The digital landscape is always evolving. In this digital age of business, keeping up with the fast-paced world of social media marketing can be challenging but incredibly rewarding. Establishing an effective digital brand presence is more crucial than ever. But with so many social media platforms for business available, which ones should you focus on? Let’s dive in!
What are the Benefits of Social Media For Business?
According to Business.Gov.Au, social media has nine (9) benefits for your business:
- Get more customers and build customer loyalty.
- Expand reach not just in your area but across every region.
- Research the market to cut costs.
- Boost sales with ads and customer connections.
- Build your brand.
- Share ideas to enhance business methods.
- Hire experts, using sites like LinkedIn.
- Drive more visitors to your site and rank better in search engines.
- Watch what competitors are doing.
Having a presence on several social media platforms for your business increases brand visibility. It diversifies your reach, ensuring that your content touches every corner of the digital brand presence spectrum. Moreover, multi-platform strategies often lead to higher social media ROI.
What Is The Best Social Media Platform For Business?
Different industries have different needs. While mainstream social media platforms cater to a broader audience, niche platforms can offer direct engagement with a targeted demographic. Research your industry to find out if there’s a niche platform that’s perfect for you.
The Big Players: Platforms Every Business Knows
This platform is more than just connecting with friends. Businesses can tap into a broad audience, making it an essential tool for Social Media Strategy for Business. With its vast user base, it’s a must-have.
- Monthly Active Users: Approximately 2.9 billion.
- Ideal for: Both B2B and B2C.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 25-34 years.
- Most Active Countries: India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico are among the top countries in terms of user base.
- Active users every day: Around 2.04 billion daily active users.
(Source: Statista.com)
To get the most out of the platform, open a Facebook page for your business and make sure the following are present:
- Your company information (name, address, telephone number, email address, opening hours, etc.)
- Profile picture and Facebook cover
- Photos and videos (preferably with at least one post daily)
The great thing about Facebook is that it’s free but you can opt to promote, boost, or advertise your brand using their Ads Manager under Meta Business Suite with just the fraction of a cost compared to TV or newspaper advertising.
When it comes to Visual Content Marketing, Instagram stands tall. It offers a unique platform for visual storytelling, allowing brands to connect emotionally with their audience.
- Monthly Active Users: 1.4 billion.
- Ideal for: Primarily B2C, but B2B is growing.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 18-34 years.
- Most Active Countries: United States, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia.
- Active users every day: Over 500 million daily active users.
(Source: Statista.com)
If your business revolves around fashion, travel, food, lifestyle, and other related niche, your Instagram account would most likely flourish and get the attention of your target audience.
Instagram uses hashtags. Aside from using your official hashtag, including related hashtags on your posts will increase your chances of being seen on the network.
If your Facebook posts are quite formal, you can go informal on Instagram. Show your audience what happens behind the scenes of your business and make sure every post is creative and visually-appealing.
For Online Business Networking and B2B Social Networking, LinkedIn is unparalleled. It’s the go-to platform for professionals seeking to connect and collaborate.
- Monthly Active Users: Over 740 million members, but not all are monthly active users.
- Ideal for: B2B.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 25-34 years.
- Most Active Countries: United States, India, China, Brazil, and the UK.
- Active users every day: 141 million people log in every single day.
- 96% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing.
- More than 61 million companies are on LinkedIn
(Source: Statista.com)
LinkedIn is not just a recruitment tool. It’s a platform for growth, connection, brand building, and fostering relationships that can drive the business forward. It allows your small businesses to connect with industry leaders, potential partners, suppliers, and even competitors to build beneficial relationships.
Moreover, having an active LinkedIn business profile can establish credibility, showing potential clients or partners that you’re serious about your business.
Emerging Platforms & Their Business Potential
TikTok
Want to capture a younger demographic? TikTok, with its vast young user base, is perfect for businesses aiming for Multi-platform Engagement with the Gen Z crowd.
- Monthly Active Users: Around 1 billion outside China (Douyin, TikTok’s version for China, has its own user base).
- Ideal for: B2C.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 16-24 years.
- Most Active Countries: India (before the ban in 2020), China (under the name Douyin), United States, Indonesia.
- Active users every day: 50 million users in the US alone
(Source: Statista.com)
TikTok’s algorithm allows even small accounts to go viral, which can mean immense brand visibility in a short time.
The platform offers various advertising options like In-Feed Ads, Brand Takeovers, and TopView Ads to enhance visibility.
They have intergrated e-commerce feature called “Shop Now” buttons. TikTok is becoming a potential sales channel for businesses.
A real-time newsflash, Twitter now changed its name to X enables businesses to engage dynamically, providing the latest updates, answering queries, or jumping into trending conversations.
- Monthly Active Users: Approximately 397 million.
- Ideal for: Both B2B and B2C.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 18-29 years.
- Most Active Countries: United States, Japan, India, and the UK.
- Active users every day: Over 150 million.
(Source: Statista.com)
Twitter is a great way to handle the customer service of your business, especially if you are prompt in responding to their Tweets and Retweets. The more active your Twitter account, the more likely your customers will connect with you on a regular basis.
Create a hashtag for your brand and make sure it represents all the good qualities of your business. Make sure it’s present in majority of your Tweets.
What’s great about Twitter is that your Tweets may have the potential to go viral with or without the help of Twitter Ads.
Youtube
As the second largest search engine after Google, YouTube is indispensable. It’s the home for video content, from tutorials to brand stories, reaching a vast and diverse audience.
- Monthly Active Users: Over 2.2 billion logged-in users.
- Ideal for: Both B2B and B2C.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 15-35 years.
- Most Active Countries: United States, India, Japan, Russia, and China.
- Active users every day: Over 122 million.
(Source: Statista.com)
According to YouTube, its users watch the platform similar to the way they watch TV. So if your business has video ads, webinars, and other related stuff, this network will surely help make your business become visible.
If you’re keen on advertising your business on YouTube, you will probably get every cent’s worth because partner revenue has seen an increase of 50% in 3 years! Just like your posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, YouTube videos have the potential to go viral with or without the help of paid ads.
An often-overlooked goldmine, Pinterest is a hub for audience targeting on social platforms. It’s the place where ideas come to life, and products can shine.
- Monthly Active Users: Around 450 million.
- Ideal for: B2C.
- Most Active Age Demographic: 18-49 years with a notable percentage being women.
- Most Active Countries: United States, followed by Germany, France, and the UK.
(Source: Statista.com)
Pinterest is an online version of a bulletin or pin board you have at home or in the office. Your posts are called pins and are organized by categories. If you have a restaurant, your pins will most likely be organized into Menu, Appetizers, Soups, Main Courses, Desserts, Specialty of the Week, and more.
Just like Instagram, every pin should be eye-catching and contain a flair for creativity to be noticed.
Conclusion: Crafting a Strategic Social Media Presence
With different kinds of social media platforms for businesses to choose from, it’s essential to be where your audience is. Whether it’s the tried-and-true platforms or the new kids on the block, a well-thought-out strategy can elevate your brand, ensuring you’re always in the spotlight.
