Module 2 – Get to Know the Key Social Channels and Which Ones Are Right for Your Business
One of the most common myths about social media marketing is that a business should have a presence on every major social network.
It’s tempting to sign up for every possible social media platform, but if your audience isn’t using a particular social channel, your business shouldn’t be either.
It’s more important than ever for businesses to know where their audience lives on social media, and to craft a channel-specific strategy for reaching them.
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Why is a channel-specific social strategy important?
Your brand personality and message should be consistent across all social channels, but a copy-and-paste approach probably won’t work well for you, or any brand. How you tailor your content should rely on the dynamics of each channel’s user community, platform algorithms, and content formats.
If your business is active on multiple social platforms, it’s safe to assume your audience also follows you on multiple platforms and their mindset and expectations vary by channel. LinkedIn users, for example, are looking for professional content like networking opportunities and business insights, while Facebook users are browsing for more personal content that relates to their interests, friends, and social life.
Flexibility and understanding the basics of each platform are mandates for a successful social media strategy. Use these principles to decide what channels to invest in, the type of content that performs well, and the benefits you’ll reap.
What channels should you be investing in, and how?
Who Uses Facebook?
- # of monthly active users: 3.1 billion
- Largest age group: 25-34 (31.1%)
- Gender: 44% female, 56% male
- Time spent per day: 33 minutes
How to Use Facebook for Your Business?
Facebook boasts the largest user-base of any social network and one of the most engaged, so how can your business take advantage?
- Paid Advertising: Facebook is a prime place to run ads, particularly among older demographics with more money to spend.
- Content Distribution: Use Facebook to distribute your owned content like blog articles, custom graphics, and videos.
- Engage: Enter into direct conversations with your followers through comments, reactions, and messages.
- Convert: Meet your shoppers where they are by creating an online storefront to sell products on Facebook
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on Facebook?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Promote your business
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
Who Uses Instagram?
- # of monthly active users: 2 billion
- Largest age group: 18-24 (33.8%)
- Gender: 49% female, 51% male
- Average time spent per day: 24 minutes
How to Use Instagram for Your Business?
With an advertising audience of more than 1.16 billion people, Instagram can offer a dramatic global reach for your brand. The key is to define who your target audience is and create content that speaks directly to them.
- Paid Advertising: Instagram allows for advertising through photo ads, video ads, and carousel ads. These ads support four objectives: video views, click-throughs to your website, mobile app installations, and general awareness.
- Content Distribution: Share a look behind the scenes on Instagram Live or Instagram Stories, curate and share some authentic User Generated Content (UGC) directly on your feed, and post your long form video content on IGTV. Finally, Reels and Guides are two relatively new features that are great for educational content, showcasing products and services, and step-by-step guides.
- Engage: Instagram is one of the strongest social media channels for highlighting collaborators and sharing customer success stories. Interact by commenting on photos, liking photos, tagging, and direct messages.
- Convert: Shoppable Instagram posts are a great way to showcase your products and use your Instagram feed to drive more purchases.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on Instagram?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Inspire and delight your customers
- Promote your business
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
X (Formerly Twitter)
Who Uses X?
- # of daily active users: 250 million
- Largest age group: 18-34 (41%)
- Gender: 33% female, 67% male
- Time spent per day: 30 minutes
How to Use X for Your Business?
X is a powerful social networking tool and search engine in which you can typically find the latest information about virtually any topic. And, with 556 million annual users, your brand can cast a wide net in terms of reach. However, X has lost some popularity and engagement since switching over from Twitter.
- Paid Advertising: Post promoted tweets, post from promoted X accounts, or promote X trends.
- Content Distribution: X has been the go-to medium for news, politics, and customer inquiries.
- Engage: This is where your customers will air complaints and ask customer-service related questions, so you’ll want to be sure you’re responding in a timely manner.
- Convert: 36% of people on X are more likely to be the first to buy new products.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on X?
- Create an online presence
- Keep up with current events
- Build brand awareness
- Promote your business
- Provide timely customer service
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
YouTube
Who Uses YouTube?
- # of monthly active users: 2.49 billion
- Largest age group: 25-34 (21%)
- Gender: 46% female, 54% male
- Time spent per day: 48 minutes among viewers 18 and older
How to Use YouTube for Your Business?
YouTube connects you to a global audience. It gives you the ability to create playlists around specific topics that are relevant to your target audience. With well-optimized videos, your brand can have a massive reach to help you achieve your marketing objectives. A new feature, YouTube ‘Shorts’ provides a great way to repurpose reels and receive even more exposure and gain brand awareness. Also, it’s not as popular as IG or TikTok so it’s not as oversaturated.
- Paid Advertising: With YouTube ads, you can reach potential customers and have them take action when they watch or search for videos on YouTube.
- Content Distribution: How-tos, walkthroughs, and tutorial videos perform the best on YouTube. Product reviews, and wildlife/travel content also ranks high in top performing content.
- Engage: Engagement on YouTube comes in the form of comments, likes and dislikes on videos, as well as sharing videos and gaining subscribers.
- Convert: Over 40% of global shoppers surveyed say they have purchased products they discovered on YouTube.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on YouTube?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Improve your SEO ranking (Google indexes every video that’s on YouTube)
- Inspire and delight your customers
- Promote your business
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
Who Uses LinkedIn?
- # of total users: 830 million
- Largest age group: 25-50 (59.1%)
- Gender: 44% female, 56% male
- Time spent per day: 7 minutes (16.2% of users) and 48.5% of users access the network monthly
How to Use LinkedIn for Your Business?
- Paid Advertising: On LinkedIn your ads will be reaching a higher-educated, higher-earning B2B demographic.
- Content Distribution: Long-form content performs best, so think blog posts, articles, and white papers. LinkedIn is also where you’ll want to share reputable content from trusted publications and thought leaders.
- Engage: You can react and comment on hashtag feeds associated with your Page, and connect with your community in real-time using LinkedIn Live. LinkedIn is also where you can leverage and celebrate your employees, reach potential hires, and celebrate your company’s culture.
- Convert: Conversion rates are up to 2x higher on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is the most popular platform for B2B lead generation.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on LinkedIn?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Connect with potential hires
- Connect with current employees
- Position yourself as a thought leader and expert in your field
- Promote your business
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
TikTok
Who Uses TikTok?
- # of monthly active users: 1 billion
- Largest age group: 18-24
- Gender: 57% female, 43% male
- Time spent per day: 58 minutes
How to Use TikTok for Your Business?
As one of the newest social media platforms, TikTok’s user base is growing rapidly and it’s quickly becoming a great opportunity for businesses to reach new, larger audiences—here’s how.
- Paid Advertising: A younger user-base presents challenges in terms of ad-targeting, but you can expect emerging ad features as the network grows.
- Content Distribution: TikTok has a huge trend culture, so the best performing TikToks are often ones that are easy to replicate by the masses, or are a spin-off of an existing trend. Think dance challenges, funny animals, lip syncs, fashion and beauty transitions, fitness workouts and tips, comedy moments, camera hacks, pranks, and challenges.User Generated Content (UGC) tends to perform well here also.
- Engage: Interact with your audience in the comments of your videos and leave comments on videos you enjoy.
- Convert: TikTok ranks sixth among apps for consumer spending in the US.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on TikTok?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Inspire and delight your customers
- Promote your business
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
Snapchat
Who Uses Snapchat?
- # of monthly active users: 800 million
- Largest age group: 18-25
- Gender: 52% female, 49% male
- Time spent per day: 30 minutes
How to Use Snapchat for Your Business?
Snapchat Ads and Public Profiles are made for every business, no matter the size or industry. Implement full-screen, digital ads that inspire action from your audience.
- With Snapchat’s Instant Create, you can create an ad in 5 minutes or less.
- Snapchat’s Advanced Create workflow lets you create multiple ad sets with more advanced targeting and bidding capabilities.
- Leverage the Snap Pixel to measure the impact of your campaigns.
What Are The Benefits of Having Your Business on Snapchat?
- Create an online presence
- Build brand awareness
- Showcase your products or services
- Inspire and delight your customers
- Encourage people to return to your website and take action
- Increase online sales
- Generate leads
How often should you be posting on each social channel?
Social media marketing is about quality over quantity.
On Facebook and Instagram, your brand should be posting at least once per day and regularly engaging with comments. On X (formally Twitter), posting every few days is acceptable but daily monitoring of your feed is a good idea.
If you feel that channels like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and YouTube are right for you, you should factor them into your monthly content plan—but don’t feel obligated to publish every day.
TikTok requires the highest level of commitment, with most experts recommending 1-3 posts per day.
How else can you reach new audiences and distribute your content?
It’s important to seek out new ways to distribute content and reach audiences. Consider these practices:
- Investing in email marketing
- Blog syndication and publishing on Medium
- Join Facebook groups, or consider online forums like Reddit and Quora
- Regularly investing in content partnerships and influencer relationships which is an effective tools to reach new audiences, distribute your content, and create buzz.
- Resources for Influencer marketing: Insights on Influencer Marketing; Influencers and Branding; How to work with Influencers
Key Takeaways
Last updated: August, 2024
