The world of social media is so heavily saturated in this day and age that it can be very difficult to know which platform is best for you. It can be so daunting to establish which platforms have which benefits and why you should be using them.
User demographic is arguably the most important aspect of choosing which social media is best for you and your business. Each social media platform has its own primary set of users, and each can be useful albeit in very different ways. For example, Instagram is most popular among people aged 18-29, whereas Facebook’s primary demographic is those aged between 18 and 34. In addition to this, Instagram’s user base is 65% female whereas YouTube experiences more use by men. Once you have decided on your target demographic, you can then look at the benefits of each social platform.
Facebook is great since many people having accounts, therefore advertising your posts to a larger audience. Facebook has users in all age categories and is a great way of promoting your content online. It is said to be good for promoting external links and it favours video content. In addition to this, Facebook is a great way of building up your communications to customers via comments and direct messages. This can be seen as a way of building customer loyalty and increasing the personal connection between your brand and your customers. Furthermore, Facebook allows you to post video content, photos, text posts and links to external websites.
Instagram is a social media platform primarily used for photo and video sharing. This makes Instagram the perfect platform for visually stimulating content. Instagram is best for lifestyle content and is also great for advertising to younger women since they seem to be the most active users on the app. Instagram has billions of users so tapping into the potential of this could be very beneficial for your business. Instagram is also a very interactive style of marketing since there is a myriad of ways to interact with your audience. You can speak to your customers in a more traditional way via comments and direct messages or you could use your stories and certain “Q+A” stickers which will allow users to ask questions and interact with your brand in a unique way. It is also important to use relevant hashtags in your posts to further your audience.
Twitter is best used for short and quick text posts since you are limited to 280 characters in your tweets. It’s important to use the relevant hashtags in order to further your reach. The lifespan of a tweet is also often significantly lower due to the sheer number of tweets posted per day. Videos are often used by advertisers on Twitter since they are able to effectively gain the attention of potential customers on the platform.
A mentioned before, there is no definitive answer as to which social media is best for your advertising. When coming to a decision, you should make sure that you consider your target demographic and which type of posts that they are more likely to act on.
