should always be aware of your audience. When you choose the language or tone they understand, you can conveniently communicate with each other without misunderstandings.
Don’t forget this rule when communicating with your audience on social media. Creating a profile on social websites is easy. What’s difficult is to spread your message and get people talking about the brand in a positive manner. However, this objective can be achieved by determining what type of content the audience prefers and creating posts accordingly.
Hashtags (#)
Hashtags were introduced by Chris Messina in an attempt to organize content on social media. Twitter platform first introduced this unique feature in 2007, but it was later adopted by Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn due to its usability.
A hashtag categorizes content on the basis of topic. If you want to reach the right audience for your business, you need to target popular and relevant ones. Moreover, you can also create custom hashtags to promote your products.
Let’s discuss this concept with an example. Imagine that a roofing service provider hires you as a social media marketer. To build their business online, you need to come up with suitable hashtags for the social marketing strategy. Here are a few trends and hashtags that may prove useful:
#roofing #roofingcontractor #construction #greenroofing #roofrepair #roofgutters
Long Form vs. Short Form Content
The internet users tend to have short attention spans. They easily get distracted and can ignore your posts if they don’t find it interesting. This is why content marketing in digital media focuses on captivating and concise content that can keep readers hooked till the last line.
If we need to keep the content short, how can we share important information or news with the target audience?
It’s common for social media marketers to get confused about the length of content. But you should remember that the content length depends on the interest of your audience as well as the platform where you intend to post it.
If you are planning to set up a company blog, it’s best to opt for long-form content. The purpose of blogging is to educate people about a relevant topic and offer comprehensive solutions to problems. For example, if you are an expert in providing electrical installation and repair services, you may want to write posts about safety tips for customers. Blog posts can be 500-1,000 words, but you should aim for publishing blogs of 2,000-2,500 words to boost SEO score.
LinkedIn is also suitable for posting long-form content. You can write about your area of expertise and experiences to share knowledge with other professionals.
Other social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. may be suitable for short-term content. Whether you are thinking of creating text posts, videos, or images, it’s a better option to keep the content short for better engagement.
Also, don’t forget that long form videos aren’t compatible with most social websites. Instagram supports videos of up to 15 seconds. So, if you are creating long form informative videos, it may be a good option to post it on YouTube and share a brief snippet on Twitter and other social websites. Your followers who find the topic interesting will visit your YouTube channel to watch the entire video.
What’s Their Favorite Dish?
Back in the day, social media marketing was all about text posts and still images. With technology advancements, a wide variety of content is now available to internet users. Let’s first take a look at the most popular types of digital content. After that, we will discuss which content goes well with popular social websites.
- Blogs or articles
- eBooks
- Images (still images, GIFs, 360° images)
- Videos (recorded videos and live streaming)
- Infographics
- Testimonials
- Contests
- Polls
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- How-to guides
Instagram is an image-based platform. To promote your brand, you can share high-quality images of products, team members, as well as stills from networking events. Adding relevant captions and hashtags is also essential. A similar strategy is suitable for Pinterest where you can capture attention via images.
As for Facebook, videos perform far better than any other type of content. This includes live streams as well as processed images for coverage of organizational events. You can also post videos developed with the aim of advertising on your Facebook page.
With the increasing population of TikTok, you shouldn’t ignore its importance in the marketing plan. You can complement videos with captions and can include links to your website to increase web traffic.
Twitter network was mostly known for its credibility when it comes to news and information. Users of this platform show more interest in professionally processed content which includes informational infographics and videos. Lately, in 2024, the credibility of the platform has suffered as Elon Musk’s pay for verified status has blurred the lines of trustworthiness on the platform.
For LinkedIn, you can turn to long form articles, user guides, and eBooks to increase engagement. We all know YouTube is one of the most popular video streaming websites. So, you can post videos on this platform regardless of their size or length.