Social media has transformed the way businesses market their products and services, allowing them to connect with customers, foster relationships, and increase brand visibility. With so many social media platforms available, it can be overwhelming to decide where to focus your efforts. That’s why it’s recommended to only invest in a few platforms and make the most of them.
However, each social media platform is unique and has its own set of features and benefits. To help you out, we’re going to give you a rundown of some of the most popular social media platforms out there for businesses. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to expand your social media presence, this guide will provide you with the information you need to make informed decisions about which platforms to use and how to use them effectively.
With nearly 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook stands as the leading social media platform globally. It caters to a wide range of demographics, making it suitable for businesses targeting diverse audiences. Businesses that typically see the most success on Facebook are e-commerce, local, and service-based businesses.
Facebook provides businesses with a wide range of advertising options, including sponsored posts, video ads, carousel ads, and messenger ads, allowing you to customize campaigns in relation to your specific goals and target audience. The platform also has advanced targeting features that will help you find your target audience based on multiple factors such as age, location, interests, and behaviors, to help your ads reach your ideal customer. Facebook pages, groups, and events help businesses foster engagement and interact with customers. They also offer analytics and insights on key metrics to measure your campaign’s performance and adjust your strategies.
However, Facebook has been seeing a decline in organic reach, making it more difficult for businesses to gain visibility without paying for advertising. It’s also worth mentioning that with the amount of promotional content on the platform, users can become overwhelmed and may experience ad fatigue. To combat this, businesses must stay creative and be sure they are targeting their optimal audience.
Despite being young, Instagram has quickly grown into one of the most popular social media platforms today. Instagram is a visually-driven platform with roughly 1.4 billion monthly active users, making it a useful platform to leverage in your SMM strategy. The industries that tend to have the highest success rate on Instagram are industries that have visual appeal such as fashion, beauty and cosmetics, travel, food and beverage, wellness, and design.
On this platform, businesses can showcase their brand through engaging visual content such as pictures, videos, stories, and reels. The general recommendation is about 2-3 posts a week on your main feed, though you should refrain from posting more than once a day. Stories, on the other hand, are a bit more flexible. You could post on your stories anywhere from 3 times a week to 5 times a day depending on what is most realistic for you.
While the platform already has strong targeting options to help you reach specific demographics, the use of hashtags will further help you improve your discoverability. Instagram also has shoppable posts that facilitate direct purchasing. If you decide to use this platform, building a visually appealing profile, engaging with your followers, and maintaining brand consistency is crucial.
On the downside, much like Facebook, paid advertising might be necessary due to the decline in the platform’s organic reach. Also, because it’s such a visually-driven platform, certain B2B businesses and other professional services may find it more challenging to create visually appealing and engaging content. However, if you have a well-planned strategy and continue to track your metrics to optimize your content, you can still leverage Instagram effectively for your SMM campaign.
Twitter is a fast-paced, highly engaging platform that offers unique opportunities for social media marketing. With over 300 million monthly active users and over 6,000 tweets a second, the platform reduces the amount of “noise” on users’ feeds by having a 280 character limit on posts. This encourages businesses to get their messages out in a concise, yet impactful manner. Because of its real-time structure and emphasis on news and discussion, the industries that tend to have the best luck with Twitter are technology, news and media, entertainment, sports, and higher education.
Twitter’s key features include hashtags, retweets, and mentions, all of which enable businesses to amplify reach, spark conversations, and engage with their audience. Furthermore, the platform’s real-time nature allows you to provide quick customer support and address your audience’s concerns in a timely manner. Twitter ads allow you to target specific demographics, promote your products and services, and drive your website traffic. Their analytics will provide you with valuable data on your tweet performance, your demographics, and your engagement metrics. To perform well on Twitter, it’s essential that you’re keeping up to date on trending topics, actively managing your community, and consistently posting.
However, Twitter’s targeting options are more limited compared to other platforms, making it more challenging to reach your desired audience. In addition, you’re more likely to experience negative feedback and trolling on the platform, so it’s smart to have a strategy in place to handle these sorts of situations professionally as they come up. If you’re able to understand and overcome these challenges, Twitter remains a great platform to improve your SMM efforts.
Launched in 2003 with a focus on networking, career-building, and idea-sharing, LinkedIn is an essential social media platform for businesses. It’s especially useful for B2B lead generation and networking opportunities. The platform is recommended for businesses in industries such as legal, manufacturing, infrastructure, and IT.
LinkedIn is a great tool for building professional relationships, finding job opportunities that match your skills, and showcasing your professional expertise. Businesses can create company pages to showcase their brand, share updates, and engage with their followers. The platform features a wide variety of content, the most popular being blog posts, third-party content, and text-only listicles. To make the most of LinkedIn, it’s important to find a posting frequency that works for your business and audience. The platform’s algorithm prioritizes professional content, making it important to create valuable and informative posts. While recommended post frequency can vary depending on your goals, posting anywhere between twice a day to once a week is generally recommended.
LinkedIn’s paid advertising options like sponsored content and InMail help with targeted reach and lead generation. Additionally, the platform gives you the ability to track competitors and recruit talent. Their analytics provide you with insights into post performance, audience demographics, and engagement metrics. However, LinkedIn isn’t the best option for everyone. Because it is primarily used for B2B marketing, it involves longer sales cycles. This means that building a strong presence on LinkedIn requires a significant investment of time and effort to make connections and build brand awareness. So businesses should be prepared to use a more strategic and patient approach to see results. Additionally, LinkedIn has fewer active users compared to other social media platforms which may limit your reach, especially if you’re a B2C business.