Online marketers have a lot of options when it comes to using social media to promote their offerings. There’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn and many others.
Obviously, it’s important to have a presence wherever your customers and potential customers are. More than seven-in ten Americans (77%) use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves, according to a November 2016 study by Pew Research Center.
However, it’s also crucial to understand the nuances and specific effectiveness of each platform in order to leverage each one for maximum effectiveness. Some social media platforms perform better for engagement. Meanwhile, others provide expanded brand exposure, or new customer acquisition, or increased traffic, or the ability to target very specific demographics.
Picking the Right Platform
- Recognize where the majority of the audience you’re targeting are having conversations
- Search each platform for keywords and hashtags that are specific to your business
- Check out each platform to see where your competitors are getting the most traction
- Look for platforms where the most activity and people are engaged about the type of product you promote
Here’s a look at some of the largest social media platforms and what type of strategy might work best for each.
Facebook – 2 billion active monthly users
Facebook excels at connecting people with your business. Brands and affiliate marketers can can effectively leverage Facebook to share photos, videos, important company updates and more. Facebook ads can be used to boost posts and help in gaining more exposure. And with the popularity of video, marketers can drive awareness and engagement with videos and live streams
- 75% of users spend 20 minutes on Facebook every day
- 500 million people watch facebook videos each day
- Facebook Live popularity has risen 330% since launch
- Users watch Facebook Live videos 3X longer than non-live videos
Instagram – 800 million active monthly users
The visual nature of Instagram makes it highly suited to for photos and video. Marketers can post highly-visual, geo-targeted content to boost engagement. Because the majority of users access the platform via a mobile device, this is the perfect place to engage with users on the go.
- Monthly users grew 24% in 2017
- Half of users use Instagram Daily
- Posts tagged with a location have 79% higher engagement
Snapchat – 375 million active monthly users
The app has expanded to include chat, messaging, image storage, events and media content. Additionally, marketers can leverage geo-filters to create interactive content.
- Growth slowed 82% after Instagram stories launched
- 3 billion Snaps are created each day
- 63% use Snapchat as their primary medium for messaging friends
- Users younger than 25 years old visit more than 20X a day for at least 30 minutes
Twitter – 328 million active monthly users
Because of its wide reach, Twitter is not only a great way to market your business, it also let’s you easily share information and provides an effective channel for customer service.
- Daily active users have increased 14% year-over-year
- The average user follows 5 businesses
- 80% of users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet
- Companies active on Twitter see a 19% increase in customer satisfaction
Pinterest – 200 Million monthly users
The platform also has a series of special types of pins called Rich Pins, which can be used to add detailed information to pins, like product details and location maps. This benefits marketers who can use Pinterest to drive traffic to their website and increase sales.
- The platform has 50 million more users than October 2016
- 71% of Pinterest users are female
- 67% of users visit Pinterest on mobile while shopping in-store
- One-third of users choose Pinterest over Google search