How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business
There are common questions every business asks when setting up a new social media strategy. One common question is, “Which social media platform is best for my business?” What is really meant is, which social media channel is going to drive the most website traffic and sales for the business.
First, determine what resources your business has to devote to social media and other marketing efforts. Are you a solopreneur who is going to work on a do-it-yourself (DIY) strategy and little or no budget? You will need to invest in some free or low cost tools to your social content creation does not suck up the day, every day!
Brands have a full marketing team and art department that works together to produce content and measure results. A brand will most likely going be on all major social channels. They will also experiment with some of the more promising flash-in-the-pans in case one sticks. Remember Meerkat of just one year ago? Vine is gone now too, with Periscope barely hanging on. Trailblazer Snapchat is in a copycat battle with brazen Instagram.
Start with the largest social channel, Facebook. Founded in 2004, Facebook has over 1.18 billion daily active users on average. If a brand wants to have a real strategy on Facebook, they will have to optimize the mobile user’s experience too. Facebook has over 1.09 billion mobile daily active users on average. [1] The largest social channel also has the widest age range, although younger users favor Instagram and Snapchat.
What is the age range of your target audience? Whom do you need to reach to acquire more customers? Snapchat skews toward the younger audience with 46.8% of its users between the ages of 18 and 24. However, there are. More recent surveys shows 31% of 25 to 34 year olds use the mobile-only app. [2]
Can you represent your products well in photos? Visual social media platforms such as Instagram make photo sharing easy. If you r brand is about food, travel, beauty, or fitness these social channels are a good fit!
Like Snapchat, Instagram is also a mobile only social media app. As of June 2016 Instagram boasted over 500 million monthly active users! Any service can do well on Instagram with a little creativity and imagination.
The other highly visual app is Pinterest. The mobile and desktop social media channel has surpassed 150 million monthly active users, which is a 50% increase over last year’s numbers.
The social media site recently announced it has surpassed 150 million monthly active users,
Even if your business or brand is social media veteran, do not ever stop asking those first questions. Many start posting on social and never take the time or do not have the resources to assess their efforts and regroup. Periodically check analyze your metrics too see which social media channel is working best for your brand. Try to at least estimate the ROI and consider repositioning as needed.
Sources:
[1] Facebook Company Newsroom
[2] Comscore 2016 U.S. Cross-Platform Future in Focus
[3] Pinterest Blog
