Every small business has a specific voice and audience. Knowing where your audience is online can help you reach that group with little to no cost on your part. Thoroughly understanding the top seven social media platforms and their typical audiences enables you to navigate the best options.
Marketers should never stretch their social media marketing efforts to every channel. Instead, narrow your efforts to the sites with the majority of your target audience and directly market to them there. That way, you can focus on reaching the right people and spend less time on a platform that will prove to be more harmful than helpful in the long run.
Some other benefits include:
Facebook ads allow you to advertise through their platform to people who aren’t visiting your page. Their ads have a simple setup and can be tailored to your specific goals. It also has analytics capabilities for you to measure your success and target your specific audience.
LinkedIn’s focus on professionals particularly benefits B2B companies since they can advertise through the platform. Otherwise, it’s a fantastic system for finding top talent for growing your company.
Twitter ads are also incredibly underrated as some of the highest performers among social media platforms. Engagement rates for Twitter ads are regularly between 1% to 3%, which is incredibly high. For comparison, Facebook ads have an average click-through-rate of 0.119%. People spend 26% more time viewing ads on Twitter than other leading platforms.
Instagram was a huge success almost immediately upon its launch. It’s a fantastic platform for reaching your younger audience since 75% of users 18-24 and 57% 25-30 use the app.
With its expansion into video content, it’s only gained further momentum, considering 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. Instagram also moved directly into eCommerce so their users can purchase items directly from the app instead of going to a different site to make purchases.
Not to mention, there's a lot of value to putting visuals to your brand. It’s a fantastic way to build your brand's creative personality to resonate better with your target audience.
However, the main benefit of Pinterest is that it has some of the highest return on ad spend of any platform. Businesses can regularly expect to get a $2 return for every $1 they spend on advertising. Not to mention that 52% of Pinterest users find items to purchase through the app.
Depending on your industry, you can offer expertise to people looking for advice on doing home construction, crafts, or even professional leadership. Giving advice feels more organic since it isn’t primarily a sales technique.
There are different benefits to posting videos on YouTube and using their advertising. Posting videos can help provide consumers with helpful and entertaining content, while advertising can help get your brand out there to the right people. In the end, you'll want a mix of the two.
While all these platforms have their key advantages, it's best not to be on every social media platform. Instead, focus on the few where you know your customers can be reached rather than putting so much time, effort, and money into trying to reach them on channels they aren't likely to see. When you work with a media partner and narrow down your efforts, you increase local awareness and foot traffic more efficiently.