As a business owner, your to-do list can sometimes feel never-ending (usually because it is). So, when you add social media to that list, it can feel a little overwhelming, especially if it’s not in your comfort zone. But the good news is that you don’t have to spend hours publishing to a dozen different social media accounts in order to be successful. In fact, some businesses have been successfully built on a single platform. It’s all about where you are, and not about how many. So how do you figure out what social media platforms your business should be using?
But First…
Does your business even need to be on social media? It’s a question we get asked a lot, usually by businesses hoping we will tell them they don’t need to be. But unfortunately, we can’t help you there, because you do. While it’s not a prerequisite, every business should have a social media presence. There are just too many benefits to deny it. For example, a social media presence:
- Gives you a direct line of communication to talk to potential and current customers
- Allows you to see, review and address feedback from your customers promptly
- Helps you draw new traffic to your website
- Introduces your brand to new audiences
- Helps you to learn more about your audience
- Increases your search engine visibility
So yes, you should be on social media. But you should also take care to ensure you are in the right place. To help you figure out where that is, we have a couple of tips for you.
Know Where Your Customers Are, And Aren’t
For businesses, the key reason to be on social media is to reach and interact with your customers. So the first thing you need to do is research where your customers are on social media. Without this first vital step, you might as well be standing in the street shouting at anyone who passes by – you’d probably get the same sort of response. So instead, spend some time doing your homework and finding out where your target customers are hanging out. There are a few sweeping assumptions you can make – such as B2C businesses doing well on Facebook and beauty or food based business booming on Instagram. But to really get the most out of social media, you need to be in the right place, which is where your customers are.
What’s Relevant To Your Business?
Once you have a shortlist of where your customers are on social media, you can start to whittle it down by what’s appropriate for your business. Consider what product or service you’re offering, how easy it will be for your users to access and how many resources you have at your disposal. Some social networks take more time investment than others to see positive results, so take a long look at how much you can give to your new campaign. For example, if you have a lot of time to give, platforms like Instagram and Twitter could work really well for you, but if you don’t, you could end up doing more harm than good.
Should You Pick What’s Popular?
There are a lot of social networks out there – probably more than you realise. That’s mainly because there are 6 or 7 that tend to be the most popular, and this is where your customers will be. While we don’t suggest that you pick your network solely based on what’s popular, it should be a factor in your decision. To help you out, we’ve dug up some nice little facts on the popularity of each main social network, ranked by monthly active users:
- Facebook: 2.958 billion
- YouTube: 2.514 billion
- Instagram: 2 billion
- TikTok: 1.051 billion
- Snapchat: 635 million
- Twitter: 574 million (and dropping)
Since the average person bounces between an average of 7 different social networks every month, it can also pay to be present on multiple social networks.
Of course, all of these only work well if they are done together, which sadly most businesses don’t do. Instead, we see businesses try to overstretch themselves on several social networks at once, which often means none of them are successful. But if you take the time to work out what network will work best for you and invest time in planning your strategy for it, you will see huge results. For more tips or advice on figuring out which social network you should use, just get in touch with the team today.
