What Social Media should I be using?
Ad spending on social media is projected to reach over $173 billion in 2022
Social media usage continues to dominate the digital landscape
Diving into the realm of social media marketing can be a daunting task, but with over 3.4 billion active social media users worldwide, it’s now a necessity for most businesses to include in their marketing strategy. From Facebook to LinkedIn to Pinterest, each social network has its own uses when it comes to promoting your business online. The main question you may be asking yourself is, “Which social media platforms are best for my business?”
In this post, we’re going to cover some of the most popular social media platforms and how to determine which one will be the most effective for your business. At The Fusion Brand, our Sydney digital marketing agency has expertise in social media, so we’ll walk you through what you need to know to understand the pros and cons of each platform for your social media marketing.
WHAT TO KNOW FIRST
Before we jump into the meat of each social media platform, there are a few things you need to ask yourself about your business. First, are you a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) company? While social media can be effective for both types, certain platforms are better suited to B2C vs. B2B businesses. B2B and B2C businesses will also have a different strategy for what types of posts they do.
Another question to ask yourself is, who is your target audience? When creating ads, narrowing down your audience is essential to investing your money wisely and increasing your brand awareness effectively. Parameters such as location, gender, hobbies, interests, and age are a few important demographics to know and efficiently understand your target audience.
Finally, what are a few of your business goals when it comes to implementing a social media marketing strategy? While it may seem obvious that you ultimately want more leads or sales, you may also want to use social media as a way to enhance your public relations strategy. Or, you may want to increase your brand awareness or use social networks as a way of tracking your competition. Whatever your goals may be, having a clear list is essential before deciding which platforms you want to focus on.
With over 2.32 billion monthly active users, it should come as no surprise that Facebook is the leading powerhouse in social media marketing. If you’re a B2C company, being on Facebook is a no-brainer, and using Facebook ads is a great way to reach your target audience and get even more exposure for your products. Even if you’re not planning on using Facebook in your marketing strategy, it’s still worth setting up a Facebook Business Page since search engines will look at your business profile for search results.
Dominant Demographics
One of the best things about Facebook marketing is its wide demographic reach. If your target audience is between the ages of 22 to 55+, Facebook is the perfect option for your social media marketing strategy. With Facebook’s detailed advertising capabilities, you’re also able to target by gender, interests, purchasing behaviours, and much more. This gives your business the flexibility to put your business right in front of the exact audience that you’re looking for.
Industries Served
Nearly any type of industry (excluding adult products, unregulated supplements, weapons, etc.) can advertise on Facebook. Some of the top-selling industries include fashion, retail, sports, real estate, health and wellness, and news, but that doesn’t mean your business won’t thrive on Facebook as well. If you’re selling to a smaller niche market or even to a foreign market, Facebook is extremely beneficial in increasing your business’ brand awareness through their comprehensive ad services.
Best Business Benefits
If you’re looking to generate more leads and sales, Facebook e-commerce is where it’s at. With its ease of use and ability to leverage all content formats (video, images, text, etc.), Facebook has by far the most developed advertising platform’s on the market. Even if you’re not focusing on generating leads, Facebook’s algorithms reward companies for posting content it sees as valuable. So if you’re looking to increase your brand awareness or generate better public relations, posting content that sparks conversation is a good place to start.
YOUTUBE
Next to Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet. From beauty products to sports videos, everyone is on YouTube looking up content. Even if you don’t think that your target audience is on YouTube, think about how many times you’ve viewed ads when looking up a new movie trailer or when you’re watching another cute cat video. Depending on the industry you’re in, having a YouTube channel may not be a necessity for your business, but it may be a good option for advertising.
Dominant Demographics
With predominantly male users, the demographics of YouTube users are very predictable. Male-dominated YouTube categories include topics like video games and sports, while the female categories are dominated by cosmetics and skin care. There’s also a large age gap between users, with younger users spending more time on the site than their older counterparts.
Industries Served
As with the gender and age demographics, the dominant industries on YouTube are much the same—sports, video games, beauty products, skincare, health, etc. Yet despite that, the variety of ads on YouTube has a much wider range. On average, if a user isn’t hooked on your video or ad within 10 seconds, they’re going to leave, but thanks to features like YouTube Cards or interactive end screens on videos, there are many ways to get people to click your ads.
Best Business Benefits
Regardless of how you want to implement YouTube into your social media marketing strategy, you need to consider it if you want to improve your SEO or web presence. Because YouTube is owned by Google, optimizing video descriptions with keywords can help you gain potential leads and improve your discoverability in search engines.
Owned by Facebook, Instagram is another social media marketing powerhouse when used correctly. It’s best for B2C customers, but if your company has a visual product, then you’ll likely want to put your business on this social media platform. A key point to remember with Instagram, though, is that its users expect high-quality media—stock images and videos will not work, so it may take some extra investment before you see a return. On the positive side, because Facebook owns it, you will have access to some of the same features and ad targeting options that you’re already familiar with.
Dominant Demographics
If your target audience is not young or female, Instagram might not be your best choice, since it’s dominated by 18-34-year-olds, 68% of whom are female. While you may use Instagram to post photos of your employees or some behind-the-scenes action at your company, your marketing strategy may not need to include spending time or money here. If you do decide to advertise, you can do so via Ads Manager on Facebook.
Industries Served
Instagram is a great market for the travel, fashion, food, photography, and beauty industries. Especially if you have a product people love to talk about, know that the engagement rate on Instagram is 58 percent higher than it is on Facebook, so it’s still a social media platform to take into consideration. Being very photo and video-heavy, Instagram is the place to be if your business is selling a visual product.
Best Business Benefits
Unless you’re running ads, Instagram is not a great place for generating leads. Ads on Instagram are one of the only places to put links to link to your website, but Instagram can still be great for brand awareness. By posting good, thought-provoking content, or even just posts about your company culture, having a presence on Instagram can be a great benefit for your business.
Can you get your thoughts across in 280 characters or less? Do you have the manpower and time to be vigilant about posting and monitoring your Twitter feed? Are you open to facing public criticism and feedback? If you’re up for the challenge, Twitter is the social media platform for you. Known for its real-time updates, hashtags, and customer service uses, Twitter can be a great outlet for your B2C or B2B company.
Dominant Demographics
While it has a close 50/50 split of male and female users, Twitter is definitely more focused on a younger target age. Unlike Facebook, Twitter is a viable space for organic engagement where you don’t need to pay to reach followers. If your audience is structured toward teens or millennials, Twitter may be a good addition to your marketing plan.
Industries Served
Having practically revolutionized the news industry, Twitter has become a space for consumers to discuss current events and trends, and rant about all things political. Retail, health, travel, finances, sports, and fashion are other industry markets that tend to shine on Twitter.
Best Business Benefits
If customers ever have a problem with your product, a lot of people will turn to Twitter and tweet at you for help. In that regard, Twitter becomes a great platform for customer service and answering customer questions. As a result, companies are able to come off as more personal to consumers and bridge that gap between their business and customers.
No longer just for job searches or resumes, LinkedIn is the social media platform for business. If your company is a B2B company, this is the social media platform for you. Now a place for industry experts to share content and network with each other, LinkedIn has become a hub for professionals that you should consider joining.
Dominant Demographics
The demographics on LinkedIn are fairly well-rounded – you’ll find both men and women between the ages of 25 and 45. Because of its professional nature, people using LinkedIn typically have twice the buying power compared to the average web audience, and consumers are more likely to trust other professionals that they find through LinkedIn.
Industries Served
Recruiters and businesses seeking out jobs have been using LinkedIn from the beginning, but secondary education and high-end B2B industries have also taken root in the platform. While advertising on LinkedIn may not be as advanced as other social media platforms like Facebook, it’s easier to target specific businesses or job titles due to its professional nature.
Best Business Benefits
Since LinkedIn is considered a social media platform for business, people are more likely to take businesses on LinkedIn seriously. If your B2B business is looking to make more business connection, or if you think other companies will be looking for your services, LinkedIn is going to be the best social media network for your business.
One of the more unique social media platforms, Pinterest is another one that is great for B2C companies, especially in the creative industry. Hobbyists and crafters use this visual outlet as a way to plan and generate ideas, pinning things like food recipes, wedding inspiration ideas, how-to articles, and more. Discovering new products is the drive behind Pinterest, which gives your business a unique opportunity to tailor your consumer’s purchases.
Dominant Demographics
Pinterest has a very dominant female demographic, so if your products do not cater to women, you may want to invest your time elsewhere. If you’re selling products or services that relate to any of the target industries below, you’ll likely want to consider spending some of your marketing budget on Pinterest.
Industries Served
From recipes to crafts, we’ve all seen our peers sharing their Pinterest discoveries on social media. That’s why the health, food, arts and crafts, home and garden, and event industries do so well in this market. Although the majority of businesses selling a product can find their target audience on Pinterest, there’s a reason women tend to flock to Pinterest for the same content types time and time again.
Best Business Benefits
Just like Instagram, Pinterest is highly focused on images and visual products. Having high-quality images is essential to growing the awareness of your brand or products on Pinterest. The engagement rate on this platform is extremely high, and because consumers come to Pinterest to plan for future purchases, it’s a great way to generate leads back to your website.
Pinterest (Paid Advertising)
Advertising on Pinterest is like running ads on a bus that only goes to the mall. Everyone on board is ready to shop. You just need to get your brand in front of them. Pinterest is unique among social platforms because its users are — largely — going there to discover new products, and they respond well to ads. Pinterest offers a mix of free and paid advertising tools, and combining both can earn you 3x more conversions and twice the ROI on your ad spend, versus paid ads alone. Plus, Pinterest has one of the lowest CPCs in social media advertising.
Dominant Demographics
Pinterest continues to grow year over year. There are now 444 million active monthly users, up from approximately 250 million in 2019. That’s more than the population of the United States. And, while there are many male and non-binary Pinners out there, over 44% of Pinterest’s advertising audience are women between 25-44 — an important demographic for many industries.
Industries Served
Pinterest is an image-based social media network where users and businesses can promote and explore their interests by pinning images and videos on virtual bulletin boards. Pinterest is great for ecommerce’s related industry, just as it is for service based industries. Infographics, short videos, Collection ads, Carousel ads and the recent addition of Product Rich Pins means any business can use it.
Best Business Benefits
This is for getting your name out there, either for your company or a specific product launch. This is the loose craft glitter of advertising goals: get discovered everywhere by everyone in every nook and cranny (of the internet) for weeks and months to come.
Facebook Ads (Paid Advertising)
The most significant benefit of Facebook advertising is targeting. With Facebook, you can reach customers that are the most profitable for you. The better understanding a company has about its target group, the better the data can be used to create more useful campaigns. Due to the nature of targeting, you will find an audience you might have never discovered otherwise.
Dominant Demographics
Facebook ads have become a core component of countless digital marketing campaigns because they are remarkably effective for businesses operating at every scale.
Industries Served
Facebook ads give you access to a treasure trove of highly detailed consumer data. This makes it an ideal platform for top-of-funnel campaigns that are focused on driving purchase intent that may never have existed. This means, Facebook ads are important to every business as the data insight could be the reason why a business is struggling. Their message is addressing the wrong customers and the real customers who do want the offering are lost in the communication.
Best Business Benefits
Sometimes you need more results and visibility than cost-effective search engine marketing could provide. Facebook marketing will provide more visibility if your product category isn’t as searched as you’ve hoped. Cold traffic has to be warmed through increasing marketing attribution across the funnel. The more your brand is seen, the more likely customers are to convert in time. With Facebook ads, we can create complete digital marketing experiences that bring cold traffic into customers through retargeting at the right. Facebook marketing, in general, is a great tool to be used for increasing online activity in any business.
Google Adwords (Paid Advertising)
Remember when Google Ads was just text-based ads on its search engine result pages? It now includes image-based ads on the world’s largest display ad network and video advertising on YouTube. But the strength of Google Ads is more than sheer size. It includes the ability to reach potential customers who are ready to buy (through keyword-based search or shopping campaigns). And image-based display ads with powerful retargeting and customization features.
Dominant Demographics
If you are in an industry where most people simply google for your services then this is the perfect platform.
Industries Served
While there might be an obscene amount of searches performed on Google every day, not all searches will be relevant to your business. Google’s Ad network allows flexible targeting to ensure your ad only reaches out to those who need your goods or services. When Google Ads are set up and established correctly, this form of online advertising can ensure your business is targeting the right people, in the right place at the right time. That is one of the best ways to use your marketing spend during a global crisis where every cent counts!
Best Business Benefits
Google is the World’s No.1 Search Platform. The Google search engine attracts 5 billion searches a day. Google Ads allows Pinpoint Targeting. Does anymore need to be said?
Google Performance MAX (Paid Advertising)
Performance Max campaigns were first introduced in November 2021 as a way for Google Ads users to get more out of… Following a successful launch, Performance Max will soon become the only campaign type for businesses running Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. Google Performance Max is a new goal-based campaign type that, as the name implies, is focused on maximizing performance.
Dominant Demographics
This is great if you are an eCommerce site and/or your have incredible images of your products.
Industries Served
Online stores.
Best Business Benefits
One of the biggest differences that separate Google Performance Max campaigns from other Google Ads campaigns is automation and machine learning. With Performance Max, you provide the information (such as campaign goals, budget, and target metrics), and Google handles the targeting and delivery of the ads using Smart Bidding.
Smart Bidding is an automated bid strategy that optimizes for conversion across all channels, allowing for real-time management of bids, budgets, audiences, creatives, attributions, and more.
Tik Tok ADS (Paid Advertising)
In 2021, just two years after the platform launched ads, TikTok had more than one billion active users worldwide. It’s an entertaining, engaging way of promoting your brand – if you run ads on that puppy, you’re going to be seen.
Dominant Demographics
It is no secret that most of the content creators on TikTok are GenZ, but a common misconception about TikTok is that every user is between the ages of 16 and 24. While 41% of users do fall into this age range, this means that 59% of the platform is made up of users from the Millenial, GenX, and even Baby Boomer generations (my 60 year old father is on the app—hi dad!).
In fact, within the past 18 months, the number of US adult TikTok users has grown 5.5 times, receiving more downloads within Q1 2020 than any other app ever during the same time span (likely due to the spread of COVID-19 and quarantine, but 5.5 times is still impressive).
Industries Served
Most of the ads on TikTok are for ecommerce, streaming service, and app downloads, usually wanting you to take some sort of action like go to their website or start a free trial.
Best Business Benefits
TikTok is great for influencer marketing. These creators (influencers, celebrities, bloggers, and athletes) use TikTok to share their perspectives, recipes, families, dance moves, and other aspects of their daily lives. But unlike Instagram which uses heavy editing, professional studio lighting, makeup, and camera work, the idea on TikTok is to share experiences in the raw. This makes for more relatable and genuine content.
LinkedIn Ads
Why You Need To Use it:
LinkedIn is the largest professional social media platform with over 600 million users worldwide. It’s a place where business owners and professionals come together to connect, share ideas, and build relationships. By using LinkedIn ads, you can target specific groups of people and reach your ideal audience effectively and efficiently.
Dominant Demographics:
LinkedIn’s dominant demographics are educated professionals, executives, and business owners. This makes it an ideal platform to target your B2B marketing efforts. With the ability to target specific job titles, industries, and companies, LinkedIn ads allow you to reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message.
Industries Served:
LinkedIn is a platform for all industries, but it is particularly well-suited for B2B industries such as technology, finance, marketing, and consulting. Whether you’re a software company, a financial institution, or a marketing agency, LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity to reach your target audience and build your brand.
Best Business Benefits:
LinkedIn ads offer a number of benefits for businesses. Firstly, it provides access to a highly engaged audience of professionals who are interested in your products and services. Secondly, it allows for targeted advertising, which means you can reach specific groups of people with your messages. Lastly, LinkedIn provides detailed analytics, so you can track the success of your campaigns and adjust your strategy accordingly.
OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS
While you may feel a little overwhelmed with all this social media info, it’s important to know that we only scratched the surface. There are so many other social media platforms out there that could benefit your business: Google My Business, Snapchat, Reddit, Yelp, Foursquare, just name a few. With an endless amount of resources and ways to help your business, here’s one tidbit of advice—don’t spread yourself too thin by signing up for too many platforms.
Start out slow and decide one by one which platforms are going to work best for you. If you need more help, know that The Fusion Brand is only a few clicks away. We’re easy to work with and happy to help when it comes to all of your social media marketing needs! Our digital agency is in Lancaster and helps small businesses with internet marketing services
