How do you pick the right social media platforms for your business

Did you know that 42% of the global population are on social media, which equates to an incredible 3.2 billion accounts? On Instagram alone 80 percent of people follow at least one business. There is an abundance of customers, clients and prospects out there, all within easy reach - it’s just a matter of choosing the right platforms for your business to connect with them.

Easy hey?

When it comes to picking the right platforms there are so many to consider; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, even TikTok, which has seen explosive growth recently.

To begin with you don’t need to be on every channel, but you don’t want to waste brand awareness opportunities either. Use your goals to make informed decisions, don’t spread yourself too thin and find what works for your business. TikTok users, for example, are predominantly teens, is this a platform you really need to be on, despite its popularity?

So where do you start?

Case Study: The Replace Base

An online retailer of mobile device repairs and replacement parts

To help you decide on the right channel, you can break it down into three easy steps.

1. Identify your target audience
2. Define your goals
3. Find your audience

Identifying your audience

This is the first step and the most important. You should consider who the audience is: their age and profession plays a huge role amongst many other things. Amelia, one of our client partners, recently wrote a blog about personas ‘buyer personas in a nutshell’. Visualising your customers and prospects will make finding the right platform an easy process. Use this to help you to better understand your audience.

Define your goals

Now you have identified your audience, what is your goal for using these channels? Are you wanting to use social media for brand awareness, generating leads or creating influence?

Without goals it’s hard to monitor the progress of your social media strategy and the channels you choose will depend heavily on what you want to achieve. Clear and focused goals will give you the metrics you need to measure your progress. Sprout social talks about SMART goals and why they matter.

Find your audience

Once you have identified your audience and set the goals for your social media strategy, it’s far easier to determine which platforms you should be using. Every platform has different users. Here is a great breakdown of the social media platforms when considering demographics and users.

Strengths of different social platforms

• Twitter is a relationship building platform (not a broadcast platform as many businesses try to use it for), so it's great for brand awareness and back-and-forth communication with customers or clients. Short punchy lines that have a lifespan of just 24 minutes.
• LinkedIn is the social network for professionals: a B2B hub if you like. It is responsible for 64% of all visits from social media sites to corporate websites. 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn as the most effective site for lead generation.
• Facebook is complex with consistent algorithm changes, but with its effective hyper-specific targeting for paid advertising, it’s the best out there. Keep in mind the dramatic shift in the demographic of Facebook users; it's now much more Gen X than Gen Z with a good smattering of Millennials inbetween.
• Instagram: if you’re selling a visual product, Insta will be your go-to platform. Stories, shopping tools - it’s a great platform if you're in the retail sector.

When you’ve decided on the audience you are targeting, have your goals set, selected the right platform, you’re good to go! Social media gives you a fantastic opportunity to engage with your audience and, likewise, gives your audience the chance to interact directly with you. As I like to say "social is social" so try and keep it that way!

Have you chosen LinkedIn as one of your social platforms? Here’s a great blog post I previously wrote that contains some top tips!